Origin of The Term
The term heightism was coined by sociologist Saul Feldman in a paper titled "The presentation of shortness in everyday life—height and heightism in American society: Toward a sociology of stature", presented at the meeting of the American Sociological Association in 1971. Heightism was included in the Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English (1971) and popularized by Time magazine in a 1971 article on Feldman's paper.
The word is an example of Time magazine's habit of supplying new words through "unusual use of affixes", although Time itself objected to the term's inclusion in the 1991 Random Webster's College Dictionary, citing it as an example of the dictionary "straining ... to avoid giving offense, except to good usage" and " authority to scores of questionable usages, many of them tinged with politically correct views."
Heightism is one of a proliferation of neologisms relating to prejudice and discrimination that are lexically patterned after sexism.
Read more about this topic: Height Discrimination
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