Published in · 5 min read · Sep 29, 2021
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The double standard that all tall girls have to deal with.
(This article is written from a heteronormative perspective, as I recognise there are different stereotypes for couples of the same gender.)
There is a certain stigma that all tall girls within western culture are surrounded with, and it comes in both positive and negative forms.
Everything is a balance of the two, yes, but the pros and cons regarding tall females contradict each other so much that it has become a real problem.
The general opinion regarding girls is that they are typically taller and growing taller with every generation.
While this is typically true, average height doesn’t exactly classify as ‘tall’. In fact, the average height for females in western culture (UK, USA and Canada) is between 5ft 3 and 5ft 5 (161–163 cm).
For the sake of argument, let’s class ‘tall girls’ as 5ft 7" and up. It’s stated that only 10% of all females in the USA are taller than 5ft7".
So, now that we have established the target number for the issue, let’s get on to the actual issues.
One issue is the male gaze.
Males typically are more attracted to women who are shorter, as, at least from first and second hand experience, a lot of men don’t find any tall woman to be feminine enough for them.
And if a woman is taller than the man in question, it does not bode well for the woman.
It is one of the stranger things that is asked when trying to understand the mind of a typical male. They don’t like women who are too short, but if a woman if taller than a certain height, they are instantly not attractive to them.
This is in reference to real life partners. Tall women have been told for years that their height should be envied by other women and simultaneously told they are unattractive by men.
The stereotypical movie trope of ‘short, plump man married to tall, slim woman’ has been a popular one for decades, and is usually included for comedic purposes instead of portraying a tall woman as an object of desire.
Gwendoline Christie, for example, is one of Hollywood’s tallest actresses at 6ft 3". She is better known for her character Brienne of Tarth in the Game of Thrones franchise, where there is a reoccurring joke that the only man to openly express attraction to her is creepy in his advances.
While being a very well written and strong female character, the only people, in my personal experience, I have witnessed talking about her beauty are, you guessed it…
Other women.
While this not a bad thing at all, women need to support other women, it creates a stigma that what women deem as ‘attractive to men’ isn’t actually true.
With this article, I am in no way saying that anyone should base their self worth on the opinions of others.
What I am saying is that a lot of people are heavily exposed to what is considered attractive to the majority, and will therefore compare themselves to that standard.
Imagine this:
You are a young woman who is very tall for her age. You have developed quickly and are a head and shoulders taller than everyone in your class, boys or girls. For your entire life, you have been told by your mum, aunties and grandmothers how beautiful you are, how you could be a model, and how much of a gorgeous woman you will be when you are older.
You have been told this for your entire life, but when you walk the halls of your school and see the boys pointing, snickering, or, worst of all, asking you out as a joke, you start to doubt what your female family members said was true.
You try and find some tall representation online, but all you are met with horrible representations about tall women, short actresses being the highlight of attractiveness in Hollywood, or tall models who look like they are one skipped meal away from anorexia. You see photos of happy couples, the boy easily taller than the girl, bending down to give his cute, small girlfriend a kiss. You see any couple where the female is taller than the male be made fun of in a comedic fashion. There are multiple reasons why tall girls believe they are unattractive, and the treatment of women in real life by men is one of them.
‘You’re so tall! You could be a model!’
These are infamous words I guarantee you every single tall women has heard at least once in her lifetime, regardless of shape or size.
This in itself is quite a bittersweet comment to make. It implies that the only way people in the real world will find tall women attractive is if they have the label of ‘model’ in their job description.
The moment you mention you are a model, your average level of attractiveness immediately increases. In some ways, it’s pushing the stigma that you are only attractive if you are getting paid for it.
Now, these girls are who we see the boys in our life lusting after: tall models strutting their stuff over social media pages. They don’t seem to realise the hypocrisy of this, however it is quite detrimental to the self image of many tall girls.
So, you’re either unattractive because you’re tall or you’re attractive because you’re a tall model, there doesn’t seem to be much of a happy medium right now.
Anyway, all women, tall or small, are beautiful and I wish more of them realised it.
