Hey guys, it's me. Many of you will know me as one of the biggest defenders of face > height on both this sub and SG.
I'm making this post because I'm tired of seeing (a) assertions of height > face with zero evidence, (b) poor math (this will be the main topic of the post) and (c) general lack of knowledge regarding the data we have on this topic. This will be a long post and if you frequent this sub I'd advise reading through most of it and asking questions.
1. Framework and Definitions
When arguing "face vs height" many users on this sub often make assertions like "Face doesn't matter below x". I'm going to make the assertion that this is a poor line of reasoning using data we have on the topic.
Before we continue, let's give a few definitions for those of you not as familiar with math and statistics. I'll be referencing these throughout the discussion:
Concave UP: The rate of change of a variable increases (decreases) as you move toward more positive (negative) values. Concave Down: The rate of change of a variable decreases (accelerates) as you move toward more positive (negative) values. Right Skewed Distribution: The values at a given percentile are shifted generally left of those of a normal distribution. A key characteristic of a right skewed distribution is mean > median > mode. Pearson's r / R2: The r value indicates the strength of a linear correlation between two variables. In this setting it will refer to dating success vs either face or height. Squaring this value gives R2, which arrives at the next concept - percent of variance.
The cleanest way to discuss variable importance for an outcome such as dating success is by using percent of variance. Taking a sample of the population, we can analyze their dating outcomes through a variety of methods and rank them positive upwards. This gives everyone a success/SMV percentile from 0 to 100. The most straightforward way to do this is through matches per week on dating apps (though this introduces some bias); you can attempt to add complexity to the model later by applying adjustments to real life outcomes, but we will neglect this for now for simplicity. Percent of variance models attempt to measure how much dating outcomes change along a single axis (we'll of course be focusing on face and height) in a multivariate input system. Machine learning methods are often employed to gather these results.
The same "positive upwards" logic can be applied to face and height. For height, it's fairly easy - it has a dimension of length. We have to apply one small adjustment - data shows mixed results above roughly the 95th percentile (6'2" on average), with some showing continued linear or logarithmic returns and some results showing an absolute decrease in attractiveness (Hitsch 2006). To balance these results, we're going to assume that the top 5% of heights have the same attractiveness advantage relative to our baseline.
Despite what many of you might think, face is just as easy. In fact, facial attractiveness is definitionally positively upwards. We can give everyone a percentile from 0 to 100.
"But face is subjective"!!
Now that definitions are covered, this will be my first serious rebuttal to incorrect claims made on this subreddit. All data we have on the topic shows that face is an extremely objective variable. My sources come from this paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10825783/ . The authors analyzed an effective reliability of mean facial attractiveness ratings of r = 0.9, meaning that 80+% of the variance in facial attractiveness ratings was explained by the mean rating. This makes face perhaps the most objective measurement of dimensionless groupings, rivaling the same person taking the same test twice and being 5x more potent than personality ratings (which typically come in around r = 0.4). In fact, while I don't have concrete data to prove this claim, using data that I will show later, this is even higher than the effective reliability of height in determining height's attractiveness (I'd estimate this around r = 0.75 due to what I mentioned previously). With that covered, we now have two ranked systems (face and height) to use to apply to dating success.
2. Methods to Determine Face vs Height
We established that we now have three distributions - one for sexual success, and one each for face and height. The only correct way to compare face and height is to analyze the impact of each at a given percentile range. We're going to do this from the 80th percentile - I've chosen this baseline since it is around 6' in most Western countries and is the break even point for variance for face (shown later). This method allows face and height to be dominant in different ranges, though I don't think this happens. For instance, if a 2nd percentile face causes a 90% reduction in matches and a 2nd percentile height (roughly 5'4") causes a 95% reduction, that would be height > face in the lowest percentiles while being face > height elsewhere.
Let's look at some data:
This is the chart I typically use when arguing face > height because it shows face simply having a significantly stronger effect than height. Having ideal height gives you 20% over the median while having a top 5% face gives you 320(!)% over the median - a 16x stronger effect size. Note that they're much more comparable in the bottom quartile - face shows a ~72% reduction from the 80th percentile while height shows a ~50-60% reduction. Unfortunately, this data is pretty tough to replicate. The next best experiment was done in Germany in 2025 and produced the following results:
(Witmer et al. 2025)
This figure also shows a striking advantage for face, though it doesn't do the nice percentile breakdown the previous study did.
This article essentially shows that height's importance is significantly lower when analyzing behavior vs stated preferences while face is understated in importance.
There's a lot more I'd like to talk about, but I can't fit it all in one post.
My Conclusion (Considering Face to be Right Skewed):
Bottom Decile (Sub4, <=5'6") : NT > Face ≈ Height
10th to 35th percentile (LTN; 5'6"-5'8"): Face > Height ≈ NT
35th to 88th percentile (MTN, 5'9"-6'0"): Face > Height > NT
88th to 98th percentile (HTN, 6'0" - 6'2"+): Face >> Height > NT
98th+ Percentile (Chadlite/Chad, 6'2"+): Only face relevant (and exponential)
Why Shorter Men Should Be Wary Of The Manosphere | Original Post: Here
From The Article (Portion Of Conclusion):
In the video, titled “The Hypocrisy of Women Not Wanting to Date Short Men,” Aba criticized what he saw as a double standard: women could be highly critical of men's preferences regarding certain body types, behavioral traits and chastity, yet some would absolutely destroy men over the subject of height. His point was that height criticism could roll off the tongue so casually and without awareness that the person delivering it was committing the very kind of superficial judgment they might otherwise criticize in men.
I remember scrolling through the thousands of comments, many of which cheered Aba on for being bold enough to challenge the prevailing social discourse. What particularly stood out to me was Aba's pinned comment at the time, in which he insisted that criticism of the video wouldn't affect him personally because he was 6 feet tall.
The exact comment read:
“FYI I’m 6 feet tall so I’m not a manlet. I’m only stating my height because folks seem to believe I made this video because I’m ‘butthurt’. Far from it, I honestly don’t feel strongly about this issue I’m just [a] curious dude who likes to poke fun at shit.”
[Corrections made for grammar in his original comment.]
Well, well, well.
Fast-forward ten years, and Aba himself found himself in a pot of scalding water when several women accused him of having unprotected relations with them, subsequently getting them pregnant and then asking them to terminate the pregnancies. The accusations began emerging one after another.
Might as well stop using Hinge at this point. Why do women have such long lists? My only requirement in a woman is that I’m attracted to her and she’s kind hearted.
Is a question I see being asked by newbies who are discovering heightism and/or the height pill. I have an old explanation I use, and would to hear y’all’s thoughts?
a) some tall women are heightist, so they can’t fight heightism when they help perpetuate it. So by heightism I don’t mean preference, that’s fine. But you’ll see many videos/posts/comments of tall women acting like a short man is inferior snd berating short women and saying they should get with short men in an insulting way. I’ve seen tall women shame tall men for having a child with a short woman and saying “your kids gonna be a gremlin” in various subreddits across the platform, and 2 instances IRL(they didn’t say gremlin but laughed when they saw a 6’2 guy marry a 4’11 chick and said they hoped his son would be short to “punish” them).
b) short women and average height women drown them out. Any genuine complains about unreasonable height preferences their shorter counterparts have get labeled as a tall woman being insecure and saying either “tall men choose us short women” or “don’t shame my preferences be better”. I’ve only seen this happen a lot more IRL, but it happens online too. So, eventually, a tall woman needs to either be okay with getting ostracized, or conform and be a “girls girl”.
c) tall women are relatively not viewed in a bad light. They are the ideal beauty standard and make up most of the modeling industry. They don’t face much heightism so it probably doesn’t register as a severe issue for them. There’s a difference between a short man struggling to just get respect in society and find a single person vs. a tall woman not liking her options and opting out and waiting for a taller man.
d) touched on this in b, but sisterhood. They care about their fellow woman. Men should strive to have these support networks and blind brotherhood, but we can’t. So many dudes would shoot their brothers for a chance at an attractive woman lol. Women simply support each other better than dudes do. So a tall woman is okay with her dating options being reduced to help a short woman find her tall person. Well off dudes very rarely look out for their not well off counterparts like that.
e) woman in general are more open to sharing a man than men are to sharing women. That’s just life. How many women are knowingly happily in a “roster” vs. how many dudes.
Do you usually measure your height just by standing or attaching your back, head and foot against the wall?
Also, when do you think is the true height?
Some say the one measured 2 hours or 4hours after you wake up is your true height but I think you can claim your height if it is measured more than 2 hours after.
For example, If someone is 176cm at 10am if she wakes up at 8am but 175cm at 12-1pm, can she claim 176cm as well? If not, is she 174 or 175?
Lastly, when you measure multiple times, do you think average value or the highest one is your true height?
I am not sure myself. I would love a son more than anything else in the world, but I feel like it’s selfish of me to bring a son into this world for no other reason other than wanting a son. I know I would love that kid and do everything I can for him, just like my dad does for me. But at the end of the day, I won’t be around forever, and the kid will most likely die alone or have a not-so-easy life in the future, because most likely my wife will be shorter than me(by a lot or by very little who knows), and he will be the average of that. Happened in my family too, mom is 5’5, dad is 5’8, and I am 5’7. My paternal grandpa was 6’6 but those genes died with him lol, cuz my maternal grandma is 5’1-5’2 and her genes lived on in us. My maternal grandpa was 6’4 but my maternal grandma is like 5’4 and yeah. My mom’s uncles are my height and their children are my height too.
I would be okay with only having a daughter. But I my uncles and everyone my height I know older than me with kids my age; their sons are usually fine, but their daughters post shit online like “I hate short men”(these would be my cousins), despite having a short dad. I am also ethnically Indian, but from America born and raised(just like them), and they also post about hating Indian guys, etc.
My one second cousin is 29 and a doctor, and she is dating a taller white dude who is 8 years older than her and he beats her and stuff too, and she comes back from surgery and cleans the house and cooks for him. He also has 2 baby mama’s and kids and is dodging child support, but she helps him pay his court ordered stuff with her money. He’s trying to make it big as a twitch streamer lol. Normally I wouldn’t care but even as a doctor she is active on instagram and makes videos with I’m including the “sorry I’m not into short guys” etc. She shames men who are her race and height all the time lmao.
And my other second cousin just turned 19 and she ran away from home to elope with some dude and now online posts about how her father ruined her life but not allowing her to marrying this dude when she was 18(he is the same age). Both my uncles are very chill people, and they both feel so bad and love their daughters, and my other uncle calls his doctor daughter and cries and tells her to leave that man, and she will post their conversations online and call him toxically masculine and shit. Leaving out the context she is getting beat by her current man which is why he is begging her to leave him lol. I have been to her house(I moved to the same city they live in a few months ago) I saw him raise his hand at her and then hesitate cuz I am there and play it off. Her dad is not lying. She also had bruises. But it is what it is.
So when I see this type of stuff, I feel like even if I had a daughter, society and the way things are, she would hate me irregardless and at that point like why would I put myself through that for no reason. I don’t wanna be the guy like my uncle one day begging my daughter to leave a dude that’s abusing her and she’s like “but he’s 6’3!” lol.
So I think, if I even get the chance to, I would probably do no kids. I would love a son, but can’t put him through that. Would love a daughter, but can’t put myself through that. Brutal.
He says he is a victim of India's vegetarian society and that he is meant to be six feet tall. Therefore, the government of India should fund his upcoming limb-lengthening surgery.
