There’s much to admire about Poppy Noor’s backstory. Rather less about her current state of wisdom. For here we’ve yet another of those demands that humans stop being homo sapiens sapiens.
The desirability of short men isn’t something social, something created by the patriarchy. It’s something baked into the genetics which make us the species we are. We can even prove this.
If the problem with toxic masculinity is that it idolizes men for all those things that pointlessly connote masculinity without equating to it – violence, machismo, confidence – then why not consider height in this equation?
People constantly (and wrongly) equate height with masculinity. Men who are taller get promoted more, paid more and are considered better leaders. CEOs have an average height over 6ft. Presidential candidates who are taller are preferred (except in France, it seems).
Height is an unattainable beauty standard for short men – what are they supposed to do, grow?
Come on, feminists: to accept that there are conventional male beauty standards doesn’t undermine our cause, it elevates it. Patriarchy isn’t just a standard that entraps women, it’s a standard that entraps everyone. This year, let’s spotlight the worth of our short kings.
We can, of course, overcome our genetic programming. Even, we often do better when we do. But it’s still true that we’ve got to understand the base material we’re working with before we can state how the world should be.
To the proof – the usual boy to girl ratio at birth is some 106 – 108 patriarchs to 100 distaff. This is because boys are the weaker sex and this is the ratio required to leave a girl for every boy and a boy for every girl at mating season around the age of 15 or 16 or so.
It is also true that of all the women who have ever lived some 80% of so have had children, of men perhaps 40%. Those precise proportions can be argued about but there is a great imbalance in mating success. Another way to say the same thing is that female offspring are going to be in the 0 to 12 sort of range – that is, the number of offspring from any one female – while from males the range is going to be 0 to many thousands. That vast portion of the population that carries the Y from Genghis is an extreme proof of this.
This clearly implies – well, proves actually – that the competition isn’t so much between men and women it’s between men for those slots at being able to mate with a female. All rather as Darwin explained of course.
So, what happens in extreme times? Dearth say, when that investment in a pregnancy becomes larger than normal? And remember, the point of the investment is to have grandchildren, that’s the winning of the evolutionary game.
The male to female ratio at birth changes dramatically. Many more females to males. Why?
We don’t think that the fallopian tubes or whatever decide upon whether it’s a Y or X that does the fertilising. Nor that the male spurts change in their proportion of either given diet or its paucity.
We do think that the womb – not consciously, of course – accepts or rejects an implantation based upon varied factors. This is why Downs rise with maternal age, it’s not that eggs get old, it’s that the decision making process decides that if there might be no more pregnancies then why not carry on with one not entirely right? But if there could be another one in 6 weeks then why not dump this flawed and try again for something better?
In those times of dearth a child brought to term is likely to be more than a little runty. Runty birds are likely to be able to get laid and have children, runty males not so much.
Size actually does matter in men.
The opposition to short blokes as dating objects is rather more than just this patriarchy thing, it’s baked into our biology.
Which brings us back to the usual complaint about the Utopias urged upon us. Too often they are ignorant – the designers are ignorant that is – of who the us is. We’re Homo sapiens sapiens, in all our glory and with all our faults. The game is to make the best of the world given this raw material, not to demand – or presuppose – that we’re starting with some other species.
You know, if we’re following the pumpernickel recipe it aids in starting with rye flour rather than wheat? And if what we’ve got is rye flour then perhaps we should follow the pumpernickel recipe not the brioche one?
This is why the capitalist free market system works. Not because it’s moral nor perfect, but because humans are variously greedy, lazy and yes, altruistic in changeable proportions and that’s the system that works with this species. More purely communal and everyone for the good of society systems work better with other species – ants, say.
Other aspects of human society work much the same way. Sure, there’s just about nothing that some human, somewhere, hasn’t found to be a sexual turn on but it is still generally true that what dampens gussets is looking up into his eyes. Jus’ ‘cuz that’s the way we are.
Luckily for short men there is a cure. It’s called money.
Enough of it and you can be ugly as well as short and still be marriagable.
Some people are trying to make it a crime not to fancy a bird just because she’s got a willy, surely it should also be a crime to not fancy a bloke just because he happend to be short of stature. When do I get to turn the thought police on birds who turn me down when I try and chat them up?
‘This is why Downs rise with maternal age, it’s not that eggs get old, it’s that the decision making process decides that if there might be no more pregnancies then why not carry on with one not entirely right? But if there could be another one in 6 weeks then why not dump this flawed and try again for something better?’ Complete tosh. Research demonstrates the opposite, that the rate of miscarriage rises significantly in the over 35 age group, because there are more unviable foetuses. Which is indeed because the incidence of all chromosomal abnormalities in the foetus rises… Read more »