"You're Pretty For A Tall Girl" | The HARSH TRUTH About Beauty Standards for Tall Women

[00:00:00] Tall Girls Just Aren't That Pretty. That was how we were made to feel or that was what we were even told often growing up. Whether it was by our crush, by our peers, even friends and family and strangers. And it's not like a one and done thing or every once in a while. It was fairly often and it was recurring. In fact, it happened often enough that you begin to wonder, does everyone have the same viewpoint of tall women?

[00:00:27] that were these big, awkward, for lack of a better term, skyscrapers? Why? Why do they think that? I got three words for you. Societal beauty standards. It's explained in a piece written by Sydney Clark in the Minnesota Daily saying, height has been inextricably associated with a lack of conventional beauty. Why is this the case and how will we as tall women overcome this?

[00:00:54] That's what we're going to discuss today. So let's get into it. Good morning, everybody. You are currently listening to a tall girls podcast hosted by a tall girl named India. I hope everyone who is tuning in today is doing super fantastic. Before I get into this episode, I do want to say, make sure you're following me on my socials at a tall girls podcast on Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest so that you can stay up to date on all of the latest podcast episodes

[00:01:19] and catch a glimpse of my everyday life. Also, feel free to leave me a review and let me know how tall you are. I'm genuinely curious. I also have a monthly newsletter. Make sure you subscribe to that. Everything is going to be linked in the description. We're just going to dive right into this topic today. I'm sure as you could tell by that little intro that I had or even the title, we're going to be talking about societal beauty standards and how it relates to tall women. Because, you know, we just, we just love societal beauty standards because they're,

[00:01:48] they're just the dumbest thing to quite literally ever exist. Among other things, of course. First, let's get into what societal beauty standards are. Societal beauty standards are culturally defined ideals or perceptions of what is considered attractive. They influence how we perceive others, how others perceive us, how we even perceive ourselves. And ultimately can impact anyone's self-esteem. And it's heavily influenced by the media,

[00:02:17] by fashion, by social trends, etc. And can vary significantly across cultures and time periods. And see, that's a very important part. It is different across cultures, across time periods, eras, you name it. It varies. Take a listen to this little spiel really quickly. Ladies, this is your reminder that all beauty standards are a social construct. That is, opinions and preferences constructed by someone else.

[00:02:43] Beauty standards is literally the dumbest, most absurd concept ever created. And let me tell you why. And this is why beauty standards literally do not exist. No matter how much society tries to like create one or like we try to set one, it literally does not exist by definition. The definition of the word standard is a measurement for what's normal or average. What's the one thing all human beings have in common?

[00:03:13] That we're all different. No face is the same. No body is the same. No skin tone is the same. No features are the same. No anything. We all have different fingerprints. The beauty standards, that's not even a thing. It's impossible for there to be a beauty standard. There's no such thing. Society's created it. But the reality is that first of all, beauty is subjective. And second, all humans are different. So there can't be a standard for it.

[00:03:40] So the word beauty standard does not exist. It's impossible. Get it out of your head. And plus, society keeps changing the beauty standard every couple of years. So if the beauty standard changes, then it wasn't a standard to begin with. But yeah, these societal beauty standards change like every three seconds. It seems like nobody can ever make up their mind. Just a very quick example because I don't, I wouldn't say that it's pretty recent,

[00:04:09] but it was spoken about a couple times in the recent past few months about how first, at first, many years ago, the BBL body was a thing. You know, the BBL Brazilian butt lifts, having that type of body, that slim, thick type of look, hourglass look was a thing. That was the trend to have. And then now we're seeing this shift where thinner bodies are back in. Probably you could even say more natural bodies,

[00:04:35] where you see a lot of these influential people and celebrities getting their BBLs removed to fit into this trend or to fit into this beauty standard. Or maybe for health reasons, because I've heard a lot of things about BBLs. But listen, whatever. We're not here to talk about BBLs. We're here to talk about height. And in regards to that, I'm just going to say how many of us feel. Tall women will never fit into societal beauty standards. Plain and simple. We're too visible. We command and demand attention.

[00:05:03] And this may be a bit controversial, but I argue that that is an amazing thing. But we're going to get into that a little bit later. Let's talk about beauty standards, societal beauty standards in regards to height. As seen in a lot of pop culture, femininity and feminine beauty are largely defined by smallness. Being shorter, being petite, and so forth. And this shortness is often associated with needing to be protected and being delicate.

[00:05:31] Or just traits that fit patriarchal ideas of what women should be or how women should be. And it's how women don't fit into this. We're quite literally the opposite. And then going back to the piece by Sidney Clark in the Minnesota Daily, I'm going to be referring to this a couple times because this is a really, this is a really insightful piece. I will say. I agree with a lot of points that I made. But going back to that piece, the average woman in the US is around 5'3", 5'4".

[00:05:58] So women on the taller side run into those tall girl struggles that we all know so well. And these societal beauty standards in regards to height are heavily influenced by the media. Number one thing being in a lot of heterosexual relationships displayed in movies and TV shows and so forth. The woman in the relationship is often shorter than the guy. So we see that over and over and over again.

[00:06:25] So that kind of wires our subconscious in a way to think that, okay, the women should be the shorter one in the relationship. Or women should just be shorter than men overall. And I also spoke a little bit about this in another podcast episode about how in many animated films and cartoons and so forth, the villains are on the taller side. Yes, the male villains are often taller than the male protagonists, but also very often the women villains are taller than the women protagonists.

[00:06:51] And we even see that being played out in real life in Disney World and Disney theme parks and so forth with the real, the quote unquote, real life villains being very much on the taller side. We also see that in social media. Or just scrolling through Instagram or TikTok. Some of your favorite fitness influencers, some of your favorite fashion influencers and content creators and so forth are on the shorter side. So they're depicting their life on the shorter side. They're depicting their lifestyle through the lens of a shorter person. They're wearing clothes meant for shorter people.

[00:07:21] They're doing, they're doing fitness moves or exercises that are meant to help people on the shorter side gain muscle or whatever body goals they have. That's also seen as the norm because we see so many of them doing things like that. And even in the fashion industry with clothing, a lot of the bigger brands, a lot of the mainstream clothing often caters to people who are on the shorter side or what's seen as the average height.

[00:07:47] So these beauty standards that are put into place by these influences, the media, social media, pop culture, fashion, whatever it is, that's also acted out in real life. For example, going back to the piece that I referred to earlier by Sydney Clark, she referenced a 2005 study by the University of Chicago and MIT and the influence of height in online dating services and found that women who were 6'3 received 40% fewer messages than women who

[00:08:17] were 5'5. You're pretty, you just be prettier if you were shorter. That's something many of us tell girlies have heard before. But here's the thing, who decided that being shorter was the standard of beauty for women? Last time I checked, beauty does not have a height limit, but okay. Height is often associated with traits such as assertiveness and leadership and dominance, which some might describe as masculine traits, right?

[00:08:42] No masculine man wants to feel feminine the same way no feminine woman wants to feel masculine. I've never had an issue with real men who are so confident in their height and who they are, you know, treat me less feminine. So I want every other girl to know that. It's not about your stature. I know a deep voice too, a dark skin. So I carry myself in a very feminine way to assert that and I think people are stuck.

[00:09:08] Anyways, many experiences like this often lead us to ask, why does society favor shorter women over taller women? Because shorter women fit into society's beauty standards. You know the ones that say women are supposed to be smaller, daintier, more delicate, and overall petite? Yeah, that one. They're ultimately seen as a symbol of femininity and softness. And then on the flip side, men are conditioned to think that they're supposed to be the larger, quote unquote, bigger, taller ones.

[00:09:38] Additionally, people fear or don't like what's unknown to them. They don't like what's different. Going back to how I said that the average height of a woman is around 5'3", 5'4", people are used to that. People are used to seeing people on the shorter side in their daily lives, on social media, in the media, and so forth. So when they see a taller woman that goes against the grain, that's different, that's out of the norm, it's quote unquote, not supposed to be like that.

[00:10:07] Women are supposed to be on the smaller side. So who is this person who is just going against what many of us, many people have known for most of their lives? It's unknown. It's unfamiliar. And truthfully, we as humans don't really like what's unknown and what's unfamiliar. Let's just, that's why so many of us have a hard time dealing with change. We don't like what's unknown. We don't like what's unfamiliar. That's just how it is.

[00:10:33] And then going back to that piece, Sydney brings up a very valid point that people put expectations on us, expect us to make efforts to minimize our height, like not wearing heels or slouching, as she says, or to use this quote unquote disadvantage in a positive way like sports. I'm sure every doll person has heard this at least once in their lives. You're wasting your height if you don't blank. So you're wasting your height if you don't play sports, if you don't model, if you don't

[00:11:02] reach that thing off of a high shelf. I don't know. But when did it become a thing that being tall is acceptable or valuable if you physically do something with it? IE, I didn't know that it was a doll person's life mission to quote unquote, do something with their height in your eyes. And then this kind of leads into the next point where, okay, we already discussed overall general societal beauty standards when it comes to women and height with women.

[00:11:27] But what about societal beauty standards for tall women specifically? I did an episode where in the general public's eyes, being tall as a woman is acceptable if you are on the thinner side and how being tall and plus size is often frowned upon and how people often call tall plus size women big or large or giant or huge or even ogre. Yes, even ogre.

[00:11:53] And I also spoke about how being tall and darker skinned as a woman makes people see you as more aggressive and threatening and intimidating and angry and even and people even assuming that you're transgender. No tea, no shade if you are. But it's just that when people make assumptions just out of the blue based on how you look, it's kind of like, why? Like, why would you do that? You know? I also even spoke about how tall women are sexualized through the lens of macrophilia

[00:12:21] because people are into people who are larger than life to them and how it's like, okay, if you're a very, very tall woman, that's fine. As long as, you know, you're sexualized or use it in a sexualizing way. Like, okay, like we're fine with you being very, very tall. Like we're not going to get pressed about you being tall. We're not going to call you names or bully you or make fun of you or see you in a bad way or whatever, you know, because you're using it for the male gaze. So that's fine.

[00:12:51] Sheesh. Oh, this is a lot. But, you know, people like to place these labels on tall women and have these thoughts and ideas where it's like, okay, it's fine that you're a tall woman. You know, as long as you do this, as long as you play the sport, as long as you're thinner, as long as you're not darker skinned, as long as you let people sexualize you or you even sexualize yourself, giving everybody permission to do that to you as well. And listen, if that, if that last part is what you want to do, go for it by all means,

[00:13:21] especially if you're making that coin in this economy. But I will say that in allowing people to do that and you doing that to yourself, that also that also makes those people that are sexualizing that tall women think that it's okay to do it to any tall women without their permission. Now, that's that's the issue here. Anyways, I digress. But what I'm saying is that that was a mix of societal expectations for tall women as well

[00:13:47] as, you know, beauty standards that are placed on tall women themselves. Anyways, now that we know all about that and we just we know this information, we've heard about it, we've lived through it even. What do we do about it? You know, because we can't just sit around and mope. That's that's pretty sad. Like we can't complain about it. I personally have done it way too many times. And let me say that has gotten me nowhere.

[00:14:11] That's put me down deeper into a darker hole of me being even more sad and just even more sad about my height and just hating my height even more. And I don't think that we should go down that rabbit hole. You know what I mean? And it's very tiring and annoying to go through all of this, especially because our height is something that we just can't control. We're born with it. I mean, unless you want to get surgery for that, because, you know, there are there are height reduction surgeries out there. I don't know if I would recommend that.

[00:14:41] But yeah. Anyways, I'm 5'11". And my height used to be my biggest insecurity. And that's because as women, we are literally taught to take up less space. We are taught that beautiful women are small, delicate, soft spoken. And tall women are often portrayed as intimidating and masculine.

[00:15:08] So don't be insecure about your height. Take up space as a tall, strong, beautiful woman. As tall women, it's time we create our own standards of beauty. Standards that don't try to fit us or anyone, for that matter, into a tiny box of what's considered acceptable or attractive. We deserve to be seen, we deserve to be accepted, and we deserve to stand tall. Period.

[00:15:33] So there's absolutely no reason to get wrapped up in these stupid societal standards, okay? Because the idea of what's seen as beautiful, the idea of what's seen as attractive is ultimately subjective. Yes, we're fed by social media. We're fed by regular shmegular media, I guess you could say, movies, TV shows, and all these other things. We're often fed by these things to show like, yeah, this is what is quote unquote considered normal. This is what's considered attractive.

[00:16:03] This is what's considered acceptable. That's what they're trying to feed out there. But as I said earlier, it varies from culture to culture. It varies from person to person. Every single person has a different idea of what's considered beautiful. So while it's often pushed out there that this one set particular thing is attractive or acceptable and it's shoved down everybody's throats, it's kind of like, why though? You know what I mean?

[00:16:29] What's seen as cool to one person is not necessarily seen as cool to another person. So just because, yeah, you're seeing this on social media and you're seeing this on TV and so forth, that doesn't mean that it's true. Just because you're seeing that in most heterosexual relationships, the woman is shorter in the relationship. If you go outside, I assure you that at some point in time, at least once, you'll see a woman who is as tall as her man or taller than her man. And see, that's the thing.

[00:16:58] That may be, that's probably a good reminder. Go outside and touch some grass. Go outside and touch some grass. Because we're being fed these ideas of what's considered beautiful. We're being fed these ideas that, oh, being shorter as a woman is overall better by technology, by what we see on TV, by what we see in online articles, by what we see on social media. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that tall women are beautiful, tall women are amazing,

[00:17:25] and tall women have so much to offer each other in the world than, I guess, just being an athlete. Anyways, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I really appreciate it and I appreciate you. As always, of course, feel free to hit me up on my socials and let me know what you thought about this episode. Do you agree with me about the societal beauty standards and how they're placed onto women and saying, hey, like being shorter as a woman is more attractive. Do you also agree about the standards and expectations that are set for tall women themselves? Let me know.

[00:17:55] I'm genuinely very interested. And of course, until then, I hope you have an amazing rest of your day, night, weekend, life, etc. And until then, I'll catch you in the next one. Good night and goodbye.