Short Rage Revisited
Abstract
This article is looking at the impact of height on how people define their reality. How heightism impacts career choices, income, playing of sports, choosing a partner, and the impact of bullying and name calling. The results indicate, through the use of both quantitative (20 respondents) and qualitative data collection (14 respondents), that the majority of respondents feel that being vertically challenged does have a negative impact on their life. One-hundred percent of respondents believed that there is discrimination against short people in the social and economic arenas, but not as much when it comes to politics. Many of the female respondents felt that it was an interaction between both being female and height that led to their inability to make as much as their male counterparts, but did agree that the disparity in income existed. The findings support the previous literature that has been written on this topic, with the exception of height playing a role in the election of political candidates. The majority of the literature concluded that being vertically challenged did impact promotions and income negatively. Reflexive Statement Back in 2002, I published a book titled: Short Rage. At the time, I was trying to emotionally cope with the struggles of being a 4‘8‖ academician in the field of sociology. In that book, I discussed issues of being discriminated against because of my height. I mentioned the times I had been ignored, talked down to, pushed aside, stared at, and made fun of. I worked hard to achieve my goals in life and felt completely disrespected and invisible. I am revisiting this issue, because today, I still feel that height discrimination is ever present in education, economics, politics, and social interactions in general. To this day, I am still invisible in crowds. I am paid, on average $30,000 per year less than my department head counterparts in the College of Liberal Arts at Tennessee State University. And when it comes to making recommendations at meetings, my ideas are ignored only to be brought back up later as original ideas by colleagues who are usually male, average height or taller, and because of this, considered credible. I have seen my ideas and recommendations come back up in later meetings by my male counterparts only to be accepted, processed, and seen as brilliant ideas or excellent recommendations.