Actually, I've heard that if you are under 5 feet tall, you qualify as a "disabled" person. That means you get to park in the handicap zones! That would be so convenient.
That's men; I think for women to qualify as "little people" or whatever the hell they're called these days, they have to be under 4'7" or something.
I'm talking about ordinary small folk who do not suffer from obvious dwarfism or some other disability or malformation.
5'0", for a woman, is not far enough from "average" to be a real problem (the median height for an American white woman being 5'3" or 5'4". For an Asian woman, far shorter. For a black woman, slightly taller).
My dad, on the other hand, is only 5'5" or thereabouts, and it's just
noticable how short he is, especially since he's gotten older. He's
way shorter than nearly all other men, and a lot of women, as well.
But, as a female, I don't feel that this inherited "shortness" is as noticable on me, and certainly not as big a liability.
My physical smallness misleads people into believing I'm years younger than my actual age, for starters, which is beginning to seem more and more beneficial the older I get.
Of course, when I'm actually
old, I'll probably be one of those brittle, shriveled up little things. Hunch-backed, no substance, no bone mass. Old people shrink, especially old ladies. Tall women will shrink too, but then they'll be average-sized. I'll shrink, and I'll look like a dried-up insect husk. People will patronize me.
Oh wait, people already patronize me. They've been doing it all my life.
But in a way, that gives me a psychological advantage as well.