First and foremost, as a community, let’s stop calling tall women “big”. To be honest, “big” and “tall” are 2 completely different things in my opinion. Let’s just stick with “tall”, okay?
It’s fairly offensive to call a tall woman, or any woman for that matter, “big” and here’s why:
“Big” for a woman has a negative connotation to it in two ways. First, we’re taught from a young age that we’re supposed to be small, not seen, out of the way, and honestly just there when needed. So, when you have a tall girl, who already sticks out, feels out of place, and is ridiculed for something she naturally has (which is her height) and then you point out the fact that she’s “bigger” than her peers, “bigger” than the people around her, how do you think she’s gonna feel?
If you said self-conscious, you’re right.
The second way is that “big” is often tied to the terms “fat” or “overweight”. I personally don’t like using those terms because society has placed such a negative connotation with them, but because “big” is associated with such negative words, we’re going to take it as an insult. And honestly I feel like this is something very very common for a tall plus sized woman.
Why do people even call tall women “big” to begin with? How can we respond to those who call us “big”? Tune in to the episode for a deep dive!
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Good morning everybody. You are currently listening to a Tall Girls podcast hosted by a tall girl named India. I hope everyone who's tuning in today is doing super fantastic. Before I get into this episode, I do want to say, make sure follow me on my socials at a Tall Girls podcast on Instagram, TikTok, and pincher so that you can stay up to date on all of the latest podcast episodes and catch a glimpse of my everyday life. Also, feel free to leave me in review and let me know how tall you are. I'm genuinely curious. I also have a monthly newsletter. Make sure you sign up for that. Everything is going to be linked in the description. How are you guys doing today? It's officially fall? Are we feeling the fall vibes? Are we still in summer mode? Did the seasonal depression hit yet? Like? What's going on with you guys? As for me, I'm feeling really good. I actually saw some people from my past this past weekend. If you know anything about me, you know that I don't like seeing people from my past, especially from high school. But I hung out with some high school friends this past weekend, and you know, it was really nice. These are the people that I actually like. Oh, I'll say that these are the people from high school that I actually like. There are just a lot of people in high school that I don't like, so I just would prefer to not see them. But I saw the ones that I do like, and honestly, it was very therapeutic. It was so nice to catch up and it has me feeling really good. The people in the past just bring up really bad memories. That's probably why. They just bring up really bad traumatic memories that I don't ever want to think about again. Therefore, I don't want to see you again because I don't want to think about that time ever again. Is that too much? Are you guys the same way? Okay, I'm gonna move on from this in cases getting a little bit weird. Also, make sure you follow me on my socials because the Tall Size event is literally like, well, by the time this episode is up, the Tall Size Event is right around the corner. And on top of that, I'm volunteering for the event, so I'm gonna be sharing a lot of that on my socials. I'm super excited for that, so make sure you follow us. You can follow along. As for today's episode, we are talking about tall women being called big. Why that's an issue in my opinion, and how we as tall women can bounce back from that and remain confident in ourselves. And first and foremost, can we stop calling tall women big? To be honest, big and tall are two completely different things in my opinion, Let's just stick with tall. And there are lots of tall women out there that do have experience with this. I'm gonna include a video so we can hear from one of them. Know. What we need to stop doing as a community is stop calling tall people big. Please, please, please stop using the word big as an adjective to describe somebody who's above average. Use any other adjective than big. Like I feel like when you call me big, I feel so offended because it's like you're calling me fat. Nice. There's other words to describe tall people other than big. It feels kind of offensive, even if he didn't mean it that way, to call us big, or even just any woman in general big. And there's a reason to it. The term big in terms of calling a woman that is, it has a negative connotation in two ways. We're taught at a young age that we're supposed to be smaller. We're not supposed to be seen, we're not supposed to be heard, really only to be there when we're needed. So when you have a tall girl, she automatically sticks out from the crowd. Most of the time. Eyes are going to be on her. Lots of eyes are going to be on her. She's going to be seen, which kind of goes against the idea that women should be smaller and more petite. So almost automatically, she is going to be ridiculed for something that she naturally has, and that's her height. So to call her big, that's kind of just like making her a little bit more self conscious. You're basically pointing out the fact that she sticks out from the crowd, and that's something that we already know. To constantly bring it up, to constantly hear about it, we're gonna start feeling self conscious and we're gonna have we're gonna start overthinking things a little bit. And then on the other side, big can also mean fat or overweight, like when you're talking about a big girl, And to be honest, I don't really like the terms fat and overweight. I don't know, maybe because all of them just really have a negative connotation to them, and people use it as a way to insult other people. So because big is associated with those terms that are used to insult people, then automatically big has a negative connotation and we're gonna see big as an insult. And I feel like a man being called big is different than a woman. Being called big. For a man is kind of like a compliment where it's like, oh, he's big and strong, whereas for a woman it's like an insult where it's like, oh, she's fat or extremely giant. Hence why I saw women don't like being called big. It just brings up a lot of negative thoughts for us and can even play a part in body image issues and self consciousness. To be quite honest, I also feel like it's worse for tall women who are also plus sized because they're already tall, so automatically you already feel out of place, you already stick out, you already feel so much bigger than others, especially other women, and then on top of that, you're plus sized. So I feel like a woman who has that combination of being tall and plus sized, the term big is just even worse for them. I'm gonna roll a clip because I just honestly think that this creator can explain the feeling a little bit better than I can. If you're ever tow hundred pounds and you're a girl and you're tall, can we just talk about how it doesn't even matter how much you weigh. If you're tall, you automatically feel like the biggest person in the room, like and then pairing that with being over twohundred pounds, like you for sure feel like the biggest person in the room. It's like you could weigh the same as like a shorter girl, but you still feel like you're so much bigger than them, just because you're so much taller than them. I love my high I love being tall, but my whole life, I've always just felt like the biggest person in a room, even when I was down fifty pounds, even at my heaviest, at my lowest, like still will always feel like the biggest person in the room. And I think that's where some of my body image issues in the past have stemmed from. Is that constant feeling of being the biggest person in the room, regardless of my weight, but because of my height, anyone. Else and you know, in knowing this That's why I'm like a little bit taken aback by certain sections in the stores that are technically supposed to be labeled tall sections, but they call them big and tall sections. Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you know those sections big and tall sections that are in stores? In some stores, they definitely have them a Walmart. I know that for a fact, Like, isn't it weird that some stores call their tall sections big and tall sections? I genuinely want to know why they call them big and tall? Like, can't you just have a tall section with a wide range of sizes? I mean, honestly, those sections are more so for the men I have never seen or I don't recall seeing. That's not to say that they aren't out there, because as you never know, they probably are, but I've never seen that for a women's section before. But even so, like, why is it called big and tall? Like? I don't know, I know, I'm like going on a sidetrack, but I just find that really weird. But then again, does that also play a part in people thinking that it's okay to call tall people and tall women big because those two terms are used side by side in those sections in the stores, so they're like, huh, big and tall that's used together in clothing stores and stuff. Then we can also refer to tall people tall women as big. I mean, do you kind of see logically what I'm trying to put together? And Okay, that may be fine for the men because it's mainly the men's section, but it's not necessarily fine for us for the tall women. And it's not just the term big that's offensive for tall women. There are others like large, huge, and even I'm in giant. There's actually a podcaster who's also tall who had experience with being called large, and I'm gonna roll that video right now. This guy was asking me if I wanted a large sweatshirt. He was like, He's like, do you want sweatshirt? And I was like, yeah, I love one of your sweatshirts. And he's like large question mark and I was like, ah, sure, we're on zoom and he's like, well, you're large and I was like well, I was like why, yeah, I love like, I love large sweatshirts. He's like, but you are at large? I said, why am I a large? He was like, because aren't you five nine to five to ten? I said, yeah. He said, so you're a large girl. And I was like, bro, and he has no idea what he's saying. And I said, what do you mean? And he was like, I just associate like a girl's high, like a small is like five foot to five three three and a half, a medium five four to five seven, a large five seven to six foot and extra large or anything above that. And I said, but don't correlation, like you just associate me at five nine as a large. If someone called me a large girl, I would cry. And he's like, but that's how guys work. And to be quite honest with you, he did not need to do all that. He did not need to be like, oh, you're a large, you're a large girl like you literally could have been like, yeah, do you want a size large sweatshirt and just left it at that, or he literally could have been neutral and be like, what size do you want? What size sweatshirt do you want? Oh? My gosh, little tall. Story time, I was at at a restaurant and I went to the bathroom. I opened the door and as I was walking in, there was a lady who was about to walk out, and when she saw me, she jumped back and was like, oh my gosh, you're huge. You scared me girl? What she would I mean, I get I don't want to say I get it, but I mean I guess because I mean, we were about to walk into each other at the same time, so I could partially understand that. And she was half my size. She was she was pretty short because to be I'm not super super tall, you know what I mean. But she did apologize. That was nice of her. She at least acknowledged the fact that she just said I was huge. But I mean, I'm assuming that it's a reflex. I'm gonna give her the benefit of the doubt. I'm probably never gonna see her again, so I'm just going to leave that alone. But still, like, dang, Like, people really are quick to calor us large, big and huge, and you know, it really just doesn't feel good. Anyways, Now that we got all of that out the way, you're probably wondering, as a tall woman, what do you do when someone calls you big? Like, how do you even respond to that? Well, for starters, it's important to not give a big reaction. There are just some people who don't really mean it as an insult. It's just a term that comes to mind because they associate big with tall, and partially to blame for that is there are a lot of things within society and the media, even something as simple as I explained earlier with the big and tall sections. Because you see big and tall in this same like phrase, people are gonna associate big with tall and think that it's okay to call tall people all tall people, even tall women big. And then of course, if you want, you could tell them like, oh, like, I see that term as pretty offensive. I don't like when people use that word, like can you just refer to me as tall? And a normal person will apologize, especially if it's like a friend or like an acquaintance or somebody. You know. It's like if you tell them that they should change and they shouldn't be calling you big continuously, and if they do, then that's an issue. You should not be around that person that much because it's pretty evident that they don't respect you, and they don't respect even when you told them that you dislike something, they don't respect that, and they don't try to change their ways in order to keep that, you know, relationship healthy. So walk away, don't associate with them, don't try to argue with them. Just leave that situation alone. You are tall and beautiful. We'll make sure you remember that and walk away with your head held high. So yeah, that's why we don't like the term big. I just think that we should stop calling tall women big for everybody's sanity, including our own. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I really appreciate it, and I appreciate you. I hope that you got something out of it. You got to understand why tall women don't like being called big. You got some type of tips like towards the end as to kind of what you should do when people call you big. But I'm honestly hoping that people also other tall women too include it in the comments, like what to do when somebody calls you big, so we can, you know, share our experiences and learn and grow from each other. So yeah, thank you again for tuning into this episode. Make sure you follow me on all my socials, and I'm going to be talking a lot about that tall sized pop up shop event, and if you're going to be there, I'm super excited to meet you and see you. And yeah, if you have any anything else to add to this topic of tall women being called big. Make sure you hit me up in the DMS and let me know we could talk about it. And until then, I will catch you in the next one. Good Night and goodbye.