Standing Tall: My Experience Dealing with Height Discrimination in a Charity Board

So I sit on a charity that is based in Europe. I joined it about 10 years ago. Like, six years ago, on one of my trips to England, I actually ended up meeting up with a few of these ladies. There was like a two day weekend where we all kind of, like, discuss the charity and, like, whatever. This one woman, Carol. Let’s call her Carol. From the moment I met her, she just went out of her way to comment on my height. Like, she must have been drop kicked by a herd of supermodels somewhere in her youth. Her obsession with talking about my height, how, like, weird it is and unusual it is. Like, I’m tall, but I’m not. Like, oh my god, she’s 12 feet. Anytime she could, she’s always got some little dig about it. I don’t know why. To the point that after those two days, other women in the group are like, we’re so sorry. Like, she’s not normally like this, like. And over the years, she keeps on making references to it. We were on a zoom once, and we were meeting up with another charity to do a CO event. But we were gonna like, gather together, look at the space, and like, on zoom, in front of like 40 other people, it’s like, well, just look for, you know, you can see her. You won’t get lost in the crowd. Just look up, like. And went overly into Like, it’s a ballroom in a hotel. Like, the concierges will help them find it. They. They don’t need me in a crowd of 10,000 to be like, ah. Like, a year ago, I got really kind of pissed about something she said in an email. Like, you know, our charity has risen to new heights, that’s probably because we’re standing on the shoulders of tall girl. Like, it’s just. It’s always gotta be there. And, I mean, she’s average coloring, average height, average weight. Like, everything about her is average. So I’m like, I’m sorry. Genetically, you’re like, the average of everything. Like, I don’t. I don’t know what to do about it. So, like a year ago, I ended up, because all the events we do are chain emails, so it was only like 10 email chains. The start of every year, it will be like, the name of the event and the year. So I took all 10 chains, plotted them into chat GBT, and I was like, you know, kick back a list of all height references. 42. 42 times in 10 years, she had found a way to reference my height in an email. 43 if you count the zoom. So because they are in England, we have the calls at 7:00am my time, which is fine. It’s not like a big inconvenience. And normally on a Tuesday morning, like, I wouldn’t care, except after a holiday Monday, it sucks. Carol gets on and It’s like, well, it is a tall order, but, you know, like, Tall Girl could definitely do the job. It’s built for her. And it just fucking saw red. I was just like, no, no, you just hit 43. I didn’t know that was the number of height digs I was willing to take before I lost it, but, like, 43 is the number, really. It’s 44 if you count the zoo. Later in the call, some other people joined and they were gonna do a meet up. And I was like, well, just look for Carol. I mean, in a crowd, not easy to spot. Average height, average hair, but split ends. And everybody kind of paused. And I was like, that was incredibly rude, but, like, whatever. Seconds later, I get an email from Carol. I am completely offended that you would use personal descriptors. I literally just wrote back my name one her name, 43, and a list of all the references from that ChatGPT list. I was like, only 42 more dicks to go before I stop talking about how average you are. I c c the head of the charity. Then I wrote her a separate email, and I was like, um, sorry, I’m done. If this loosens me my board seat, honestly, I don’t effing care. Clearly I didn’t say effing. I pity the fool that gets in my path today.