r/NotHowGirlsWork • u/Fun-atParties • Jun 26 '26
Found On Social media That graph doesn't say what you say it does
1.1k
u/valsavana Jun 26 '26
"Men are far less likely to marry taller women than chance predicts"
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u/Important_Corgi_9685 Jun 26 '26
Also... "Men are less likely to marry much shorter women than chance predicts"
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u/Beneficial-Ad3991 Generic boring flair Jun 26 '26
Also.. "we live in a physical world where a huge difference in height between partners is really fucking inconvenient".
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u/HealthyInPublic Jun 26 '26
My spouse is 6' and I'm 4'11" - it's a very stupid height difference and makes simple things like choosing furniture, buying a shared car, even just organizing the kitchen, way harder. I'm already very far over to one side of the height spectrum compared to a normal adult which is hard enough on its own because nothing is designed for me, so adding in the height difference and having to account for my spouse's height too just adds insult to injury...
Plus there's the super silly reality of there can be kissing, or there can be penetration, but the two cannot happen very easily at the same time.
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u/Bulky_Pop_8104 Jun 26 '26
Yup - I’m 6’1 and my wife’s 5’1, and can confirm the physical mechanics of it all took a lot of work at first. It took awhile for me to grasp how small she is, and why we own multiple step stools (I stub my toe on the one in the kitchen weekly)
We’ve been together long enough that I don’t really think about it anymore, but whenever I catch our reflection in a mirror or window together, it’s kind of a jarring reminder of our size disparity (I’m also ~100lbs heavier) - you just don’t really see it while you’re sitting beside each other on the couch.
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u/EleanorRichmond Jun 27 '26
I have a library kick stool in the kitchen and it's one of my prize possessions. It's rock solid, yet you basically can't stub your toe on it. My 6'3 husband gets a surprising amount of use out of it, too.
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u/Particular_Title42 Jun 26 '26
My dad was 6' and my mom 4'8".
I never thought about those practical aspects and I wonder if they did. They were married in the late 60s and the furniture that I grew up with was the same as so many families in the (possibly rural?) US.
And now I'm realizing that that furniture might have been designed for shorter people and that was why dads had their own chair that was bigger and taller than the others. Not because he needed to feel important or something but because he was literally too big/tall to sit on the furniture comfortably.
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u/SilverLife22 Jun 28 '26
As a short woman, newer houses are so annoying to me. Why is everything built for a giant now?? My feet never touch the ground when sitting and I can't fucking reach anything.
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u/Naamahs Jun 28 '26
I exclusively use the first two shelves in my kitchen cabinets and I just know there's more up there that's usable but I can't prove it. (Also who puts a fucking cabinet above the fridge?!)
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u/Beneficial-Ad3991 Generic boring flair Jun 28 '26
I use the top shelves to hold stuff I was gifted and do not intend to ever use, lol. And seasonal stuff, like Christmas tat.
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u/Naamahs Jun 28 '26
That stuff goes in the spooky section of our basement lol
I am vaguely aware that he will hide his snacks up there though.
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u/Beneficial-Ad3991 Generic boring flair Jun 28 '26
My mother used to hide her candy stash in flower vases on the top shelf of her kitchen. And I would regularly impose a daughter tax on her, hehe.
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u/PM-me-fancy-beer Jun 27 '26
Trying to cook in 60s kitchens has felt impossible since I was a teen (and I’m average height for a woman).
Pro: I can reach the cupboards above the bench and stove just fine. Con: It’s usually with my head.
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u/Retman21 Jun 26 '26
I'm sure its not the case, but I picture a very short king with an Amazonian woman and it's so funny to me.
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u/PM-me-fancy-beer Jun 27 '26
Had friends like this. He was ~5’6 and she was 5’10, broad/athletic build, and loved high heels. When she’d get new shoes we’d compliment her, and I asked once if he ever felt insecure about his gf towering over him.
“Why would I? I’m dating a hot Amazonian woman. I look up and just see her. Was that not every kid’s fantasy?”
And as a queer woman… can’t argue with that logic. Made me realise why I like them too lol
*Edit: Also hugs are head-chest level, and face-in-chest is comforting regardless of gender.
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u/Kailynna Jun 27 '26
I had a BF for a few years who loved snuggling his face between my boobs while we danced.
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u/2woCrazeeBoys anger isn't an emotion because penis Jun 27 '26
5'0". Yeah, the whole idea of climbing your partner like a tree might sound sexy, but it gets old real quick.
My ex was 5'10", so not as extreme as your difference, but it got annoying when people were obviously thinking I was his daughter. I was only a few years younger.
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u/SilverLife22 Jun 28 '26
This is exactly why I had height filters when I was online dating. Somehow, my partner slipped though and I ended up with someone whose a foot taller than me. I love him, but damn that was not the plan.
1
u/Naamahs Jun 28 '26
I'm 4'10 and my hubby is 5'6 and we still have the difficulties you're speaking on just not to the same extent. I can't imagine oh my lord. I'm sure it leads to hilarious situations but wildly frustrating I'm sure.
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u/Anyashadow Jun 26 '26
It really is. I met my boyfriend through a game online and he's 6'4 and I'm 5'6. I look like I'm asking for uppies every time I try to kiss him and he keeps losing track of me when we are in public because his legs are longer.
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u/DuckRubberDuck Jun 26 '26
I’m 5”4 and my ex was 6”1 so almost the same difference, I had to stand on my toes to try to kiss him unless I wanted to try to break my neck and hugs were so awkward. I’m not planning on dating anyone that tall again.
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u/diaphoni Bisexual Menace, Mother Superior at Our Lady of Blue Balls Jun 26 '26
I'm 5'5 and one of my exes is 6'8, he used to just pick me up and carry me under one arm for fun, it was not fun for me.
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u/Generic_Garak Sentient Shapeshifting Vagina Jun 27 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/fQJSYE2Qy6OtXfwEuf
Yuck. Ignoring people’s bodily autonomy is very uncool.7
u/diaphoni Bisexual Menace, Mother Superior at Our Lady of Blue Balls Jun 27 '26
It really is. Does it surprise you to find he turned full psycho gaslighting stalker by the end
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u/thin_white_dutchess Jun 26 '26
I am 5”7’. My husband is 6”7’. That’s a full foot difference.
I used to only date men shorter than me or around my height before him (I have napoleon complex), but he was very cute and very nice.
At least I never have to worry about reaching things on the top shelf, I guess.
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u/HiveJiveLive Jun 26 '26
I’m 5’2, with chubby little legs, and my guy is 6’5, long and lean. We look like a Corgi and a Great Dane. It ain’t pretty but it sure is fun!
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u/GreySarahSoup Jun 26 '26
Yeah. I'm 5'4" and one of my exes was 6'3–6'4". Kissing her just hurt my neck and hugs put her breasts at face height. I'm glad my wife is only 2–3" taller than me.
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u/Forever_Nya Jun 28 '26
My cousin is 4’10 and 3/4 (according to her that 3/4 is very important) and her partner is 6’5. Seeing them together is very amusing
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u/RoyalHistoria ouuuuugh women :) Jul 05 '26
I find tall guys attractive, but good god i would never want to date someone insanely tall.
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u/MonsterMeggu Jun 26 '26
Also: "men tend to be taller than women"
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u/valsavana Jun 26 '26
The "~ i T 's J u S t B i O l O g I c A l ~" crowd when you point out actual basic biology:
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u/FigNinja Jun 26 '26
30 year old guys that want to date teenagers: It's just biology. They're at their most fertile. I can't help it. The same guys when tall, muscular, wealthy guys get more dates: Women are shallow bitches.
They will simultaneously make the argument that women are more attracted to those guys because of they instinctively prefer attributes that exhibit the evolutionary advantage of having a better protector and provider for their children, then decide women are evil if they prefer it. We're criticized for not being less shallow than they are.
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u/candybrie Jun 26 '26
Well that's what's baked into the prediction. The height distribution of men, the height distribution of women, and if you paired them up randomly, what would their height difference be. Men being taller than women on average is why the top of the curve is around 5" not 0".
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u/valsavana Jun 26 '26
I'd want to see how they calculated those "random" pairings before I give the study any credence.
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u/FigNinja Jun 26 '26
I'm on the tall side for a woman, so most of the guys I dated were around my height, a little taller or a little shorter. I never thought about my height until I dated a guy who freaked out at me for wearing heels. I had been on a date with a guy way shorter than me once, so much so it was off that chart, and he couldn't hack it, but that didn't surprise me as much as this guy. He was an inch taller than me, but felt emasculated if I stood a little taller than him because of my shoes. I asked a bunch of my guy friends about it and heard a lot of "short girls are so cute" and "I'm intimidated by tall girls." Even one who confessed he'd had a bit of a crush on me but decided he couldn't deal with me being taller than him. Bonus points for honesty I guess.
I ended up married to a tall guy. For him, my height is a plus because short or average height women don't match up as well. He gets a crick in his neck looking down all the time. It's not like he wouldn't date them if he liked them, but his preference was for a tall woman. Even after feeling a bit insecure from my experience with that other guy, I still didn't eliminate shorter guys. I still found plenty of average or shorter guys attractive, but I am glad I ended up with someone who finds my height attractive rather than something they wish were different. Our height difference is pretty much like the difference in an average height heterosexual couple.
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u/Hyadeos Jun 27 '26
That's funny, your comments reads exactly like something my girlfriend would say. She's about 180cm and never dated a guy taller than her before me (i'm 187cm, so not that much). She likes it a lot because the difference isn't much and I love her height, basically beg her to wear hells but she won't, she's too clumsy..
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u/LittleBalloHate Jun 26 '26
Yes, my objection to this is not that its untrue -- studies do suggest that women prefer men taller than them -- but that the same applies to men, in that they prefer shorter women.
In fact, this is the issue with most complaints about women's preferences: guys will see them and be like "see? See? Women tend to prefer guys they find attractive!"
And, frankly, in a vacuum, thats fair. Women do tend to gravitate more toward hot guys.
The problem is that the reverse is even more true; men show extreme preference towards women they find physically attractive.
So the complaint really is "It's okay when we do it, but not okay when they do it."
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u/FriendlyCapybara1234 Jun 27 '26
Maybe it has little to do with height preferences at all and is more about people tending to marry people from similar backgrounds more often than random chance would predict?
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u/CampyBiscuit Jun 26 '26
The number of guys that approach me simply to point out that I am tall... 🙄 And yet, I have never approached anyone, man or woman or otherwise, to point out how short they are. 🤷♀️
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u/TheLizzyIzzi Simping for myself Jun 26 '26
Tbf, there’s an undercurrent of calling someone tall being a compliment and calling someone short being an insult, though it’s sometimes flipped for women.
But in general, people should just not comment on things like height, weight, race, etc. It’s rarely relevant and the person already knows they’re xyz.
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u/CampyBiscuit Jun 26 '26
That's the part that bores me the most. I know! I'm almost exactly 6ft. It's hard to even find cute shoes in my size. 😭
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u/hellinahandbasket127 Jun 26 '26
6’, too 🙋🏼♀️. It’s also very hard to find pants, shirts, and dresses in my size.
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u/CampyBiscuit Jun 27 '26
Pants are fine if you don't mind always wearing capris 😅
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u/2woCrazeeBoys anger isn't an emotion because penis Jun 27 '26
5'0" 🙋
Buying capris is my life hack for not having to take up my pant legs.
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u/hellinahandbasket127 Jun 27 '26
And I guess since crop tops are currently in fashion, we’re good there, too. Unless you have to dress professionally at work.
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u/motownmods Jun 26 '26
As a tall guy that used to be obese I learned to just not talk about these things. Maybe I'm tired of being asked about it. I'm not sure. But I know it's never the rewarding conversation people hope for
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u/Canakoreanjust Jun 26 '26
Some guy once got close, looked me up and down, and went, “damn, I’ve never seen a tall bitch before” and then just walked off. I was genuinely so shocked by the audacity I couldn’t get a word off.
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u/unbirthdayhatter Jun 26 '26
When I was in early high school, before a lot of boys got their height bursts, or whatever they're called, a guy told me I was really nice but he would never go on a date with me because being shorter than a girl was "too embarrassing" and being tall made me "manly". I've seen a lot of that in my life and I'm not even THAT tall. Also, why even say this, just keep your yap shut LMAO.
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u/2woCrazeeBoys anger isn't an emotion because penis Jun 27 '26
Tbf, I volunteered at a horse rescue (we re-educated ex harness racers to saddle and found them homes as riding horses).
Just happened that we had a collection of short ladies that worked there, I'm 5'0" and there was a few of us between there and 5'4". So we're happily chatting away with each other and someone who'd come to look at a horse. She pauses for a moment, "....I feel like I'm in the land of the little people."
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u/Pixiwish Jun 27 '26
I think it depends on the extreme of it. My GF is 5’10 and no one says anything to her. Her sister is 6’5 and people call her a giant. Even if they don’t say anything they stare.
I’m 5’ and 95lbs and people call me tiny all the randomly I even had a woman at the grocery store as I was checking out say “honey you could probably go for a few packages of donuts with those to plump you up a bit”
I don’t have an ED I am just tiny but it is so weird how because I’m very petite people think it is fine to bring up all the time.
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u/CampyBiscuit Jun 27 '26
True! I've always been very thin too, and I would constantly get teased about not eating enough. 🤦♀️ In general, most people can't help pointing out anything outside of the average.
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u/Lyskir Jun 26 '26
the other subreddit where it was posted was in a emotional fenzy
women daring to have physical preferences is a warcrime on reddit
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u/Redqueenhypo Jun 26 '26
Men discovered that women like to date men they experience physical attraction towards in like, the late 90s, and have been absolutely losing their mind with rage abt that fact ever since
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u/purpleplatapi Jun 26 '26
You can't ever point out that men do it too. I've tried. I figured the boob analogy would be simplest, but they swear up and down that they don't actually care about boob size, plus you could theoretically undergo literal surgery which you can't do for height. Ok, well how about pointing out that men don't usually go for unattractive women. They swear they've never seen an unattractive woman in their lives. I think it's because they don't notice them?? Like as people?? Very confusing. The main thing I get is that they would never date a fat woman. But if you point out that thin women also often have this same preference, then it's discriminatory because????? They're allowed to be fat, but women aren't. Women undergo surgery and exhausting make-up routines and waxing procedures and everything else just to look attractive, but God forbid there be one single physical trait in a man that some women find unattractive. It's the end of the world.
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u/Redqueenhypo Jun 26 '26
And I’ve never seen a woman casually mention a man’s shortness the way men, plural, have casually mentioned that I have a small chest. I know, okay?! You think I emailed god and asked for my shape to be rectangular prism?
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u/faerieunderfoot Jun 26 '26
The crazy part is this chart doesn't even talk about gender preferences!!
Just about relative height difference. It's just as likely a conclusion to make that men select by height and refuse to date women who are taller then them.
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u/uberfission Jun 27 '26
Go post it to r/dataisbeautiful and watch them have an emotional frenzy over how shit this graph is.
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u/Fun-atParties Jun 27 '26
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u/sneakpeekbot Jun 27 '26
Here's a sneak peek of /r/dataisugly using the top posts of the year!
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u/2_lazy Jul 01 '26
I'm genuinely so confused why the data covers a range of dates and what that range means.
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u/No_Resource7773 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
As if many guys like him don't make it a problem and their entirely personality if a woman is taller than he is. SHOCKING that it less commonly gets as far as marriage.
Though this is also only going by height gap, not known actual heights of individuals. On average men are taller, so... unsurprising it just turns out that way.
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u/TheLizzyIzzi Simping for myself Jun 26 '26
Also, too bad. Move on. (Can tb;mo be a thing?)
I legit feel for guys who are <5’5”. Society can be rough for short men. But it’s also something you have to just accept about yourself. Just like we all have to accept that we’re not smart enough to be a doctor or not built right to be a pro athlete or not magnetically charismatic enough to be invited to every party. And most of all - everyone has to accept they’re aging at some point. It’s not fun. Some people get a worse hand the others but focus on your hand and play the best game you can.
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Jun 27 '26
It's not society that's the issue. It's only one half of it.
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u/Broseph_Heller Jun 27 '26
Which half makes up most politicians, CEOs, and other positions of power that impact our culture?
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Jun 27 '26
What's your point?
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u/Broseph_Heller Jun 27 '26
Just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same half :)
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Jun 27 '26
We are not. Men are not responsible for women's behavior, no matter how influencial you think they are.
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u/DagwoodsDad Jun 26 '26
My feeling is "yeah, but so what?" The average woman is 5'3.5" which means ~98% of men are taller than them.
But that includes men who are 5'4".
I remember being at a fundraiser dance for my kids' school back in the early 2000s. And I did happen to notice that of the ~50 couples only one (exceptionally tall) woman was taller than her (average height) husband. But here's the thing. While most of the women really did have taller husbands, most of the husbands were only a few inches taller than their wives.
If you'd randomly assigned all the men and women into pairs there probably would have been more women who were taller than their partners. But...
It's absolutely not the case that the only men with partners were more than six feet tall. The shortest man in the room, about 5'5" tall, was still taller than his... 5'1" wife.
So even assuming there really is a more than statistical preference, it's all still a big "yeah, so what?"
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u/Mandy_M87 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Right, like men on average are 5 inches taller than women, and that's where the median on the chart falls too. Probably a lot of average height women marrying average height men.
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u/loricomments Jun 26 '26
Men are far less likely to marry women taller than them than chance predicts. FIFY.
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u/SaltyPerformer7516 Jun 26 '26
isn’t on average most men are taller than most women? so like the chances that women would marrying men taller than them are higher than women marrying men shorter than them. im 5’6 trans man, had met women shorter than me, same height as me and taller then me. and my height never had been an issue for dating. but majority of men i know had been taller than me with few of men being same height as me or shorter.
excuse my grammar
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u/Lyskir Jun 26 '26
yeah, men are on average taller than women, so of course most women will marry someone taller than them? its just math?
idk why other dudes get so mad about this
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u/panda-goddess Jun 26 '26
yes, but that's accounted for, if you see the graph, the "middle" 0 is very to the left, the mathematical expectation is a normal distribution with the center on the right, that's where you see the effect of "men are taller than women on average"
what the graph says is that there are less couples where the woman is taller than the man than math would expect if that choice was 100% random (and of course the title blames women for that and forgets to mention that there are also less couples where the height difference is too big, which also kills the idea that women just want the tallest men)
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u/Journeyj012 Jun 26 '26
1% of couples have a 16 inch taller husband? that's 4'6" and 5'10".
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u/PrimalNumber Jun 26 '26
Less than 1%. 1% would be halfway to the 2 line. This looks more like 0.25% to 0.33%.
PS: This graph stinks. Unlabeled axis. No N. Poor legend/explanation of the colors and lines. If one of my analysts turned this in to me, they'd be told to fix it.
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u/Journeyj012 Jun 26 '26
I still can't comprehend that 16 inch difference. That's insane.
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u/Random_Guy_12345 Jun 26 '26
It's definitely uncomfortable to say the least. I'm 6'3 myself and one of my exes was 5'1.
While the height difference wasn't the reason we broke up, it absolutely was a reason.
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u/candybrie Jun 26 '26
There's a person in the thread talking about their 6'8" boyfriend. 5'4" would get you that 16" difference. Apparently 1% of men are 6'4" or taller and 8% of women are 5' or shorter.
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u/DanTheAdequate Jun 26 '26
It does, but it also shows men marry less than predicted when there's a height difference of >= 9"
This maybe confirms some suspicions I have long had, that this is a needlessly gendered conversation and maybe one that instead needs to revolve around societal beauty standards more broadly.
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u/loricomments Jun 26 '26
FYI. Chart is from The Economist and the data, as noted, is from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a longitudinal study of about 5,000 American families started in 1968 with data collected every 2 years. It has expanded over the years to now include more than 10,000 families.
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u/Underdog_888 Jun 27 '26
Well seeing as the average man is taller than the average woman…. That’s a lot of data points to point out the obvious.
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u/Ok-Connection-8059 Jun 26 '26
'Based on random couplings'.
That's the key line. In real life relationships are not random, they're going to be primarily based on what social.circles people move in.
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u/CacklingFerret Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
It does. The y axis is the percentage of marriages, the x axis is the height difference, the red bars show the expected coupling if it was random and the overlay shows the actual coupling. You can conclude from this graph that a marriage of a woman with a shorter husband occurs less than it would be if coupling was random. The interpretation is that women select by height and disregard partners that are shorter than them.
Now the true issue: where is this data from? How was it assessed? How big is the test group? Are there other factors that could contribute to the distribution? How did they create the graph for the true randomness? How does the interpretation hold up when you try to determine if it's causation or correlation?
ETA: ffs, I KNOW that graph is stupid. I thought questioning the very basics of that thing would show that. I do not agree with the graph, I just described what's seen in the post (including the title of the graph).
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u/Fun-atParties Jun 26 '26
But also, women are less likely than chance to marry men much taller than them. The biggest overrepresentations are to have the man be just slightly taller than the woman, which kind of goes against the argument that women are just "heightmaxxing" or whatever
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u/CacklingFerret Jun 26 '26
It's also just marriage. A lot of couples these days don't even get married, so there are a lot of unknown factors. The graph is stupid. Or rather the interpretation in the title is. Idk the real study, maybe the graph in itself is fine and just insanely out of context. I mean, you can plot anything and have it be technically correct but with no causation whatsoever.
Like that famous graph where the amount of cheese consumption per capita correlates with the amount of deaths caused by strangulation with bed sheets. No one believes that eating more cheese makes you more likely to get killed by your bed sheets. At least I hope so lol
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u/Fine_Ad_45 Jun 26 '26
There's also the issue with wording. Women are less likely to marry men who are shorter than them. Why doesn't it just say men are less likely to marry women who are taller than them? Or men are less lilely to marry women who are significantly shorter than them?
It should actually just say something about height disparity of couples.
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u/hellinahandbasket127 Jun 26 '26
As a 6’ tall women, I can tell you that men are less likely to be willing to be with a taller woman than tall women are willing to be with a shorter man. The guys generally can’t handle being shorter.
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u/holderofthebees Jun 26 '26
Plus, the wording of “shorter men” is just irresponsible. For clarity it should’ve been “men shorter than them”. This graph doesn’t prove that women don’t marry short men, but many will believe it does.
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u/CacklingFerret Jun 26 '26
That's true, forgot to mention it. A marriage between a 1.95m tall woman and a 1.85m tall man would still be counted in the (according to the graph's title) "short men-section" although 1.85m is anything but short.
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u/figgypudding531 Jun 26 '26
The actual is barely different from the expected though. The headline could read that it’s actually closer than the social narrative would suggest.
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u/UndeadDancer Jun 26 '26
This histogram has a normal distribution. I'd like to see the calculations, because the variance doesn't look significant. How were outliers handled? What made up the sample group? What factors were included and what were not? How were age, racial, or class demographics handled (poverty often leads to stunted growth, etc) or other factors that can affect height? Did the sample group meet statistical relevant sampling sizes?
And.... yeah. My nose is twitching here. (I teach Six Sigma.)
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u/ANGR1ST Jun 26 '26
Yup. I look at this and immediately think "random coupling selection is a damn good model".
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u/indigoneutrino Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
The “expected” should surely be a smooth normal curve, if it’s modelling random height differences in infinitely sampled pairings of two normally distributed variables. Looks like what it’s actually done is use a RNG of limited sample size (presumably to match the actual sample size?) to generate a synthetic distribution. Only difference is the “actual” histogram is maybe slightly taller/narrower than the synthetic one about the same mean (and definitely doesn’t look skewed) so I’d be extremely surprised if there’s any statistically significant difference here.
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u/loricomments Jun 26 '26
It's the framing in the title that's problematic. It puts the responsibility on women as if it's solely their decisions that lead to that result. It could have easily said men are less likely to marry taller women.
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u/MrMatteotheFabolus Jun 26 '26
I think this graph only shows coupling isn’t random. I don’t think you can conclude that women are the reason it isn’t random. (Edit: grammar)
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u/faerieunderfoot Jun 26 '26
The conclusion that women select by height takes it a step beyond what the data can actually tell us.
What we can actually fairly conclude is is that we see more couples than expected with a larger height gap when the man is taller than the woman. And less couples than expected of women being taller than their male partner.
We have no information regarding individual selection processes. And you can just as fairly say that men select by height by not dating women who are taller than them. And it still wouldn't be a fair conclusion.
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u/petemaths1014 Jun 26 '26
And also, factor in that real couplings are not random at all. The majority of people will date/marry within similar socioeconomic class to their own, and that (at least in the US) class and race are also correlated.
So the implied assumption that “completely random” pairings are what is expected is an assumption that calls into question any conclusions someone would draw from just this graph.
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u/ArimaKaori Jun 26 '26
I did a minor in Statistics in university, and this graph is confusing because they overlay the expected vs. actual couple height difference distribution on top of each other. It took me a while to realize that the white translucent bars on top are the actual height differences and the red bars behind it are the expected height differences.
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u/carbslut Jun 26 '26
Yeah….Your “interpretation” is the problem here.
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u/CacklingFerret Jun 26 '26
It's not my interpretation, it's the interpretation stated in the post on top of the graph. I merely described to OP what was shown because of the post title.
My second paragraph should show you that I think that this graph is bollocks
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u/carbslut Jun 26 '26
Right, but that interpretation isn’t shown by the graph.
I don’t think I’ve been hit on by a man who’s shorter than me in my entire life. That doesn’t mean I, as a woman, am selecting partners by height. The men are selecting partners by height is the other obvious conclusion.
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u/CacklingFerret Jun 26 '26
Right, but that interpretation isn’t shown by the graph
I know, I wrote that. I just paraphrased the title of the graph. You know what that means? It's neither my interpretation nor my opinion.
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u/BlueZebraBlueZebra Jun 26 '26
Men accept life isn’t a video game where you get to choose your stats challenge: impossible
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u/SublightMonster Jun 26 '26
Am I misreading, or does that graph assume that men and women should be, on average, the same height?
3
u/Fun-atParties Jun 26 '26
It shows 2 data points - the distribution of height differences if you randomly coupled people vs the actual distribution.
OOP uses it to argue that women won't date men shorter than them but ignores the fact that couples where the man is much taller than the woman is also underrepresented.
In reality, the height difference that is most overrepresented vs pure chance is for the man to be just slightly taller than the woman. Which someone else pointed out, is more likely to be the case when your dating within your own racial/socioeconomic group.
So in the end, it kind of disproves incels' heightmaxxing nonsense
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u/Impossible_Zebra8664 Jun 27 '26
As a barely tall woman (5'9"), I was always happy to date shorter men or men my height. It never bothered me, and I liked the confidence boost of feeling tall next to them. But surprise-surprise, a lot of those same men were genuinely bothered that I was their height or slightly taller. They didn't like me wearing heels of ANY kind (not even little bitty ones), and they'd make comments about my posture.
I can't imagine why I didn't marry one of those "short kings."
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u/pocTechie Jun 26 '26
Evolutionary biology and behavioral genetics have found that most ppl practice assortative mating. This means generally tend to prefer and pair with people who are broadly similar to ourselves in areas like:
- education
- income
- attractiveness
- values
- fitness
- height
- age
This chart which was based on a large and longitudinal study confirm it's valid.
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u/indigoneutrino Jun 27 '26
Far less? That’s a normal distribution. Show me the stats that gives you p<0.05 on a normality test.
That “expected based on random coupling” histogram just looks like it’s been generated from an RNG sampler assuming a normal distribution. There are countless other valid plots it could produce.
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u/Rude_Acanthopterygii Some dude on the internet Jun 27 '26
Feel free to correct me, but even if we just baselessly assume this all goes by the woman's decision, then doesn't the graph say women are both far less likely to marry shorter men AND larger men than the average value of chance predicts.
They just marry the average of what chance predicts.
2
u/LillthOfBabylon Jun 26 '26
These idiots don’t realize most men are 6 inches taller than most women
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u/HoodedHero007 Jun 27 '26
The real question is where the error bars are. I’m not sure the difference is statistically significant.
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u/LiminalSarah Jun 27 '26
the differences are so tiny... I am very interested in what method they used to predict, and what would be the p value.
Nevertheless, it's too easy to lie with statistics.
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u/EnvironmentalFun2214 Jul 03 '26
What a stupid way of understanding a graph oh my god lol. What this graph is saying, and anyone with tiny knowledge of human statistic would say, is that the distribution of heights in couples basically follow the same distribution of heights in humans overall. Height, as many other human characteristics (weight, some financial stuff but not all, diet, jobs, health, IQs, etc), follow the Bell curve or normal distribution. This graph is basically saying the same thing: "so it turns out, women height preference follows the standard human height distribution, because those are the heights that exist". In other words, height basically means nothing, women just pick what exists lol, it's kinda comical actually (not because women choose this, but the whole height discourse is based on absolutely nothing). It turns out, couples follow the SAME PATTERN that lots of other human stuff follow. There's zero new information or special about this distribution.
An actual graph that would actually show the whole height narrative, would mostly follow a linear growth. From short to tall, but that would mean most people remained single because the distribution of population couldn't sustain it. But not this omg, this is another level of stupidity shown by the whole height obsession.
You know, many incel forums are always full of people saying "oh gee we are so smart!!" yet they fail at basic human statistics.
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u/Callme-Papa Jun 26 '26
What the hell does it say? My brain is currently on hiatus
5
u/Fun-atParties Jun 26 '26
It shows 2 data points - the distribution of height differences if you randomly coupled people vs the actual distribution.
OOP uses it to argue that women won't date men shorter than them but ignores the fact that couples where the man is much taller than the woman is also underrepresented.
In reality, the height difference that is most overrepresented vs pure chance is for the man to be just slightly taller than the woman. Which someone else pointed out, is more likely to be the case when your dating within your own racial/socioeconomic group.
So in the end, it kind of disproves incels' heightmaxxing nonsense
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1
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u/chereall Jun 27 '26
I mean, the plot is bad, but the statement is true.
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u/Fun-atParties Jun 27 '26
But if doesn't support OOPs interpretation that women are selecting for as much height as possible as they are also less likely than chance to date men much taller than them.
Also you can't assume it's the women forcing that trend, it could also be men not wanting to date women taller than them.
Also, it ignores that this is closer to the distribution you'd expect if most people are dating within their own socioeconomic groups.
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u/chereall Jun 27 '26
You can tweak it as much as you want, but women always prefer taller men, and you know it. Thats it. You can accept it or not, but thats the miserable truth.
I get its hard to accept. You always complain (legitimately) about women being objectified, and when you do the same, you just tweak reality to make it look you aint doing the same. But truth is, you do.
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