Friday, December 03, 2004

Height discrimination

I found this interesting piece whilst browsing on the web, wrote by an American guy called Glenn Beard and I felt compelled to put it in my blog, not being the tallest person myself!

'Height Discrimination is quite simply the regarding of a person as lesser on account of their height.

A macho undercurrent holds, which tells us that disputes can often be won with a physical fight if all else fails. Western thinking teaches us that we may pursue an argument to its end for short term advantage, in any way that we can. Even if a finger is not raised in anger, assumptions of the strength of argument are weighted with posturing. To fail to match this posturing is seen as weakness in a small man. To match it, aggressiveness and the "Napoleon complex" is assumed. So in many situations, short men, whatever they do, will be labelled as having "short man's syndrome," with all the baggage and circular arguments for its confirmation attached.
Entertainment and global politics confirm this notion, even in the face of a more enlightened society. An ability to perform comfortably with those at the top is an essential requirement to succeed in business or government, indeed in leadership generally. If taller is taken as more confident, and more confident as more likely to succeed, then assumptions about a candidate's likelihood to succeed is going to be based on their height.

A notable recent example is the treatment of the "seriousness" of Democratic party nominees. John Kerry was the tallest at 6'4", and also won. Not much was mentioned about contenders at the other end of scale. Out of the first-round survivors, comments about "diminutive" Howard Dean were to be found in the New York Times (from 5'3" writer Adam Nagourney), together with ponderings over whether a man of his height might have "anger problems." Such examples are numerous. The US is not alone, Britain is catching up rapidly. Michael Howard was declared leader of the Conservative party in the UK, a move which had The Telegraph and even The Guardian gushing about his attributes: "He's tall" was first amongst the points of praise.'

1 comment:

pat said...

kerry - tallest.
howard - he's tall
it's nothing to do with height discrimination or a macho culture.
it's more to do with the fact that both men had/have no real policy on which to stand as politicians.