Heightism seems more serious than I thought

Welcome to the forum, Deafshortman! In your excellent post, you listed a number of desires you have in-regard to society's view on shortness, and the need for those views to change. As you well know, heightist views are deeply entrenched in the collective psyche and untangling that web of hatred, dismissal, and bias is quite the task. The number one issue we have right now(and I say this with a 100% degree of certainty) is "The Silence of The Short." The way society is currently structured, it is extremely convenient for people to have short men to treat as a lesser class of humans. Tall men receive a treasure trove of benefits for mere participation in life, thus, they want things to continue on their current path, and women, who absolutely worship tall men, also want this narrative to continue. So, what needs to be done, is the comfort zone that has developed around this discriminatory narrative needs to be made "not so comfortable." The way to do this is for short men to start stepping out of the shadows. Almost one-hundred percent of short men will never even have the courage to even question the current narrative like you did, much less write a post about it. Most short men are so terrified of being put in their place that they won't even articulate their plight anonymously on a message board. We need strength in numbers because when there is only a scant number of us addressing heightism, it is all-too-easy to dismiss us as extremists. We need short men to make it normal for short men to demand respect. We need bigots to feel the continual sting of what it feels like to be challenged. Women need to experience great discomfort for their double-standards, and everyone who discriminates against short men needs to feel as though they're going to be held accountable for their actions. Heightists have absolutely no fear of repercussions right now, thus, it is way too easy for them to just laugh everything off because short men being the self-loathers they are, are absolutely terrified of being grouped with other short men. Like it or not though, we are already grouped with one another by society. Everything we do is interpreted as evidence of some character flaw specific to short men. You mentioned going to the gym. Society sees that as evidence that you "overcompensate" for your height. People absolutely hate it when a short man does anything to exhibit a display of manhood because he's trying to "steal" rewards that are set aside for the tall men. If you didn't go to the gym and totally let yourself go though, at that point, you're just a sad excuse for a man who can't take care of himself, and the reason you are this way is "you can't get over the fact that you're short." We're in a no-win-situation, and when our fellow short men see this cycle re-perpetuated on a daily basis, they generally hide and become afraid of their own shadows. No marginalized group can get anywhere if the marginalized people don't work together to eradicate the issues they deal with collectively. Short men need to get their asses in gear if they ever want things to change.

With that being said, and as I already mentioned, by voicing your concerns, you've done what only a few short men have the courage to do. The aim of this message board is to establish an ongoing, uninterrupted, productive dialogue about heightism that doesn't lose its focus. Even though heightism has gotten worse in the past several years, the heightism dialogue has been further developed and we've established a workable template on how to voice our narrative. We're just waiting for strength in numbers to occur so that we can make enough noise to where our narrative can't be ignored and dismissed in the way that it is now. The more short men who voice their opinions on message boards like this one, blogs, interviews, in academic circles, and otherwise, the stronger we will be. It's up to short men to decide when they are tired of the taste of dirt, so every time a short man steps out of the shadows like you have done, we are getting closer to where we need to be. Once again, welcome to the forum and we'd love your input on the things we discuss here.

I'm in a disagreement with a lot of people in this community about this, but I don't think it's an issue we necessarily have to agree on in order to be a collective group. Women wear high heeled shoes. I've heard the excuses time and time again that "it makes their legs look nicer, their butts better" etc. There's also a social status to buying expensive shoes. But I can't help but feel a more deep, barely discussed reason is that women want to be taller too, and by wearing heels they can appear to be 5'8'' and 5'10''. I've talked about this before, but I honestly do believe women who are of average height are elevating themselves in order to weed out short men. In your case, you're 5'6''. A woman could be 5'4'', shorter than you and therefore has no real good reason to say you're too short for her, so she'll wear some 3 inch heels, become 5'7'' and now she's taller than you, thus giving her the excuse that "well you're shorter than me and I don't date shorter men." I've worn elevator shoes of 3 inches and met girls who did the same. It was so funny when we both removed our shoes and each shrunk several inches and realized how stupid it is to wear shoes like that in order to excuse bogus reasons for mate selection.


PS i am 5'5'' normally and the girl i was with was 5'2'' normally. She had 3 inch shoes and I had 3 inch elevator shoes. If i had not worn them, we would have both appeared 5'5'' and I would have been not a worthy mate because i didn't appear taller than her. This is just a way for woman to overshoot their ideal height for a man and make it appear that they deserve only the tallest selections around because every average height male becomes equal to them or shorter in height when they wear their heels.

I absolutely agree with you on this. Not only do I constantly see Twitter trashlings writing idiocy about how much they love to "intimidate" short men with high heels, but they also are constantly tweeting about how they love how short men don't approach them when wearing heels. They feel "powerful" in the heels, which makes them feel like they have some type of dominion over short men, and they absolutely love that. I've told this story before, but I was in a bar a year or two ago, and I was standing just behind the chairs that were pressed-up to the bar. My friends were seated, and I was just standing there talking to them. Two girls in humongous heels walked inside and were stomping my direction. The cocky way they were walking was completely outlandish. So, I just resumed my conversation with my friends, and those two bitches had the entire area behind me to walk, but they ran right smack into me, and giggled as they were walking away. I called them a few choice words, but I don't think they heard me because it was a noisy bar, and my friends asked me what was wrong, and when I told them what happened, a tall guy who lingers around my friends sometimes totally denied that the incident happened.(He has a history of doing this, but he's a different story altogether) Anyway though, by artificially altering their height, women feel powerful, and they use that pseudo-power as a weapon against short men. Women in business settings will admit that they get more respect when they wear heels, and there used to even be a woman on r/short who was a school teacher, and she said that the students respect her much more so when she wears heels. Women know good and damn well that height has its privileges, and you are absolutely right in pointing-out that they use heels as a weapon against short men.

Just want to point out that there's a garmin vibe for short men to wear lifts.

Women can wear high heels cuz they don't hide the fact that they're wearing them. Their heels are there and it's obvious that she is standing on her toes.

Men, on the other hand, HIDE the fact that they're wearing high heels. That's right, lifts are high heels. These lifts are not obvious, but that's the point of hiding it. They're hiding their insecurity. They hate their own heights, and wear lifts to appear taller, so they feel better. That's like a garmin hiding that he's short. See what I mean?

I UNDERSTAND that you're wearing lifts to prove a point to girls who wear high heels, but I'm thinking that's why women now bring up their preferences about the minimal 6 ft tall requirements in dating sites. They found out about short men who wear lifts, and on a woman's mind, short men also see something in taller men. To women, that's what they believe. Any short man wearing lifts is giving away his power to taller men, and they're weeding themselves out. That makes it harder for us short men to be seen as equals.

Men who are shorter than their wives/girlfriends are REAL MEN. They don't emphasize height as a gender.

Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman is a good example. It helps taller women all over the world to not feel so conscious about their tall heights. (Tall means masculine, which is a blatant lie)

Remember the famous cartoon, Popeye? Short man gets to keep a tall, skinny girl and they look inseparable. Is his girlfriend more masculine than Popeye? Hell no!

Probably bad examples, but still...

But I NEVER see women's height first when they wear heels. Heels just make her look skinny, and they also make their feet look smaller, but they never make her look taller. LMAO! If she thinks heels make her taller, then she's the delusional one. They need to explain why so many short men approached them, even when they wear heels. Heels never intimidated short men. That's all in her imagination. LOL!

When a girl wear high heels, in my eyes, is a sign of her submission to me. She's turned on or "erect" at the idea that I'm around. You probably disagree with me at the idea, but that's really how I see it. I believe a lot of short men think the same way.

Imagine this, compare a girl wearing high heels to a girl wearing elevator shoes. Which one is more attractive? That's right, a girl wearing high heels is more attractive. In their heads, elevator shoes and high heels serve the same purpose, but I want to laugh my ass off on that!

I agree with you fully, Cole. I think toughlimbs is arguing what he thinks about women who wear heels, but there is no doubt that women themselves feel like the are more "powerful" in heels, and the extra height is one of the reasons they feel this way. I like to refer to heels as "female lifts" to even the score with the way they treat men who wear lifts. I don't advocate for short men to wear lifts, but if women can get away with it, men should be able to do so as well, but of course, when women wear heels, it's "fashion," but if short men wear lifts(or even shoes that have a slightly larger sole than most shoes, such as Timbrlands or Air Force Ones) we're considered insecure losers with short man syndrome. Women are rewarded for artificially-altering their appearance, but if men do so, we're diagnosed with a made-up psychological disorder.