Wednesday, Jun 05 2024

Tall Women On Height Shaming

By A Mystery Man Writer

Six women talk about how they deal with the experience of being height-shamed on a regular basis.
Michele Toon, 50, is a 6'2 licensed nurse

As feminine as I believe I am, I have been called sir to my face more times than therapy could ever erase. I do recall one time when I was travelling and dying to use the toilet. I walked into the women's restroom. Three women were eyeballing me for long periods of time, almost looking at me as if I didn’t belong there. It took me a bit to catch on, then I realised that they thought I was a man. Although they never said it, I knew they thought it. I was afraid and embarrassed, to say the least.
Kristy Narkunas, 37, is a 6'5 licensed massage therapist

I was recently in the queue at the shops and I saw someone step up next to me and just stand there looking at me. When I looked to see why this person was standing with his face less than 18 inches from mine, an 80-year-old man, approximately three inches shorter than me, asked How’s the weather up there? I glanced at him and went back to my transaction. He continued to stand there and then explain to me why he asked that, as if I missed the point of his question: Because, you see, I was hoping to get a forecast. I just took a moment to stare off into the distance and find a sigh from about three miles deep into my body.
Sydney Shackelford, 47, is a 6'5 LGBT advocator

Most of the times I've been height-shamed were for wearing heels. This has been directed to me by both men and women. The most shocking was when I had just purchased some new boots with a three-inch heel and a female co-worker told me I was too tall to wear heels and that I should stick to flats. Another time I was called an woman by a saleswoman at a home improvement shop. I also happen to be a transgender woman born intersex, assigned male at birth and now fully transitioned to female, married to a woman. It's hard enough being transgender and it can be hard to be a tall woman, but being both takes a lot of self-confidence.
Kirsten Campbell, 33, is a 6’1 marketing consultant

As a tall child, strangers were brutally rude, there was no filter. It was common to hear people around me loudly debating if I was too tall, or how they were glad they weren’t my height because it was too big for a woman. School was the stereotypical battleground you’d expect for a gangly, tall girl. I remember one time at a school dance there was a brief moment where I’d forgotten about my height for a nanosecond and relaxed; an acquaintance chose that second to pull a chair over to stand on, to jokingly ask me to dance.

Several years ago, while I was sitting on a kerbside in Paris, a stranger saw me sit down, walked over and proceeded to loudly tell the café that I was too big – to my surprise the Parisian diners surrounding me shouted him down and corrected him, by calling me tall.