Sociological Images

A while back we featured a guest post by Geoffrey Arnold about discrimination against short men.  He collects examples of heightism at his blog, The Social Complex, and has agreed to let us feature some of his examples here.

Think heightism doesn’t exist? Think again.

Bridesmaids include “Getting put with an usher who is not shorter than you” among good things in life (at 15secs):

Anne Hathaway takes her shoes off when standing next to a shorter guy (just the first 30secs):

Bravo TV executive Andy Cohen talks about being heckled backstage the 2011 Miss Universe pageant by Miss Montenegro and Miss Sri Lanka (unfortunately the clip ends with the host affirming Cohen that he’s not short instead of just condemning the contestants’ behavior):

Better to be tall: “Why be average, when you can XL”?

Short men are ridiculous and laughable, internationally.

American DirectTV commercial:

Chilean (I think) Doritos commercial:

Korean commercial:

American CRV commercial:

This ad, Arnold observes, actually “uses a statistic about heightism in order to justify and encourage the prejudice itself”:

See also Arnold’s guest posts introducing the concept of heightism as a gendered prejudice and discussing heightism (and other icky stuff) at Hooters.

We have a fun post about the various ways in which Prince Charles was posed with Princess Diana in order to obscure the fact that she was about his height.  Building on this, Geoffrey Arnold at The Social Complex has collected a couple examples of men’s height being manipulated in order to preserve the social illusion that men are taller (or at least not shorter) than women.  Here’s an example:

Shared on Facebook by a friend.  If anyone knows the original source, please let me know.  Perhaps Behance?, says PDK.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

It seems so.

According to a Gallup poll, “Americans believe that one’s stature has a decided effect on a variety of important dimensions.”

More people would prefer to be taller than shorter:

People think that taller people have a greater likelihood of getting respect at work, and even getting promoted:

Via Geoffrey Arnold, at The Social Complex.  See also Arnold’s guest posts from The Social Complex introducing the concept of heightism as a gendered prejudice and discussing heightism (and other icky stuff) at Hooters.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

This four-minute video reports research showing that, even if we’re not aware of it, most of us have unconscious biases against short men.  (It’s also a great description of Implicit Association Tests.)

You, too, can take any multitude of implicit association tests.  Simply go to Harvard’s Project Implicit.

Borrowed from The Social Complex, a heightism blog. See also guest posts from The Social Complex introducing the concept of heightism as a gendered prejudice and discussing heightism (and other icky stuff) at Hooters.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

This seven-and-a-half minute segment follows Jiang Tao, a child of farmers who graduated from law school only to discover that law firms discriminate against short employees.  After confronting minimum height requirements, he sued.

Borrowed from The Social Complex, a heightism blog. See also guest posts from The Social Complex introducing the concept of heightism as a gendered prejudice and discussing heightism (and other icky stuff) at Hooters.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Marketers are happy to respond to and create insecurities.  Here’s one we haven’t covered before, shoes and inserts for men that covertly increase their height:

Borrowed from The Social Complex, a heightism blog. See also guest posts from The Social Complex introducing the concept of heightism as a gendered prejudice and discussing heightism (and other icky stuff) at Hooters.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.