Do Tall Women get Harassed Less?

[Julietee]

I'm tall. I also think I give off quite strong 'fuck off' vibes. I very rarely get harassed on the street/ on public transport (it has happened though).

A conversation on FB revealed that a short and petite acquaintance seems to get picked on almost daily. She gets called 'cute', gets more aggression if she doesn't act grateful for the attention, etc.

I had never realised before that I might have it better out in the world because I'm tall/ broad/ uncute.

What do you think?

hmm, how can we know, as we only know what it's like being us?

I am 6ft1, and have had a fair bit of unwanted male attention, but now that I am older and less pretty it has calmed down a lot. I don't miss it.

I have always liked wearing big tough boots, DH calls them my "fuck-off-boots" and I walk with a bit more attitude in them.

I think some small creepy men may be deterred by height, but some like the challenge!

As Fiscal says, hard to tell. But I am tall and, other than in clubs as a student, haven't had many issues. I do think that there is something about looking a man straight in the eye (or indeed towering over him) that changes the power balance with some of these men. It's the up close stuff I seemed to get less than my friends, rather than the 'builders yelling from a van' stuff.

Not that anyone has harassed me for years. Buggy = invisible.

My feeling is that a short/ petite woman presents a more attractive target for the kind of D-bag who harasses women in the street, even if that mental process is a subconscious one. Smaller = more likely to be compliant, less likely to challenge (for reasons of physical safety, that is, I'm not suggesting small women are more compliant!).

I am tall enough (five foot eight) and quite broad shouldered, not pretty, and the worst I've ever gotten is a bit of teeth kissing and admonition to smile. I also walk assertively and have a general fuck-off attitude.

Which of those factors is most relevant, I don't know, but being a taller/broader lady has always seemed an advantage to me.

I got a lot of shit thrown at me when I was younger being a taller woman, also lots of comments about long legs etc...

I'm fair ugly though so I never really saw that side of harassment.

bet you'r not ugly, I don't think many (any) people are, it is such an ugly thing to say about yourself!

I'm 5' 6" and don't get 'harassed' as you put it.

I am tall, never been harassed, always mistaken for being German when anywhere but UK.

Friends at school described me as aloof until they got to know me.

Quite like being tall TBH.

I've been ridiculed for my height by men, accused of being a bloke in drag etc. probably why I'm so round shouldered from stooping now.

Yes, I believe I get harassed less. I get particular remarks, as others have said, but am harassed much less often.

I'm 5'4" and I have very rarely been harassed. That's not to say there may not have been occasions which passed without me noticing, but I'm pretty sure I'd at least have noticed unsolicited groping and so on. I've assumed it's mostly down to having a pretty flat chest in my case. There may well be a correlation between height and harassment, but it can't be only about that.

I don't know about 'harassed' but I think men are more wary of taller women. I don't think they quite know what to do if you are taller than them. Not always, obviously, but for some men I can see an element of panic at times.

I also think it is much harder for tall women to find another tall(er) man past a certain age, but that is another thread about acting like a meerkat in bars perhaps and I have given up now, so past caring

Ah this is interesting.

I feel a bit uncomfortable with this stuff - it only came up recently.

I assume that growing up everyone got the same amount of crap as me, and some of my friends.

On a thread recently, it came out that (possibly) hair colour has an impact. From my friends experience beast size is one as well.

So for me, I am small (5'3'') and also fairly petite. I am also a natural blonde who is conventionally "pretty". From about 14 to late 20s I just got shit all the time.

My friends who have had large chests when young have also got a lot of it.

So while I used to think that there is just a certain type of bloke who's an arsehole and does / says whatever when he feels like it if there is a female there. I now think that some females by dint of whatever appear to get more shit than others.

On height, I think that taller people are more respected generally in society, and being perceived as stronger, so that might have some kind of impact.

Of course there aren't many women who have got away with it all their lives. And clearly street abuse / assault / whatever are always the fault of the perpetrator. A small blonde 14yo girl with large breasts should not be seen as an acceptable target of abuse for anyone. For example.

Lion, I have never been interested in dating men taller than me and my husband is shorter than me. Of the tall women I know, most of them are not married to tall men. I don't know how important that is to tall women. I would have thought it was more important to shorter women, but I could be wrong. I suppose if am with someone who is two inches shorter than me, they are 5 foot 8, which is a fairly ordinary height for a man. If a woman of 5 foot 3 dates a man two inches shorter than her, that is 5 foot 1, which is exceptionally short for a man. Sorry, rambling...

freya I've dated a couple of men shorter than me. One of them asked me not to hold his hand while crossing the road as "you feel like my mother" which has kind of put me off. I also do still want to feel protected at times and some Neanderthal part of that seems to be equated with size; hug from big burly man feels much more secure than me having to cock my head down onto shorter man's shoulder. May just be me though!

Oh I get abuse for being tall. [shrugs] you can't win. Being an unattractive woman who doesn't conform to some guys idea of what is "sexy" brings it's own level of shit. The fact that men feel they can comment in a sexual or maligning way is the same really. They still feel they have a right over some woman's body, even some woman they don't know.

I think if you are "attractive enough" and tall you might get slightly less abuse.

I was just discussing the dating taller men thing on another thread in chat. I think a lot of short men feel threatened and can be shitty to women who are taller than them... so I do prefer taller men than myself. But I don't think it's that I particularly like tall men over shirt so much as I get treated better iyswim? ALso I am quite shy and won't come on to guys too much unless I am wasted so it's usually tall men who will talk to me.

Interesting question. I am 5 7 so just above average height I guess and the question of height has not arisen for me. I do notice that I get less unwanted attention now, at the age of 44, than I used to in my 20's and 30's when I got stacks, being probably quite conventionally attractive at that time. I see that as a positive about getting older, actually.

I have noticed when I wear heels, guys react differently to me. I am 5'9" without heels, so can easily be 6' in heels.
Generally they find it more difficult to talk to me, and spend more time looking at the floor. This was particularly noticeable with one man I know who is normally quite self assured, but presumably never talks to women as tall as he is.
I have never thought before that there might be an opposite yet similar effect if a woman is shorter.

I'm the size of your average 11 year old. 5ft tall and size 6. Naturally very blonde hair, conventional looks. No chest to speak of. Have been called cute on a few occasions and had a lot of attention (mostly wanted, some not so much!) during my teens and twenties. I wouldn't have called it harassment though. Certainly seems to have tailed off now I'm older! I've always wanted to be a bit taller. As a teacher it's awkward trying to discipline a child 4 inches taller then you.

I'm 5'7", and I'm always amazed by the amount of harassment some other women get, because it just doesn't happen to me - and I'm generally considered conventionally "pretty" and tend to dress in quite a feminine manner.

However, it did happen a lot when I was a teenager - catcalls, men making a grab for me, following me down the street and so on, and it used to terrify me. I was physically an early developer but mentally didn't get interested in sex till 17-18, so I wasn't equipped to cope with it.

I suspect that due to that I've developed some pretty powerful "fuck off and keep the hell from me" vibes. Men look, but that's all.

I'm tall and I've got a large chest. I get lots of comments about Both. the height thing doesn't bother me too much. I don't see tall as a negative. the comments about my tits wears me down though.
I probably gets as many comments now as when I was in my 20s. I'm not exactly Heidi Klum either.

I'm 5'8" and don't get much of the direct stuff, though still occasionally get shouted at from vans etc. - I agree with pp though that a buggy renders invisibility! My friend who is just under 5' has been hassled and robbed several times, she thinks it's a mixture of size but also looking younger than her age. I wonder also if you have experienced it a lot you present as slightly less confident?

Eeating funny you mention about the buggy = invisibility. Have noticed this (and like it tbh!) but then a loud group of young lads from the college started whistling at me on the way to DD's nursery the other day, followed by loud comments of "Would you though? She's a MILF, you reckon, bit old, would you? " literally debating whether they 'would' or 'wouldn't' due to my age and the fact I was a mother. I thankfully was a bit ahead of them so could race off without looking at them at all, but felt bloody embarrassed. No idea why as it was their own idiocy, but it did make me feel old and objectified as well as worry for the future as they had no shame and were being very loud, clearly thinking they were being clever or had a right to discuss me like a piece of meat.

Lion Ugh, that reminds me of when I was walking and had a group of teen boys in a car roll down then window and yell 'no thanks!' like I was soliciting or something. I lived in a very 'naice' area and it shocked me.

I started thinking, is it because I was walking confidently? Wearing lipstick? Then realised (much later) that their asshole-ness was not my fault.