Topics: The John Batchelor Show - audioBoom
Recently, a colleague of mine, a successful psychologist in her mid-30s, confided in me about an ongoing problem she faces in her dating life: She feels that she’s simply too tall for most men, standing at almost six feet. The issue she struggles with is the same issue many other tall women deal with as they look for a good romantic partner.
When we talk about tall women, there’s what many people think of as ‘sexy-tall,’ the range of height where women are, say, 5’8” or 5’9”. These women have the best of all possible worlds: They’re tall to the point that it’s easier to stay thin or carry weight well, but not so tall that they face the stigma of men not wanting want to date a tall woman. Tall women who experience romantic discrimination the most are approximately 5’10” and taller.
If you take an informal poll of men, you’ll quickly see that many men have little or no interest in dating a tall woman. Extremely tall women are often treated as if they are freakishly tall or Amazonian, as if their height is some sort of mistake or genetic mutation. What’s more, many very tall women engage in a range of behaviors to diminish the impact of their height in order to appeal more to men. For some, they rarely wear heels – even if they like doing so; for others, they may make self-deprecating comments about their height in a defensive effort to fit in with what men want.
