In a height-wise battle of the sexes who wins: Tall men or short women? Trick question because
they're just going to get together and date and live happily ever after. What I really
want to know is for an outliers battle of the sexes who wins: Short men or tall women?
Recently a Stuff Mom Never Told You viewer Crashdown903p asked me, 'Hey I'm a rather
short guy, 5 foot three. People tell me "short guy" jokes all the time and it really gets
on my nerves. People have make fun of me my whole life because of my height why is this
okay to people?' Dude that is not okay. I am a 5 foot nine tall woman. I can't tell
you how many times even though I'm not that tall people have referred to me as 'glass
of water'. What's the weather like up there? So using four very unscientific criteria I
wanted to find out who has it better, short guys or tall women. The first criteria is
simply stereotype and for this I shall turn to Google auto-correct. So I typed in 'how
do short guys' and beboobopboopboop internet magic. Google tells me the top questions are:
How do short guys feel, get laid, get dates, dunk, look good and get taller. This says
to me that there are lots of assumptions that short guys don't like being short because
well I guess it makes it harder to dunk. And also makes it harder to perhaps to score a
date. But what are we asking the internet about tall women? Google actually returned
nothing. The number one tall women search is tall women carrying heavy things. Score
one for tall women because apparently no one is really all that curious about them. The
stereotypes are that we are all models I'm sure, haha. The next criteria is dating, who
has an easier time getting a date? Based on okCupid data, if you are a women 5 foot 4
inches you will get 60 more messages per year compared to women who are 6 feet tall but
in an interesting statistical wrinkle those 6 foot tall ladies do report more sexual partners.
Up high, literally tall women. For men the opposite is true. If you are a 5 foot 4 guy
on okCupid you're going to get fewer messages than a dude who is 6 feet tall. One guy who
is 5 foot 4 inches did a little okCupid experiment to see what would happen if he changed his
height to 5 feet 9 inches and guess what folks? His response rate doubled. Shorter guys also
reported fewer sex partners. Tall women by a smaller margin this time win. Our third
criterion is health. For this short guys, you got a bit of an edge. A lot of health
studies find that shorter people tend to have a longevity advantage. They might even inherit
something called the Methuselah gene which predisposes shorter people to longer life
spans. Caveat that there are a number of different variables, not just height obviously that
will contribute obviously to someone's life span. According to one study published in
the Journal Lancet for every 4 inches a woman was taller, her risk of cancer went up 16%.
Caveat again, lots of other factors aside from height that contribute to things like
cancer, longevity, overall health ect. Nevertheless, short guys, you win this round. For our fourth
and final criterion we have wealth. There have actually been a ton of studies on men's
height in particular and its correlation to income. Anecdotally and statistically the
taller guys are, the more money and leadership opportunity he tends to attract. One study
found that guys who were 6 feet tall made 1.5% more than guys who are 5 foot 10. Another
study out of Australia found that guys who are 6 foot tall make $1000 more on average
than their shorter counterparts. Another study found that two inches of height for a guy
is the job equivalent of an additional year of work experience. But does that same kind
of height-related economic advantage maintain for tall women? Yes to a lesser extent. Height
is not as strong of an income variable for women as it is for men. Women don't tend to
be as penalized in their paychecks. Taller women versus short men, ladies you won. All
of which adds up to in this comparison at least, it being a little bit easier out there
for tall women versus short guys. So if there are any short guys watching I also want to
hear from you. Is it harder out in the world to be a short man? Tall women what do you
think? Do you have a hard time even though you might be able to reach all of the super
tall shelves which I personally really enjoy? Let me know in the comments below and I'll
see you next time.