Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
There’s a number of enduring stereotypes about what a woman is or what a woman should be. Sweet, submissive, nurturing, self-sacrificing…small. While these stereotypes are gradually losing their power (hurrah!) they are still alive and well and living near you, particularly in the minds of anyone born before 1980. There are lots of ways that women everywhere challenge, or otherwise don’t fit into, these stereotype, but I’m going to talk about one. When you’re not smaller or weaker than your male counterparts.
I’m big. Not in the euphemistic sense that I’m carrying an extra 10 or 20 kilos, but really, really big. Like being 183cm (6 feet tall in the old money) and weighing in at over 90 kilos that consists mostly of muscle.
It’s an odd thing going through life as an unusually tall woman. Well, that is to say, I don’t really know that it’s that much stranger than going through life as any other sort of woman. I’ve been an unusually tall woman since I was about 14, when I finished a mammoth growth spurt that saw me grow 12 cm in two years. Suddenly people stared at me when I walked down the street and when I saw myself in photos I was no longer part of the crowd but standing head and shoulders above it.
So what happens when you challenge a gender stereotype in a way that is impossible to hide? After all it’s not like I can, say, smile sweetly and pretend not to have an opinion. Here are a few experiences that have happened to me purely as a result of my stature.
Some of these experiences are very funny. There was the office Christmas party when my boy pirate costume was just a little bit too convincing in the atmosphere of low lighting and freely flowing drinks. I’ve never before received so many glowing smiles from 20 something women just because I was making my way across the room. Sadly I don’t think I’ve received so many glowing smiles from eligible men (my drug of choice) while crossing a room before either. On the upside, apparently I make a pretty hot young bloke. I’m convinced that this will come in handy one day, I’m just waiting for the opportunity to unleash my secret weapon.
Also, people are fascinated by my footwear. Often it’s the “six foot scan”, which is where strangers look first at your face, then scan right down your body to check your shoes, then quickly look back at your face. The expression when they get back to my face can be anything from “oh right” to “holy shit”. Sometimes, it’s hard not to say “Boo!” when they get their eyes back up to my face, but I restrain myself. All I can say is, if you are a woman who is more than 175 cm tall make sure you’re always wearing fabulous shoes.
The other thing is that people feel quite within their rights to comment on my footwear. “You’re too tall to be wearing high heels” is a favourite. I’d love to know any short people who have been told they are too short to be wearing flat shoes. I once bent down and said sotto voce in the ear of some douche in a bar who thought he had a right to comment “that’s your problem not mine”.
And then, of course, there is the reaction of men to challenging the gender stereotype of the little woman. Men fall into three categories that are fairly equally represented.
The first category immediately want to conquer me, either sexually or otherwise. The sexual conquest route (no pun intended) is pretty obvious. The “otherwise” takes a number of forms, but usually involves the man in question taking instant and very heated exception to my very existence and then using every available opportunity to take me down a peg. These men are often of the school of thought that women are meant to be the weaker sex and therefore smaller. These guys usually have issues about their own height and like to be taller than other people because they think it’s some kind of manly achievement (don’t ask me why, it doesn’t make any sense to me either). It makes them positively incandescent with rage to find a woman is substantially taller than them. Call me shallow and mean, but on a good day I really enjoy watching these guys and their antics. It’s like watching a tiny dog jumping up and barking at a Great Dane. On a bad day I just want to disappear into myself so they will leave me alone.
The second category just can’t believe how tall I am and make constant references to it. Thankfully these ones can usually be discouraged by politely (or not so politely) asking them to stop banging on about it. It’s a genetic accident, buddy, not a lifestyle choice. I’m not getting shorter any time soon so can we move on please? How about those Rabbitohs, eh?
The third category either don’t even notice my height or don’t give a shit, god bless them. I love those guys.
How about you? Have you challenged a gender stereotype? Maybe you are an “aggressive” or “opinionated” woman or a man who is prepared to take time off work to raise his own offspring. There are multiple variations on the theme. If so, I bet you have had similar experienced to those I have listed above (OK, maybe not having young secretaries throw themselves at your feet, but you know what I mean). What those experiences do is to question whether you are “right” and whether you should change to make yourself acceptable to society. It’s easy for me. I can’t get any shorter even if I wanted to, so I have to just brush it off. You should too. Life would be very dull if we were all the same and no one should be able to tell you off simply for standing up for what you believe in or nurturing your own children, or whatever it does that has the wowsers in a lather. Challengers, I salute you! Keep up the good work! Wanna meet up for a coffee later? I promise to wear heels.