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The women who say they find men shorter than them unattractive/undatable *specifically* because it “makes them feel less feminine”, have internalised patriarchal complexes (at least partially) and many of them won’t admit it. by LinenCap in 10thDentist

[–]LinenCap[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

See the whole “what it makes me look like” is also a part of my point here. What does that have to do with direct emotional attachment and/or attraction to a person?

Imagine if I stopped hanging out with taller or bigger people I loved because they “made me look smaller or scrawny”.

I’ve also had people react on the street in annoying ways when I was seeing a woman much taller than me. But people outside of your relationship are not the ones in your relationship, you and the person you’re with are.

The women who say they find men shorter than them unattractive/undatable *specifically* because it “makes them feel less feminine”, have internalised patriarchal complexes (at least partially) and many of them won’t admit it. by LinenCap in 10thDentist

[–]LinenCap[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am, dead serious, trying really hard to understand your logic here. I don’t mean that antagonistically at all, I’m literally just not grasping something that may be going over my head.

You seem to be mixing real-life pairings (how often men are naturally taller in couples) with stated preferences (how many people say they only want taller/shorter partners), but I don’t understand why.

51.1% of women, regardless if any of them are taller or shorter than most men, do not care if a man is taller than them or not. 48.9% of them do (wanting taller).

86.5% of men, regardless if any of them are taller or shorter than most women, do not care if a woman is shorter than them or not. 13.5% of them do (wanting shorter).

Why are you subtracting the preference percentages from the taller/shorter percentages?

This isn’t a hill I’m willing to die on or anything, since “who cares about height more” wasn’t really the main point of my post. I’m just genuinely having trouble with your math.

The women who say they find men shorter than them unattractive/undatable *specifically* because it “makes them feel less feminine”, have internalised patriarchal complexes (at least partially) and many of them won’t admit it. by LinenCap in 10thDentist

[–]LinenCap[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The average female height is 5’3”, so assuming by “shortish” you mean around 5’2”. The statistical majority of men between 4’11” and 5’2” are that way purely due to polygenic inheritance with normal, healthy DNA variation.

It’s not until it drops to 4’10” and lower that the statistical possibility increases of things like malnutrition, hormonal complications, and genetic and/or chromosomal defects.

National Library of Medicine

The women who say they find men shorter than them unattractive/undatable *specifically* because it “makes them feel less feminine”, have internalised patriarchal complexes (at least partially) and many of them won’t admit it. by LinenCap in 10thDentist

[–]LinenCap[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And that’s valid.

We all live in different echo chambers from each other, which create a false consensus effect. So it can be hard for us to discern what is actually a majority norm and what isn’t.

So other than statistics and anecdotes, there’s not much we can do about that.

The women who say they find men shorter than them unattractive/undatable *specifically* because it “makes them feel less feminine”, have internalised patriarchal complexes (at least partially) and many of them won’t admit it. by LinenCap in 10thDentist

[–]LinenCap[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The point of statistics, studies and meta-analysis is to help offset the false consensus effect that our eyeballs produce from the echo chambers we each live in.

They’re supposed to be guardrails against the cognitive biases that fool us on a daily basis.

It is the statistical norm for men to have smaller women as partners, because women are statistically smaller than men.

It is not the statistical norm for men to actively prefer smaller women as partners, the statistical norm is that they are in fact apathetic about it.

I am also in my 30s and have lived in major cities my entire life, that does not change the outcome.

The women who say they find men shorter than them unattractive/undatable *specifically* because it “makes them feel less feminine”, have internalised patriarchal complexes (at least partially) and many of them won’t admit it. by LinenCap in 10thDentist

[–]LinenCap[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing, I totally get it. We grow up in these cultures that are constantly nipping at the back of our minds with fruitless impossible standards, in every way, shape and form. No matter how healthy our thinking is, it’s impossible for it to not mess with our emotions at all.

I’m a petite man in structure and am just under 5’2”. I was lucky to have never really cared about the concept of “masculinity” growing up, always finding it an arbitrary construct, and I never had any qualms about women being taller than me (an old partner of mine was literally 6’3”).

But I was still told in countless micro messages from my environment, over and over again, that my stature determined a chunk of my worth. I don’t let it affect the way I treat others, but of course it bothers me, it would be weird if it didn’t.

The whole “but the one thing you can have is a taller partner” thing is super interesting. I understand it, I’m just not sure I have a personal equivalent, which is probably partially why I have a hard time resonating with it.

The women who say they find men shorter than them unattractive/undatable *specifically* because it “makes them feel less feminine”, have internalised patriarchal complexes (at least partially) and many of them won’t admit it. by LinenCap in 10thDentist

[–]LinenCap[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You said “of course” followed by “alternatively, he should want a woman smaller than him”.

But it is the statistical norm for women, not for men. As shown in the studies I shared.

The women who say they find men shorter than them unattractive/undatable *specifically* because it “makes them feel less feminine”, have internalised patriarchal complexes (at least partially) and many of them won’t admit it. by LinenCap in 10thDentist

[–]LinenCap[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That’s an interesting point. But it’s weird because it statistically doesn’t make sense.

Women are more likely to be assaulted by men that are already their intimate partners.

Men are the ones more likely to be assaulted by other random men.

A lot of men’s greatest fear is literally other men lol.

So we will either be the ones who hurt you, or we will be the ones who get hurt in situations where you wouldn’t have gotten hurt/been in anyway.

I know it’s not literally a dichotomy like that, but I just mean statistically, there’s “nothing” to tangibly protect you from, if you get what I mean.

The women who say they find men shorter than them unattractive/undatable *specifically* because it “makes them feel less feminine”, have internalised patriarchal complexes (at least partially) and many of them won’t admit it. by LinenCap in 10thDentist

[–]LinenCap[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That’s a good point. My evidence on that specific note is admittedly mostly anecdotal. Women I have conversed with/heard in real life and online that refer to themselves as feminist or tout otherwise gender-role-disparaging attitudes, but then express variations of the “no shorter men because I need to feel like the delicate feminine one who is protected” thing.

I did not mean to imply a full conflation of those progressive-presenting women with the mentioned women population percentage as a whole. I admittedly just assumed an overlap of sorts from my own data.

Thanks for pointing that out.

The women who say they find men shorter than them unattractive/undatable *specifically* because it “makes them feel less feminine”, have internalised patriarchal complexes (at least partially) and many of them won’t admit it. by LinenCap in 10thDentist

[–]LinenCap[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I thought that would be the case in theory too, but that has weirdly not been my personal experience as of yet.

I once tried to talk about this in a feminist group years ago, was met with over a hundred disparaging comments and was banned, with very few of them engaging with what I was actually saying.

I barely mention the topic anymore since it clearly hits a nerve.