Reflections on height, posture, and perception

[missroserose]

Interesting thing I learned today: my height (5'8") is actually significantly above average for a woman in the US. According to several studies, I'm a full four inches taller than the general female population (three for Caucasians specifically). And that's before heels.

I've long known I was on the tall side for a woman, but had always thought it was maybe an inch or two above the norm. It wasn't until someone wrote in to Dear Prudence today bemoaning her awful "mannish" height of (gasp!) 5'8" that it even occurred to me to Google.

Speaking of men, Brian (who's the same height as me - by his request, I wore ballet slippers rather than heels at our wedding) is a couple inches shorter than the average for men in the U.S. Though, I suspect, at-or-above average for men of Asian descent.

I don't really have any particular insights on this, other than perhaps something about how immediate population influences perception far more than statistics. I've always had a lot of tall friends, so I've never felt overgrown. (The woman who wrote in said she felt particularly self-conscious because she was dating a Jewish man and hanging out with his friends, all of whom were short. I couldn't help but laugh, as one of my good friends also has a short Jewish boyfriend, and she's 6'2". Get over it already.) I do remember one girl in high school asking me why I wore heels when I was already tall, but I just sort of shrugged and said it was because I liked looking down on people. (I was...kind of a jerk in high school.)

Over the past year or so, I've been making a conscious effort to stand taller - you can see in my Facebook photos that for several years I tended to slump forward. The results have become especially noticeable over the past six months, as my core strength has grown by leaps and bounds. I admit to admiring myself in shop windows now and then; I look much more confident and poised than I used to.

I have dated people shorter than me (male and female), but it's never really been a social issue, as they were always confident about their heights and didn't mind the discrepancy. As the old joke goes, women are all the same height lying down...though the same isn't necessarily true for men.

Comments

[vatine]

The tallest person in my class at school (age 15-18) was female. She clocked in at a mere ~ 1.95 metres (that's, what, 6'5" give or take). Me, I am of pretty average (swedish) height and seem to be a towering giant in the UK.

[cyrano]

I've recently started working on my posture too, while I can't tell you how I appear, but after some practice I'm starting to feel less like Lurch the butler, and my core is getting stronger. (It's the most exercise I usually get in a day.)