The Short End of the Stick

Jeff accused me of stretching the truth when I insisted ABC news conducted a study that indicated women prefer tall men to short men no matter their accomplishments.
It may be a superficial fact of life but unfortunately it's the truth. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but in general I do believe women at least prefer men who exceed them in height.
So I'm posting the following reporting of John Stossel entitled "The Ugly Truth About Beauty":

Evolution may have led women to prefer taller men.

Women will take just about any shortcoming in a man, except in the height department, according to Andrea McGinty, who founded the San Diego-based dating service "It's Just Lunch."

McGinty helped ABC NEWS put together an experiment to test just how willing women are to date shorter men. We brought together several short men and asked them to stand next to taller men. We invited groups of women to look at the men and choose a date.

To see if the women would go for short guys who were successful, ABCNEWS' Lynn Sherr created extraordinary résumés for the shorter men. She told the women that the shorter men included a doctor, a best-selling author, a champion skier, a venture capitalist who'd made millions by the age of 25.

Nothing worked. The women always chose the tall men. Sherr asked whether there'd be anything she could say that would make the shortest of the men, who was 5 feet, irresistible. One of the women replied, "Maybe the only thing you could say is that the other four are murderers." Another backed her up, saying that had the taller men had a criminal record she might have been swayed to choose a shorter man. Another said she'd have considered the shorter men, if the taller men had been described as "child molesters."

The desire for tall men begins very young, apparently. ABCNEWS gave elementary school students a test, asking them to match a small, medium or large figure of a man with a series of words. The kids overwhelmingly linked the tall figure to the words strong, handsome and smart. The linked the short figure to the words sad, scared and weak. More than half of the kids also chose to link the short figure to the words, dumb, yucky and no friends.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123853&page=2