ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

When I was a freshman at BYU, somehow the subject of my height came up in Latin class, and one of the girls said something like, “Well, Jack is taller than the average girl.” The teacher blinked for a moment and then blurted out, “Taller than the average girl? Jack’s taller than the average guy!” It made me want to slink lower into my chair.

It’s true though. At 6’0″, I tower above the national average height for women (5’4″) and beat the national average height for men (5’9″) by a few inches. And while shorter people can do a few things to make themselves appear taller, height is one of the few things about your physical appearance which you cannot cosmetically change. There is little you can do to make yourself appear shorter, you just have to embrace it.

While being tall certainly has perks in itself, being so much taller than my gender has caused me no end of pain. So, in no particularly order, I present the pitfalls of tall.

9. Shoes ~ I’m not a shoe person for the simple reason that trendy women’s shoes usually come with heels while cute flats are difficult to find. Even a modest 2″ heel makes me 6’2″, while the more stylish 3″ and 4″ heels make me into an anomalous 6’3″ or 6’4″. What woman wants to be that tall? I own a few pairs of modest flats and that’s what I wear. It’s a shame because I really do like the line created by high heels, but I just won’t do it.

Ironically, my husband is only just barely taller than me, but he thinks it’s totally sexy when I wear heels that make me way taller than him. Go figure.

8. When I go out ~ Don’t you just hate it when you go to the mall, people see you and their eyes immediately shift from your face to your breasts ankles? Yup, it’s true. I see eyes moving downward from my face all the time, clean past my rack (nothing special to see there, trust me) and on to my feet. They’re curious to see if my height is at least in part due to heels. It’s not. Please stop looking at my ankles.

7. Good [tall] men are hard to find ~ Study after study has declared the same thing: women prefer taller men. We just seem to be hard-wired that way, and tall women are no exception. When I was single I knew, logically, that if I only dated taller men I was seriously reducing my potential dating pool, but I didn’t care. I had a hard time being attracted to a guy who was shorter than me, and lack of attraction is a hard barrier to overcome.

Then again, it’s not impossible for me to be attracted to a shorter guy. My crush on Jason Statham has been a running gag in our family, and he’s only about 5’9″. In case you’re wondering, my husband knows better than to come between me and Jason.

6. Short girls be stealin’ da tall men ~ Us tall women hate it when we see a guy who is well over 6 foot holding hands with a tiny sprig of a woman who is barely 5 foot. We feel like a potential candidate from our limited dating pond has been pilfered by someone who had the entire ocean open to fish from. Short women who land tall guys would probably interject at this point that they can’t help who they fell in love with, they think tall men are hot too, they won their tall lads fair and square and if we don’t like it we can bite them. That’s fair enough.

Still, I’ve long mulled what the attraction is in such a relationship. I would think a tall man would rather have a tall woman so that he has a better chance of passing tall genes on to his children.

A tall male friend of mine who is best described as “worldly” once told me that it’s because you can do more things with short girls… in the bedroom.

Hmm. Perhaps that’s the dirty secret behind this dynamic.

5. Shirts ~ Long-sleeved shirts are a heartache for me. They are never long enough to actually cover my wrist, and wearing shirts that stop in the middle of my forearm just looks stupid. Short-sleeve and three-quarter length sleeves are fine, but I’ve learned to stay away from long-sleeved shirts over the years.

Part of the reason I adore tank tops, halter tops, and corset tops is because I can’t expand the variety in my wardrobe through long sleeves, so I expand it through sleeveless attire.

4. Tall ≠ fat ~ Whether it’s shirts or jeans, for some reason the clothing designers got together one day and decided that tall women = fat women. I’m not fat; in fact, I think I have quite possibly the world’s fastest metabolism. It doesn’t matter how much junk food I eat, I never see it on me. When I was pregnant I was constantly fighting to put on enough weight to sustain my pregnancy, and I was able to fit back into my pre-pregnancy jeans 3 weeks after I had my daughter. I have many challenges in my life, but worrying about my weight has never been one of them.

Generally, women’s shirts come in sizes XS, S, M, L, XL, and they grow in size as well as length the further up the scale you go. I may need a size “Large” shirt in order for it to comfortably cover my torso, but then the shirt is too big on me. Who wants to wear a tent? Likewise, tall jeans tend to quietly add more room in the hips and waist. I don’t like wearing jeans which have enough room for two asses.

3. Pants ~ Sigh. Forget about speciality pants in a wide variety of colors and styles becausethose never come in tall sizes. When most clothing lines say they have “tall” sizes, they mean they carry pants with 33″-34″ inseams. I need a 35″ inseam, minimum, and I’m much more comfortable in a 36″-37″ inseam. The only colors of pants I really own are khaki, black and miscellaneous blue jeans. I own a few pairs of men’s cargo pants for days when I really feel like lounging, but they just don’t do justice to my figure.

You can get specialty pants from companies like Tall Girl (see my links below), but they tend to be very expensive.

2. Skirts ~ At BYU, skirts had to come down to your knee. This was always something of a pain to me because skirts which come to the knee on a woman of normal height tend to stop several inches above my knees. I once had a professor threaten to call standards on me because my skirt was too short, and I told him to go for it. Nothing ever happened to me, so I guess either he changed his mind or the standards office decided it didn’t care about a tall woman showing off an extra 3″ of leg. Anyways, skirts which are supposed to be ankle-length stop awkwardly somewhere on my calf, and I’m not a fan of calf-length skirts, period.

When I can find skirts that fit me properly though, I just adore them. They’re my favorite thing in the world to wear.

1. Maternity Clothes ~ Not long after I got pregnant, the realization dawned on me that I was in trouble. Maternity clothes for tall women do not exist. I repeat: maternity clothes for tall women do not exist. I searched and I searched, and everywhere was the same. The “tall” section of maternity clothing lines never went past 33″ or 34″ inseams. The GAP, for example, has a wonderful “X-Long” line of pants which offers 36″ inseams in normal sizes, but their maternity sizes stop at 34″ inseams. I guess The GAP knows we exist, but they don’t think we have sex.

I wound up buying several pairs of 34″ inseam maternity pants from The GAP and extending their length by adding cuffs to the jeans or letting the ankle seam out. I stuck to maternity tank tops paired with my husband’s button-down shirts and got along fine that way.

Conclusion

In spite of all this, I actually really like being tall. If I could go back in time and stop growing at 5’8″ – 5’10″, I probably would, but since that isn’t an option I’ve learned to love the way God made me. Here is all the cool stuff about being tall:

~ I don’t need my husband to reach stuff off high shelves for me.

~ Deity was considered tall, which dovetails nicely with the meaning of my name, “Bridget”: “exalted one” or “high goddess.” Herodotus records that in the 6th century BC, Megacles and Pisistratus tricked the Athenians by having a tall woman named Phye impersonate the goddess Athena and declare Pisistratus to be tyrant. This is also why people are usually surprised when they meet celebrities in person and discover how normal their height is. Celebrities are “gods” in our culture, so we think of them as being very tall and are surprised at how teeny they are in real life.

~ Since my husband and I are both over 6’0″, my kids are pretty much guaranteed to be tall. My daughter is 2 (she’ll be 3 in June) and already over 40 inches tall.

~ When I do have an outfit that fits right, tall can leave a lasting impression, and it’s never very hard to get people’s attention.

Resources for Tall Women

Style J Denim Skirts ~ They have denim skirts in extra tall sizes (42″-43″) at affordable prices.

Vanity ~ One of my favorite stores, though sadly there aren’t any in my area of Washington state. You can shop online though, and they carry affordable jeans with inseams up to 37″. Their tops are just adorable as well.

Tall Girl ~ A more expensive option, but the clothes will fit. This is the place to check if you need a suit. Sadly their maternity section completely sucks. Pretty fail for a store that supposedly specializes in tall women’s clothing.

The GAP ~ They sell X-Long (36″ inseam) sizes online only, which kind of sucks if you like to shop their sales in-store since the online X-Long sizes won’t have the same sale price, but at least they exist. Their maternity pants were the longest thing I could find. They also sell good shirt basics—t-shirts and tank tops in all kinds of colors.

Old Navy ~ Also carries 36″ inseams online, cute tops and some good shirt basics just like The GAP does.

Chadwicks ~ Their tall section carries pants up to 35″ inseams and extra-long sleeves on shirts.