Since the dawn of man, smaller male members of society have been subjected to marginalisation in many aspects of life.
It can’t be ignored that, for the vast majority of our history, to be a bigger man was to be a stronger man, a better hunter, and therefore a better ‘mate’. Although this may seem abstract to us in today’s civilised society, can we truly say that we’ve shaken off this primitive, ancient and somewhat Neanderthal preference, which establishes taller humans as the big-cheeses of society?
I write this article as one of those who doesn’t quite meet the average height bracket. The issue hasn’t affected me, as far as I know, and I am fairly confident it never will, but I’m not ignorant about the subject. It seems to be a recurring problem for many; or perhaps rather, a justification. Is the issue real or is it a convenient ‘legitimate’ excuse for certain people to not succeed quite as well as others, shifting blame away from themselves onto exterior individuals who aren’t quite so burdened with their ‘short-comings’?
John Bercow, a former alumnus of our university and now the speaker of the House of Commons, has been the butt of hundreds of jokes within an environment which ought, really, to act seriously or at the very least, diplomatically. Bercow is 5ft 6in tall, falling 4 inches below the national average. Clearly this hasn’t hindered his success but he has become victim of his own height, even once being referred to as a “sanctimonious dwarf” by none other than the Prime Minister himself. As Bercow suggested jokes about his height, which is clearly no fault of his own, aren’t a far-cry from jokes about race, sex, gender or any other personal and immutable characteristic. In today’s society a shortage of height is no disability and doesn’t constitute in any way a disadvantage, yet still jokes are made at the expense of shorter people by the more vertically advantaged.
It’s been suggested that taller people are considered more attractive, and it’s been considered too that more attractive people are more likely to become successful. If this is true, then provisions must be made to establish a greater level of equality of opportunity, for those of us who are more ‘vertically challenged’. The Equality Act of 2010 has been split up into many categories, focusing on issues ranging from religion or belief to disability, age, gender, sexual orientation and race, however ‘size’ fails to be present in this list. This oversight may illustrate a certain level of political oppression in regards to shorter people, in this instance.
Of course the term ‘sizeism’ doesn’t only encompass the problem of height, but also the issue of weight – that is the oppression of ‘obese’ or ‘fat’ people within our society, and anorexic people, too. The issue of weight, vis-a vis abuse crimes, have been given some protection in parts of the Equality Act of 2010. For example, when someone has a condition relating to weight, such as obesity or anorexia, this is protected by provisions under ‘disability’. So, whilst there may be some protections for weight-related sizeism the same cannot be said for height-related sizeism.
Shouldn’t sizeism in general become a recognised problem which needs tackling at a more direct level?
By Matthew Bryan
The Rabbit Newspaper 