A Little Stereotyping

Stereotypes. Ooh never written about this before but boy do I have an opinion! I just want to note that when i'm writing about this topic, I am mostly talking about young adults/teenagers.

So let's talk stereotypes, more specifically, stereotypes around height. Now a lot of us have experienced the old "I just want to put you in my pocket!" and the "You make me feel so short!" phrases. I know, I know, I feel your pain. But I want to focus more on what people say, do and think just based on looking at our height.

For example, i'm taller than the average female (5 foot 9 if you're curious) and I do get some grief for that from time to time! Especially from, if not only everyone who is shorter than me. But just what do people assume? Here, i'll tell you a funny situation, hah...irritating, rather than funny....

Okay, so I was in PE (physical education) class one day a few years back. My class and I were playing dodge-ball and there were these long heavy benches pulled out into the sports hall where we were playing. Everything was fun until the benches had to be put back, and so the teacher announces: "Right I need two strong girls to put back the benches for me" (girls because I was in an all girl school) She took one look at the class and called out what she thought were "Strong girls" Miss stereotypical butthole chooses all the tall girls (mostly skinny) including me (who was underweight). We could barely move the thing.

I mean like, what? Oh so just because we're tall we are suddenly strong too? I suppose the teacher thought we were all tall ass ogres who can lift anything. What is the deal with this? Strong people isn't the only thing shorter people think we are. Apparently, we're all basketball stars too.

A lot of you reading this (which is like..2 lol) the taller people anyway have surely have been asked by mostly shorter people "Omg you're so tall, like do you play basketball?" This is probably the utmost annoying thing anyone could ask..us..me?..you? You get the point. Although if you actually play basketball then you most likely won't be so annoyed by this question. Umm, just because i'm tall does not mean I play basketball. Personally I wouldn't get so fussed up about it if I was a good basketball player, but because I have terrible ball coordination (and often running away from the ball instead of towards it) then my 'great basketball looking talent' is out the window. But then again I do get the flattering "You should be a model" comments which is nice, even though I would never want to be a model but that's a different topic.

Hah I do remember playing basketball in school during PE I think the teacher was like to me: "Come on Leila you're tall you should be good at this" and GOD I loved disappointing her when I missed the basket-net for the tenth time. Just proves, she can take her judging mouth and shove it up her ass, ohoho I need to calm down.

But tall people are not the only ones who get stereotyped, short people do too. I just gave my own experiences.

In conclusion, ah the good old saying: Don't judge a book by it's cover, and saying that a person whose height is not average should be/do good at something, is just as bad as saying for example "You're Asian, you should be good at math" because it's stereotyping either way. There will always be those who judge/stereotype, so unless we come up with a better idea, we might as well get used to it.

You are more than welcome to comment any of your experiences with height stereotyping and stereotyping about shorter people (which I haven't really covered). Until next time! Thanks for reading! <3
November 17th, 2015 at 08:54pm