Baby Houseman's Inner Conflict About Femininity -- Part 5

This article is Part 5 in a series, following Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

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In the opening scene of Dirty Dancing, Baby Houseman declares:

I thought I'd never find a guy as great as my dad.

I thought I'd never find a guy as great as my dad.

Her attitude about available men is pessimistic. She thinks she will not be able to even FIND such a great man, much less attract and marry one.

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Very soon, Baby is paired with Neil Kellerman, the grandson of the owner of Kellerman's Mountain House. Neil has qualities that Baby might admire:

* Higher education -- attending the Cornell School of Hotel Management.

* Manager status -- manages the Entertainment Staff and the Social-Activities Staff

* Wealth -- significant ownership in two hotels

* Well dressed -- wears a coat and tie

Well-dressed Neil and Max Kellerman

* Confidence -- asserts his authority toward the resort's employees

* Socially active -- participates in "Freedom Rides" for the Civil Rights Movement

* Racially inclusive -- travels with a couple of busboys to Mississippi

* Enthusiastic dancer -- encourages Baby to dance the Mambo

"Mambo! Yeah! Come on!"

* Jewish -- shares the Houseman family's ethnic heritage

* Romantic -- wants to spend time privately and affectionately with Baby

* Nurturing -- takes Baby to the kitchen for snacks

Neil has much potential to become a great guy.

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However, in one aspect, Neil never will become great in the sense of physically large. Neil is a relatively short man.

In contrast, Baby's father is an extraordinarily tall man. The actor Jerry Orbach's height is 6'2".

Jake Houseman is a great guy, in the sense of being a tall guy.

Baby Houseman's height does not reach the height of her father's shoulders. In relation to Neil, though, her height is only a few inches shorter than Neil's. Baby's father is much taller than Neil.

Neil is much shorter than Baby's father

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Baby is rather short, but she towers over Mrs. Schumacher when they dance together.

Baby dancing with the much shorter Mrs. Schumacher

This moment communicates Baby's discomfort in being too tall for her dance partner.

When Baby and Neil are dancing together in the ballroom, Baby notices a girl dancing with a shorter boy.

Baby notices a girl dancing with a shorter boy

The boy's shortness is reinforced in Baby's mind when he walks between Baby and Neil.

The short boy walks away between Baby and Neil.
The taller girl is walking away past Neil's back.

Those moments in the movie project Baby's discomfort and embarrassment in dance situations where the height difference between the partners is unusual. Optimally, Baby as the female should be significantly shorter than the male.

Meanwhile, Baby's sister Lisa is dancing happily with Robbie, a tall man. Lisa's eye-level is below Robbie's neck.

Lisa and Robbie dancing behind Baby and Neil

In the above photograph, Lisa is wearing high heels and Baby is wearing flats.

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Later the audience will be able to see that Neil is much shorter than Johnny Castle.

Neil is much shorter than Johnny.

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Simone de Beauvoir, the French philosopher who most influenced feminist opinion during the years 1953-1963, taught:

... woman’s inferiority in society is a result not of natural differences but of differences in the upbringing of man and woman. Male domination is not inherent or fated but conditioned at every stage of development. De Beauvoir says that “Man learns his power.” By the same token, woman is not born passive, mediocre, or immanent.

Despite such teachings, Baby feels uncomfortable -- feels inadequately feminine -- if her male partner is obviously larger than her. The female should be significantly smaller than the male. Otherwise, the pairing looks odd and is unsatisfactory for the female.

Baby lectures to her father about fairness:

You told me everyone was alike and deserved a fair break. But you meant everyone who is like you. ... a lawyer or an economist and ... someone from Harvard

Neil might have used the same logic on Baby.

You told me everyone was alike and deserved a fair break. But you meant everyone who is tall. ... like my 6'2" father or my 5'10" Johnny.

Baby is being unfair to Neil if she rejects him as a potential mate because she cannot feel comfortably feminine with a short man. Many men watching Dirty Dancing judge Baby to be an unfair person in this regard.

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Journalist Lori Gottlieb is a short woman who became frustrated because she failed to find a mate who satisfied her demanding standards -- which included tallness.

Lori Gottlieb, 5'2", does not feel feminine with
a male partner who is at least 5'10" tall

Gottlieb wrote a bestseller, published in , titled Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough. Her book explains that, in general, women foolishly reject men who are not "good enough". In particular, even if a man is taller than the woman, he is rejected because he is not NOT MUCH LARGER than the woman. For example, Gottlieb, who is only 5'2", reflexively rejected men whose height was not over 5'10".

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The magazine Psychology Today has published an article written by Susan Krauss Whitbourne and titled Why Women Want Tall Men. Although many women consider femininity to be merely a social construct, they do not feel comfortable -- do not feel satisfactorily feminine -- when they are paired with a man who is NOT MUCH LARGER. The article contains the following passages (emphasis added):

In an intriguing 2013 study, Dutch psychologists Gert Stulp, Abraham Buunk, and Thomas Pollet followed up on some of their earlier work on male height to find out more about what leads women to prefer those lanky guys. ....

The participants in this study were 650 first-year heterosexual psychology students who received course credit for completing the survey. They estimated their own height, and reported on their sex, ethnicity (most were Dutch or German), and reported on their sexual orientation. The rest of the questions, simply enough, asked them to report on their relationship status, the height of their partner, the satisfaction with their own height, and their satisfaction with the height of their partners. ...

In general, women were more likely than men to think that the man should be taller and they didn’t want to be in a relationship in which they were taller than their male partners. Men liked being taller than their partners, but they didn’t care about the height difference as much as women did.

As it turns out, people do tend to partner with people of similar height due to a phenomenon known as assortative mating. However, no one seemed totally happy with their partner’s actual height. Men were most satisfied with women slightly shorter than them (about 3 in.), but women were most satisfied when they were much shorter than their male partners (about 8 in.). ...

Women feel satisfactorily feminine when they are at least eight inches shorter than their male mate.

The actress Jennifer Grey is 5'3", and the actor Patrick Swayze is 5'10" -- a height difference of seven inches. According to the above study, Baby would have preferred that the difference be at least one inch MORE.

The website EHarmoney, which can employ much data to study such feminine feelings, has published an article titled Why Do Women All Seem to Want Taller Men?. The article includes the following passages:

Height is a “masculine” characteristic. Taller men may be seen as more dominant and assertive In evolutionary terms, a larger man may have been able to provide more protection to their offspring, have greater genetic qualities to pass on to their future children, and thus may be awarded with greater social status. In line with this idea that height is an indicator of good evolutionary success, researchers found that taller men were more likely to have at least one biological child compared to shorter men.

Taller men may be seen as more powerful and attractive, so women who are with taller men benefit by attaining a higher social status. In addition, if height signals physical dominance, it is likely that taller men make women feel smaller, protected, and perhaps more “feminine” as well. ...

One study found that women who were attracted to taller men during times of ovulation – when they were the most fertile. Women looking for a relationship during their most fertile phase, in evolutionary terms, would be looking for good genes pass on to potential offspring but likely little parental investment and companionship.

Even beyond biology, this study showed that women had a stronger preference for taller men when they were looking for a short-term relationship. In other words, height and physical attraction may be most important when looking for a fling or a casual sexual relationship.

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Baby Houseman is not alone in feeling inadequately feminine with men who are NOT MUCH LARGER. The following video shows other examples of such women.

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This feminine feeling is instinctual. Female human beings have evolved to feel reflexively natural pleasure from nurturing babies and from receiving the attention and interest of males, who are larger and stronger. Baby's mistaken philosophical belief that such feelings are mere social constructs cause an inner conflict about her femininity.

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One reason why the movie Dirty Dancing is so popular among women is that it confirms their feminine feeling that the male must be much larger than the female in a couple. Neil Kellerman is odious, because he is NOT MUCH LARGER than Baby. The women who watch the movie see that Neil is rather short for a man, and so they join Baby's reflexive preference for the much taller Johnny.

However, women have also naturally fair-minded, compassionate intellects that are able to superceede such instinctual urges. For example, the movie How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying stars a short man and a taller woman. That movie's hit song is "I Believe in You", sung by the taller woman to the shorter man:

However, the woman's ability to "believe in you" -- to believe in the shorter man -- requires a leap of faith. If the man is much larger, than her reflex "to believe in you" is instinctual. Therefore, Baby was able to believe instinctually in Johnny's potential -- although not thus in Neil's potential -- as her mate.

Baby's instinctual reflex conflicts with her intellectual rationalization that female-male differences are merely social constructs.

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This is the fifth in a series of articles. Part 6, Part 7.