While I was going through the news websites today I came across on the hugely popular news site Reddit a link to The Big Bang Theory actress Melissa Rauch who plays the petite microbiologist Ph. D Bernadette in the show HERE. It seems that Melissa went on the Conan O’Brien show and started to get into the subject of being afraid of Short Men and teenage middle school aged girls.
She would go on for quite a while talking about her fear of “short guys” and sound condescending to something which guys can’t really do much about, unlike the analogues weight problem found in females.
The height of Melissa Rauch listed on the website HeightCeleb.info has her at 5′ 0″ but most other sources has her height actually at 4′ 11″. There is people saying that she stated on the Craig Furgeson show on February 15, 2011 that she was “below 5′ 0″” . CelebHeights.com lists her at 4′ 11″. So I would settle on her height of being 4′ 11″ although her hairstyle makes the top of her head higher than it might be in reality. It could be that Melissa Rauch has a real height lower than 4′ 11″ but closer to 4′ 10″.
Her husband which I couldn’t find the name for looks to be around 6’3″-6’4″.
So she says “we have these groups of short guys in our block…they are these single men…”.
Personal Psychological Assessment:
It is very clear that while she might be just trying to be funny, she is being extremely insensitive about this issue and I think she knows that it is a very sensitive issue. Her mocking tone to say that the group of short statured men are all single suggest that she thinks that short men should never even get a girlfriend or have any chance of mating. It shows just how extremely insecure she is about her own height, which is understandable since she can’t even break the 5′ 0″ mark. If she is 4′ 10″ which I believe might be true, then she would be labeled under technical definition to be a “dwarf” since that is the cut-off point defined by some medical professionals.
I can only kind of understand the way she thinks and the way she views the world as a person who is so low on the bell curve of height distributions in a society. If she was native Vietnamese or Filipino female, she would be not that short in comparison to others in the native country, but as a Caucasian females, she is definitely at the bottom.
I can’t imagine how difficult it might have been to grow up to be that much shorter, and be bullied and make fun of something she will never be able to do anything about. If she was tall and fat, she can join a gym and fix the problem in less than 1 month. If she has a unattractive face, she can go to Seoul and get some face work done. But the fact that she is so much shorter than other people means that there is nothing she can do anything about. I applaud her for her being lucky enough to be in a hit television show and I am sure she is paid very well for each episode, probably around $500,000-$1,000,000 per episode. Maybe she is trying too hard to use humor to mask the amount of unconscious anxiety and insecurities inside of her mind over this fact. The money, fame, and success obviously helps her cope. Just imagine what it would be like if she was not just small, but another one of those out-of-work, broke, half employed actresses that are all struggling to make it in the cut-throat world of Hollywood. However that money won’t change the form and shape of her body.
So what is the next best thing? Hope to make her offspring and children taller, by paying the genetic lottery and improving her odds by finding the tallest guy who exhibit gentle-giant characteristics, is dependable, unlikely to cheat and stray in 20 years (after the words “cute” , “perky”, and such can no longer be used to describe her since she is past the age of possible to be called “cute”), and has a mellow easy going personality. Those type of guys with the height genes are the “type” that girls who have insecurities go for en masse. I’ve seen it in multiple cases with my own eyes with petite southeastern asian females who swarm tall “white” guys like ants towards a chocolate bar in the summer heat.
Then she says “13 year old girls, I am so petrified of them….” …and “so when I see a group of 13 year old girls, I so badly want to be included by them…”
Personal Psychological Assessment:
Why would a girl around 30 years old with so much more experience, money, and success be afraid of 13 year old girls? Let’s look at it from the size perspective. Could it be that most 13 year old girls on average are already at her height or slightly taller, and are still growing? Maybe how tall 13 year old girls are compared to her petite frame makes her realize just how small she is and it is extremely difficult for her unconscious to accept. She looks at her world, her husband, and her world and realize that maybe one day many years in the future, one of these 13 year old girls will grow to become much taller than her, be younger than her, and start laughing and taunting her at how small she is. By that time she would still be at the same height, while everyone else, but especially the young girls have all become taller than her. Of course she would be older then, and the taunting, laughs, and discrimination will start all over again since she will be both small and old and start loosing her looks, just like in Middle School bullying.
Being small but young means you still can be called “cute” or “spunky”. Being small and old means no one will even notice you anymore or just call you “funny” or “to try hard”. Will her tall husband one day stop looking at her and go for someone taller after say 10 years of blissful marriage? Maybe, since men care so much about physical attractiveness.
All I am trying to say that her fear in 13 year old girls are valid, and I think I can explain why she has that fear. She feels the competition slowly approaching, and the sight of girls who are still in middle school and already taller than her makes her feel threatened.
It is socially acceptable for her tall husband may be able to defend her from any type of come-ons by “short guys” but when it comes to the younger, taller middle school girls, her tall husband has his arms bind due to social rules. He can’t use his size to restrain 13 year old girls, or he would be thrown in jail for being accused to be a sex offender or something.
With 13 year old girls, Melissa has to defend herself agains the taller, younger girls with no chance of getting help form her above average in size husband. His job is to hold back the men, not the young girls. How does it feel to go against in any type of conflict against a younger, taller, opponent who know all of your tactics, tricks, and methods since they are so much like you in so many ways and plays the game in the same way? A scary thought.
In addition, due to how the rules of society works, Melissa can belittle “short” grown adult men without fear of reprisal since if any short adult came after her in revenge for her demeaning joke, he would be labeled the bad guy, be made fun of even more, call he another “angry short spiteful guy” and everyone will side with her and say she is the victim.
If a 13 year old girl went after her for her jokes , it would be much more socially acceptable, and people will side with the younger girls.
So the point it, if there was any type of verbal conflict, she can’t win against the 13 year old girls, but she will always win against the short adult men. This is the way society’s rules are constructed and she knows well her weaknesses and which demographics she does not want to contend with since she will surely loss.
On a side note, there are more thoughts made by others on her psychological intentions…
One commenter states this rather revealing fact which few heterosexual females would ever be willing to admit in public due to fear of social reprisal...”It’s true – short girls want a tall guy to compensate for their lack of height.”
Another commenter may have hit her psychology on why she is afraid of teenager middle school aged girls much better than I would ever be able to do…
“I imagine a tall guy would be startled by a tall woman too. Imagine being the biggest in your class ever since you remember. It made you feel pretty good and you never took advantage of your height in a malicious manner and it has earned you some friends.
All of a sudden you see a girl who is around your height. I imagine it would throw you off for second or so. That’s what I think of with this interview. She’s terrified because her tiny size makes her feel a lot more vulnerable than most. So, that’s why she got a taller guy. She may never have any confrontations, and having a taller guy makes her at least feel safer in that regard.
Besides I think she’s the first ever person to be scared of us shorties. Who has ever said that?”
This was very interesting to read.
Gave up after 2nd paragraph. Look a little bit closer to home re the issues pal.
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I have the same complex. I am terrified about 13 yeard old girls. But I am asian so my race soft a litttle my short height 4`10 – 4 `11 but it doesn`t stop me to feel like I am a dwarft . At least she has a nice body, she has curve. My body has few curves. What I can not complain is that even I am in my 30`s I have a nice face with youth factions. I can be really really pretty.
Are you a woman or a man?
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By the way you can be taller if you lengthen your legs.
Just that you suggest she’s being “insensitive” by mocking short men is sad – everyone gets a trophy. That’s the world we live in, no one can just be happy with who they are and accept their imperfections. I am less than an inch taller than this actress and I actually agree, even though she was surely trying to be funny. It is so rare I an look a man in the eye that when a really short man, maybe 5’4″ or less is next to me I fee awkward. When teenagers are near me, I feel odd because they’re all bigger than me. The men who are well over 6 ft are odd too….most of them don’t even see me. I can’t tell you how many times I literally had a very tall man walk right in to me and say he didn’t see me. I believe he didn’t but my point is taller, shorter, fatter, skinner, darker, lighter….smarter or “stupid-er” change what you can, be happy with what you can’t change. I can never be tall…and it is a myth that lengthening your legs to any amount that will make a difference for a short person can be done. I can’t find clothes in a normal store, petites sizes are a usually a bit big and kids clothes don’t fit right. If everyone else gets special treatment why don’t I have an easier time finding clothes that fit?
Everyone is a minority these days and every minority group gets special treatment now days. I am barely 30 and so tired of hearing about how everyone is discriminated against but I am still too short to legally sit in the front seat of a car – but of course I do. Everyone is “insensitive” but we applaud those who are fat – yet, fat not some polite way of saying you eat too much and don’t move enough. A thyroid problem adds 10-20 pounds….it doesn’t making a person 200 pounds. No one under 6 feet should be over 200 pounds, unless they’re a serious body builder. Stop worrying about hurting everyone’s feelings because we’ve now made is acceptable to be morbidly obese, which means our country as a whole is killing itself. We have an actual epidemic of fat people who can’t control themselves. If you only purchase one apple then you can only eat one apple. Even if you have a real food addiction, which is actually quite rare – if you don’t buy larger sized clothing then you have to find a way to fit in to what you have by exercising to burn off the 5000 calories a day. A food addiction doesn’t mean you can’t exercise and a person doesn’t gain 300 pounds or even 50 pounds overnight. Fat people need to take some responsibility for their own actions….but people like this author tell them isn’t not their fault and we need to be more ‘sensitive’….which means we allow them to gain so much weight that they shorten their life. We’re so worried about hurting their feelings we help them kill themselves slowly. Terrible.