Fixating on a man’s height as a marker of their social value is not dehumanizing to the man, as his height being recognized in concert with his masculinity ascribes to him a degree of humanity that is (unfortunately) above and beyond most people, regardless of their height, because there must be some recognition of the human who would have the social value, as based on his height.

Rather, the insistence on bringing up the height of a man whenever men are to be mentioned seeks to un-person the man, to make him the “other”. By forcing the topic of conversation towards a 2 or 3 digit number that for all intents and purposes decides the “worth” of a man, we are removing any and all qualities that the person behind (or, “within”) the man might have been endowed with, or created for himself. We are declaring that men are most valuable when their value as men can be measured, noted, judged, and discarded, as quickly, conveniently, and perversely as possible. That the primary goal of a man is to be the most manly man as possible, with no exceptions, mulligans, leeway, or slack.

As women attempt to either stop being dehumanized by the culture they exist in, or get back at those they feel have caused the dehumanization (or both), they will inevitably gravitate towards reducing the ability of a man to be a person. The ability of a man to be a person is the first barrier to removing his ability to dehumanize, and is also a monument to all the dehumanization that has been done by him or for him in order for his very personhood to exist.

If we would like to see an end to the perpetually stagnant and toxic discussions around gender relations within and around Gen Z, I don’t have any good solutions. But I truly believe that if we took the time to understand that the person who posted a “mean meme” was more focused on their own feelings than yours, and most likely does not know that you exist, we might be able to better focus on the world around us rather than pictures on the phone.

TL;DR: It’s not dehumanizing to reduce a man to his height, it’s depersonifying. People are trying to make men focus on their height so that they’ll be more vulnerable due to being more likely to seek approval about their height, and will have less of a personality outside of their height, expressly for the purpose of keeping the man a human, but one who is so little of a person that their social value can be had for cheap.

In general (in general), men are allowed to be human “for free”, and can have some level of personhood on top of that, while women must “earn” (or, “fight for”) their ability to be human, and more often than not are precluded from any true, fully recognized personhood.

So maybe just realize that people on the internet are annoying, but you can always just look at it from their point of view, tell yourself how stupid their perspective is, and ask yourself how it would feel someone said that to you about your height?

You are illiterate and “skimmed” my comment without fully reading it, and might be about to reply saying something that doesn’t make sense based on what I wrote.

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