9781512601435
9781512601442
Would you like to be taller? Many people—except very tall people—would likely answer yes. Why should this be the case, when height has nothing to do with intelligence, talent, fortitude, compassion, or indeed any of the factors that make us human? In her thoughtful and provocative book, Tanya S Osensky examines “heightism”: the widely held and mostly unconscious notion that taller is better. She explores how and why short people are considered by many to be inferior, and describes the ways in which height bias affects them. Prejudice against short people is so common and casual that we do not even notice it, yet it factors significantly into discrimination in the workplace, in social situations, and beyond. The most helpless victims are short children, who are frequently subjected to years of hormone therapy, even when they have no physical need for such treatment, simply in an effort to make them taller as a way of countering this social bias. There is little legal recourse for short people who suffer workplace discrimination based on height. This succinct book exposes the cultural, medical, and occupational issues that short people face, which are often deemed unimportant and disregarded. Osensky challenges heightism by disclosing some beneficial aspects of shortness and suggesting avenues of activism and change.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments • HEIGHT MATTERS • Your Highness • Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics • Vertical Challenges: Practical Issues Confronting Short People • Small Cruelties: How Heightism Affects Children • A Little Grown-Up: How Heightism Affects Adults • Cultural Ideal: Height Is Right • No Small Injustice • HEIGHT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHILDREN • How Tall Is Your Fetus? • Charting Growth • Abnormally Healthy • Growth Hormone Therapy • Ethical and Moral Shortcomings • High Risk of Tallness • High Cost of Tallness • Short Story • A Superior Specimen • Higher Values • SHORTCHANGED IN THE WORKPLACE • Glass Ceiling in a Skyscraper • A Sizable Wage Gap • Wage Gaps: Height versus Gender versus Race • Legal Limitations • Measuring Up • A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE • Slight Evolutionary Edge • Short Is Powerful • Some Uplifting Words • ALTIMATE CHANGE • Summing It All Up • Check Your Tall Privilege • Making a Grand Difference • Notes
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