Julia Childs' Height Was Not a Handicap
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A guest post from Arianne Cohen, author of The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life From On High.
At every public appearance I make, someone raises his hand and says something like, “It’s much harder to be a tall woman than a tall man, right?” This point of view was echoed in the current issue of The New Yorker: A story about the director Nora Ephron opens with a quote about being tall from Meryl Streep, who is playing 6-foot-2 Julia Child in the forthcoming movie Julie & Julia. "I mean, it's like having club foot ... it was a handicap of sorts, certainly in the world where she was born," Streep says.
Yes, being tall has its challenges. I know, I'm 6-foot-3. But at its heart, the constant struggle of height is that to be tall is to be public, the constant sense of walking around with a spotlight on you. There's no place to hide, and that's genderless. Tall men are every bit as self-conscious as tall women.
Tall women’s struggles are more subtle. You’re not aware of this unless you’re tall, but there’s a vortex of silence around tall female public figures, and a total dearth of tall female role models. Sure, there are lots of very successful tall women out there. But you probably don’t know who they are. Because they don't talk about it.
No one really knew how tall Julia Child was until Meryl Streep started talking about it.
Tall girls look around and have two role model choices: Sarah, Plain and Tall (note that she’s plain and tall, not tall and awesome), and Janet Reno, being portrayed by a man on Saturday Night Live. It’s not inspirational.
There are few tall women saying, “I’m tall, I love it, this is beautiful,” because tall public figures, including more than a few top WNBA and tennis stars, steer away from their height during interviews because they—understandably—want to be seen for more than their bodies. (Note: Yes, I know that models are tall. But there's a pivotal issue of mass here that changes the experience.)
What messages do slip through are incredibly negative. In the last few weeks, beyond Streep comparing it to a disability: 6-foot Brooke Shields told Health that she’s sad that she waited to lose her virginity until age 22 because she was uncomfortable in her body, and 5-foot-10 Blake Lively told Allure that she, “feels like a tranny a lot of the time. I just feel really big a lot of the time, and I’m surrounded by a lot of tiny people. I feel like a man sometimes.”
Really, height has nothing to do with manliness. Nothing. That’s like associating overweight women with manliness because men tend to weigh more. The trouble is that by not talking about it, us tall women have left space for others to define it. And in our silence, tall women have been very sexualized by popular culture, often portrayed as manly and aggressive (see the amazing poster for Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, or any of Perez Hilton’s commentary on tall lady celebs—whom he calls manly she-men).
I think it’s important for us tall women to speak up and portray ourselves as we’d like to be portrayed as gorgeous and lovely and wonderful, and set culture’s idea of tall women by defining it ourselves by talking about it as much as possible, wherever relevant, very loudly. Like right here.
Photograph of Julia Child at her 90th birthday celebration by Thomas J. Gibbons/Getty Images.
Jessica Grose is the managing editor of Double X and the co-author of Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home. Click here to follow her on Twitter.
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please fix the typo in the headline
By: HobokenMartha | Wed, 07/01/2009 - 11:05
It's Julia Child, not Julia Childs. Good grammar costs nothing.
No tall female role models?
By: MizLiz | Wed, 07/01/2009 - 09:29
That's so wrong that it's not even wrong, to paraphrase Wolfgang Pauli. What about Michelle Obama, who is 5'11"? Maria Sharapova, who is 6'2"? Nicole Kidman? Cameron Diaz? Uma Thurman? Gwyneth Paltrow? All of them are over 5'9".(Unless by "tall" you only mean 6 feet or over, which I think is unfairly limiting.) Are they considered ugly and masculine by the public at large? Of course not! Perhaps some will argue with my putting forth actresses as role models, but when I was a highly sensitive, miserable, 5'6" 13-year-old, who towered over all of her classmates and most of her teachers, my 5'10" mother cut out an article from People magazine. It featured page after page of beautiful tall actresses (and there are a lot of them!) talking about how they came to appreciate their heights. And it saved my life. I "only" grew to be 5'9" (one inch too short to join any Tall Clubs), but I will always remember and appreciate my mother's gesture.
I wish I was tall
By: misslkodell | Wed, 07/01/2009 - 08:47
Sure at 5 ft 6, I'm not tiny, and I do have the same feeling as Blake Lively of towering over people because most of the people I work with are smaller but I am constantly jealous of my younger sister who is at least 5 ft 10, probably closer to 5 ft 11. I do agree that you tall ladies need better role models, my sis won't wear heels! She looks amazing in them but they make her feel even more like an outsider. I just wish you all could see how I, and others like me, wish we could have your height! You stand out! When theres a crowd people look to you as the leader! Guys line up to be shot down by the girls who are taller than them! I always tell my sister to not slouch, that she should be happy shes that tall.
Except I Do Feel Manly
By: 00Pisces | Tue, 06/30/2009 - 19:48
Jessica, you said, "Really, height has nothing to do with manliness. Nothing. That’s like associating overweight women with manliness because men tend to weigh more." Are you saying that people don't associate overweight women with manliness, or that they do, but it's equally as ridiculous? Because as an overweight woman myself, I find that I'm frequently treated as though, by virtue of not being a thin woman, I barely count as a woman at all. I don't know if that means that I'm manly in their eyes or not; perhaps I should ask Pop's parents.
Being tall is great
By: shoshin | Tue, 06/30/2009 - 18:25
I am 5'10 and I have been tall sice I was 13. One summer I literally grew up and came back to discover that I towered over my school mates. But here is the thing, I grew up in a tall family. My father was a rower so I was always running around tall people.I never really developed the perception of being overly tall. Even today I am surprised to stand next to someone I perceive as tall and realise I am a inch or so higher. I don't know if this changed the way I thought about myself, but I never had any hang-up about my height. So I have bounded and crashed my way through life. Even when I comes to men I haven't worried much. My boyfriend is 5'6", and he has no issues about my height - my housekeeping skills, yes! Although I did have to raise the showerhead at his place so i could wash my hair. Tall is great and it comes back to the old chestnut of being comfortable in your skin. And I think it will be less of an issue with time - have you noticed how tall teenagers are these days?