File under: common sense confirmed by the labcoats. Height of a partner matters more to women than it does to men.
The study, “Does Height Matter? An Examination of Height Preferences in Romantic Coupling,” was conducted in two parts. Part one, which used data from the Yahoo! personal dating advertisements of 455 males (average height of 5 feet 8 inches and average age of 36 years) and 470 females (average height of 5 feet 4 inches and average age of 35 years) from throughout the U.S., found that 13.5 percent of the men wanted to date only women shorter than they are. In contrast, nearly half of the women – 48.9 percent – wanted to date only men taller than they are.
Men are more open to dating women of any height, while women are more likely to objectify men based on their height. Spread the seed, hoard the eggs, as seen through the prism of sex-based average height differences.
I wonder if shorter men have a stronger preference than do taller men for women shorter than themselves, partly because most men like looking down at a woman (it feeds the male need to feel like he is protective and dominant) and partly because shorter men especially intuit that relationships are stabler (and the paternity more assured) if the woman is shorter than the man.
The really interesting discovery from this study is that it answers why women prefer taller men than themselves. Short version (heh): women want to feel dominated by a man.
According to the study data, the dominant reasons females cited for preferring a tall partner are matters of protection and femininity.
“As the girl, I like to feel delicate and secure at the same time,” said a woman in the study who is 5 feet 3 inches tall. “Something just feels weird in thinking about looking ‘down’ into my man’s eyes.”
Women feel protected and more feminine when they are with a masculine, physically imposing man. Likewise, men feel protective and more masculine when they are with a feminine, physically vulnerable woman. Sexual polarity ftw. (The Leftoid Fuggernaut wept)
Men, for their part, are much more practical about the considerations of a woman’s height,
Men were much less likely to say that height mattered, and for those that did, they preferred shorter women, but not so short that it would cause problems with physical intimacy.
“I like it when the body of your partner fits yours,” said another study participant, a male who is 5 feet 11 inches tall. “It also makes it easier to kiss, hold hands and do other activities with your partner.”
The wheelbarrow.
From the study’s lead poopytalk squid inker,
George Yancey, a professor of sociology at the University of North Texas and the study’s lead author, believes that the height preferences of men and women can be explained by traditional societal expectations and gender stereotypes.
Nope. Societal expectations got nothin’ to do with it. It’s biologically evolved predispositions all the way down.
Decades of radical feminism and cultural conditioning at odds with the notion of a functioning patriarchy have done nothing to diminish women’s preference for taller men. Atavator writes,
It’s common sense until they lapse into the usual social-constructivist genuflection at the end. Do social scientists realize how they undermine their own credibility with this crap?
Most do, but they’re cowards who’d rather keep their sinecures than their integrity.
Another thing they didn’t think through: how are such perceptions and preferences affected by species-constant (or at least race-constant) proportions and emotions? By that I mean this: *I* never wanted to be with a woman taller than myself, but then, I’m 6’1″.
How many women over 6’1″ fit within biologically-conditioned boundaries of “attractive”? A much smaller proportion than those who are 5’4″, I’d venture to guess!
Shorter/smaller people across the world live longer than taller/bigger people, which may explain why there hasn’t been an evolutionary arms race toward ever-taller humans. That aside, it is a little bit of a mystery why very short men still exist in Western populations when they take a big hit to their reproductive fitness. It could be that there are enough even shorter women to satisfy the short men.
Heather adds,
I don’t like a guy who is too skinny either. I don’t like feeling like I could knock him over accidentally.
Women are averse to being with men who are mentally, physically, emotionally, or psychologically feebler than themselves. While there are exceptions, generally I’ve found that slightly overweight men do better than underweight men do with women. Gross obesity is another story, so don’t think you can grow out a dick-concealing gut and expect the ladies to swoon. (OTOH, if your dick is big enough to be seen jutting out from a giant beer gut, then the ladies might come up with some creative euphemisms to describe the appeal of your belly.)
PS Shorter men shouldn’t despair. The best PUA I’ve known was in the ballpark of 5’5″. But he was confident, smooth, and fearless, and those traits were enough to compensate for his shortness. He often went home with women taller than himself. Shortness is a strike against a man, but it’s not an SMV-killing death blow. Even if a short man has no Game, he can substantially improve his odds simply by targeting shorter women (or, not uncommonly, taller women who would be more impressed by a show of self-entitled confidence from a short man than from a tall man (from whom it would be expected)).