‘There is more to someone than their data': The dating filter behind an online gender war
Dr Michael Flood, a professor specialising in masculinity at the Queensland University of Technology, says that shorter men 'experience considerable stigma and shame in relation to their height,' and that studies show 'genuine penalties to their professional lives, their working lives and their dating lives'.
Loading
'The long and short of it is that being tall is prized in stereotypical masculine norms,' says Flood. 'Taller men are perceived as more masculine, more competent, more successful.'
The professor says a number of studies show height affects men's involvement in society, including a study which showed teachers perceived shorter male students as less capable than taller ones, and another that found taller men are 'more likely to become corporate leaders' because of an assumed competence associated with their height.
Flood says that the stigma associated with height is part of a 'growing pressure on boys and men' to meet traditional masculine stereotypes, with other factors like muscularity forming a 'rigid bodily ideal' that affects male self-esteem and dating habits.
'It may be frustrating to be instantly discarded on the basis of height. However, being instantly discarded is a pretty routine process on dating sites, and I would say in general, the bodily standards applied to women are much stricter and harsher than the bodily standards applied to men. Think of 'dad bods'. That's a positive term for a slightly overweight, middle-aged man. There's no female equivalent.'
The 2022 ABS National Health Survey found the average height for adult men was 174.8 centimetres, or 5′9. For women, it was 161.5 centimetres, or 5′4.
Analysis of the 2017-2018 National Health Survey found that 62.4 per cent of Australians incorrectly reported their height, with men over-reporting their height by 2.2 centimetres on average, while women over-reported by 1.6 centimetres. Similar analysis was not performed in 2022 as all height data was self-recorded due to COVID concerns.
Sex and relationship expert Georgia Grace agrees that while men are subject to rigid and sometimes 'uncomfortable' standards, they pale in comparison to those applied to women.
'Speaking with a lot of straight women, being discriminated against because of their body, because of their weight, or their height, or the colour of their hair, or the size of their boobs, that's not new to them. Men are held to certain aesthetic and beauty standards, but by no means are they interrogated [equally to] women.'
Loading
In her role as a counsellor, Grace says that many of her male clients do not feel comfortable talking about body image issues.
'Everyone is familiar with the vulnerabilities that come with dating. We feel like a mirror is held up to the things that we're most insecure about. When you're really wanting to find someone, to connect with them, to find someone who you're also attracted to, it can feel so challenging and so hard and so vulnerable.
'A lot of people do feel insecure about the way they look, or they do feel vulnerable, or they do feel like there are these impossible standards and these sorts of new hoops that they're having to jump through, but I think it's really important for people to remember that that's a universal experience.'
Grace believes the 'patriarchal systems' men are socialised in force them to conform to certain bodily standards, but bar them from discussing their struggles with expressing masculinity.
'So a lot of men are feeling down about themselves, but also isolated and unable to speak to other men about this vulnerability.'
A spokesperson for Tinder says the height filter was employed as 'part of a broader effort to help people connect more intentionally,' while describing the filter as a test that may not become a permanent feature of the app. A similar feature is available on other dating apps like Hinge and Bumble.
Salvaggio says that he does not use filters beyond the standard age and location filters. He says this was not to cast a wide net, but rather because he believes 'there is more to someone than all of their data'.
'When you add too many filters, you cut off the opportunity to meet someone great just because they don't match every single box that you have in your head.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Age
4 hours ago
- The Age
Why my husband's howl over back pain could happen 4 million times around Australia
I am no Carrie. I caught a taxi home. Dylan was, thankfully, wearing pants. An estimated 4 million Australians have back problems, and rising numbers are calling triple zero for ambulances to take them to emergency departments (EDs). Back pain was the fifth-most common presentation to Australian EDs in 2023-24 (almost 155,000). But most people with sudden-onset back pain don't need emergency care, which could lead to unnecessary and potentially harmful complications. 'There's something deeply primal about our response to sudden-onset back pain,' Sydney GP and addiction specialist Dr Hester Wilson said. 'It's very common, but it can be incredibly frightening,' she said. 'All those large muscles protecting the spinal cord suddenly seize up, and the emotional message this sends is 'danger!' 'The problem is, they don't know where to go for help.' Some 38 per cent of back pain patients admitted to hospital via three Sydney EDs for further investigation were found to have a serious underlying cause, such as an infection or fracture, an analysis of medical records showed. They needed to be in hospital. But 57 per cent of admitted patients had no serious underlying causes for their back pain. Associate Professor Gustavo Machado at the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health at the University of Sydney said current approaches to managing back pain in emergency settings often escalate interventions without clinical justification, leading to unnecessary hospital admissions, imaging, and opioid use. Loading Almost one in five patients developed a hospital-acquired complication, most commonly a medication-related adverse effect. Dr Simon Vella, a postdoctoral research fellow at the institute, analysed data from one major Sydney ED and found 46 per cent of people with back pain transported by ambulance received opioids, 59 per cent received imaging, and 50 per cent were admitted. 'Emergency staff and paramedics are often pressed for time,' Vella said. 'They need to make fast decisions about people they've just met, which makes it challenging to determine which patients need emergency care and which do not.' An analysis of more than 73,000 NSW Ambulance patients with back pain found 97 per cent of spinal pain was categorised as non-serious, and 81 per cent were transported to EDs. A NSW Health spokesperson said in most cases, back pain can be appropriately assessed and treated by a GP and allied health services, and scans are unnecessary. NSW Health recommended people with back pain seek urgent care if they cannot pass urine or lose bowel control, have progressive loss of feeling or movement, or their symptoms get worse, despite following back pain management advice. How to self-manage lower back pain Stay active: do as much usual activity as possible – a little more each day. Avoid bed rest. Too much rest can slow recovery. Protecting your back too much by tensing or avoiding movement can make things worse. Use simple pain relief: Heat wraps or heat packs, distraction techniques and relaxed breathing. Medication: Your doctor may recommend short-term over-the-counter or prescription medications to help you stay active while you recover. Source: NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation's advice for managing lower back pain Vella said fever or unexplained weight loss with back pain could also be a medical emergency. 'Ambulance services are there to be used when needed,' he said. 'If a person is living alone, if they're elderly, they're unable to drive or transport themselves to a medical centre or pharmacy, then calling an ambulance is extremely reasonable.' Clare Beech, NSW Ambulance's executive director of clinical capability, safety, and quality, said a call to triple zero does not necessarily lead to an ambulance transfer to hospital. 'We're increasingly equipped to understand the patient's needs and potentially refer them to someone more appropriate,' Beech said, including via the service's Virtual Clinical Care Centre. 'For people with severe back pain [who] we are unable to manage in their home … there is a likelihood that they would end up being transported to an emergency department,' Beech said. Wilson said GPs were trained to exclude serious causes of back pain and reassure their patients. 'It usually takes about six weeks to resolve, and in that time, we can put a strategy in place,' Wilson said. But long wait times for underfunded GP practices and few after-hours services are major barriers to seeking care. Urgent Care Clinics may divert people from EDs, and Healthdirect's virtualADULTS offers 24/7 urgent telehealth consultations with clinicians. Loading Dylan called Healthdirect. A triage nurse said he would probably need an ambulance. Instead, they put him through to an emergency physician at RPA Hospital, who assessed him, prescribed pain relief and recommended he see a GP and physiotherapist. After about six hours on the bathroom floor, I wedged a towel under his torso and dragged him by his left leg to our bedroom. A singularly bonding experience. He's fine now. Don't ask him about it. He'll tell you I yanked his leg the wrong way on purpose. It was an honest mistake.
Sydney Morning Herald
4 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Why my husband's howl over back pain could happen 4 million times around Australia
I am no Carrie. I caught a taxi home. Dylan was, thankfully, wearing pants. An estimated 4 million Australians have back problems, and rising numbers are calling triple zero for ambulances to take them to emergency departments (EDs). Back pain was the fifth-most common presentation to Australian EDs in 2023-24 (almost 155,000). But most people with sudden-onset back pain don't need emergency care, which could lead to unnecessary and potentially harmful complications. 'There's something deeply primal about our response to sudden-onset back pain,' Sydney GP and addiction specialist Dr Hester Wilson said. 'It's very common, but it can be incredibly frightening,' she said. 'All those large muscles protecting the spinal cord suddenly seize up, and the emotional message this sends is 'danger!' 'The problem is, they don't know where to go for help.' Some 38 per cent of back pain patients admitted to hospital via three Sydney EDs for further investigation were found to have a serious underlying cause, such as an infection or fracture, an analysis of medical records showed. They needed to be in hospital. But 57 per cent of admitted patients had no serious underlying causes for their back pain. Associate Professor Gustavo Machado at the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health at the University of Sydney said current approaches to managing back pain in emergency settings often escalate interventions without clinical justification, leading to unnecessary hospital admissions, imaging, and opioid use. Loading Almost one in five patients developed a hospital-acquired complication, most commonly a medication-related adverse effect. Dr Simon Vella, a postdoctoral research fellow at the institute, analysed data from one major Sydney ED and found 46 per cent of people with back pain transported by ambulance received opioids, 59 per cent received imaging, and 50 per cent were admitted. 'Emergency staff and paramedics are often pressed for time,' Vella said. 'They need to make fast decisions about people they've just met, which makes it challenging to determine which patients need emergency care and which do not.' An analysis of more than 73,000 NSW Ambulance patients with back pain found 97 per cent of spinal pain was categorised as non-serious, and 81 per cent were transported to EDs. A NSW Health spokesperson said in most cases, back pain can be appropriately assessed and treated by a GP and allied health services, and scans are unnecessary. NSW Health recommended people with back pain seek urgent care if they cannot pass urine or lose bowel control, have progressive loss of feeling or movement, or their symptoms get worse, despite following back pain management advice. How to self-manage lower back pain Stay active: do as much usual activity as possible – a little more each day. Avoid bed rest. Too much rest can slow recovery. Protecting your back too much by tensing or avoiding movement can make things worse. Use simple pain relief: Heat wraps or heat packs, distraction techniques and relaxed breathing. Medication: Your doctor may recommend short-term over-the-counter or prescription medications to help you stay active while you recover. Source: NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation's advice for managing lower back pain Vella said fever or unexplained weight loss with back pain could also be a medical emergency. 'Ambulance services are there to be used when needed,' he said. 'If a person is living alone, if they're elderly, they're unable to drive or transport themselves to a medical centre or pharmacy, then calling an ambulance is extremely reasonable.' Clare Beech, NSW Ambulance's executive director of clinical capability, safety, and quality, said a call to triple zero does not necessarily lead to an ambulance transfer to hospital. 'We're increasingly equipped to understand the patient's needs and potentially refer them to someone more appropriate,' Beech said, including via the service's Virtual Clinical Care Centre. 'For people with severe back pain [who] we are unable to manage in their home … there is a likelihood that they would end up being transported to an emergency department,' Beech said. Wilson said GPs were trained to exclude serious causes of back pain and reassure their patients. 'It usually takes about six weeks to resolve, and in that time, we can put a strategy in place,' Wilson said. But long wait times for underfunded GP practices and few after-hours services are major barriers to seeking care. Urgent Care Clinics may divert people from EDs, and Healthdirect's virtualADULTS offers 24/7 urgent telehealth consultations with clinicians. Loading Dylan called Healthdirect. A triage nurse said he would probably need an ambulance. Instead, they put him through to an emergency physician at RPA Hospital, who assessed him, prescribed pain relief and recommended he see a GP and physiotherapist. After about six hours on the bathroom floor, I wedged a towel under his torso and dragged him by his left leg to our bedroom. A singularly bonding experience. He's fine now. Don't ask him about it. He'll tell you I yanked his leg the wrong way on purpose. It was an honest mistake.
7NEWS
16 hours ago
- 7NEWS
Social media ban for children is ‘destined to fail' unless parents address their own smart phone addiction, pyschologist warns
Australia is just six months away from bringing in a world-leading law to ban children under 16 from social media but experts say more needs to be done before it comes into effect. Psychologist Danielle Einstein, who briefed the draft legislation for the ban, was on Weekend Sunrise on Saturday to address how it could work. Previously Einstein warned the ban would 'fail miserably' unless the federal government tackles screen addiction first. 'We need a few different things. First of all, we need doctors and psychologists asking patients when they come in with mental health issues about their tech use,' she told Weekend Sunrise. 'It should just be part of normal conversation — 'let's have a look, how many hours were you on here?' 'It's a part of the way we are trying to handle ourselves, and if someone has anxiety and depression, and you miss it because it's not seen as alright to ask about it and the doctors are embarrassed or if the patient makes it seem as if it's not OK (for asking).' Einstein said she didn't mean doctors had to go into extreme detail of how a person uses social media and technology but said conversations around tech use needed to be a part of a 'digital health check' in the same way doctors use a suicide screening. She also said a big public health campaign would be needed to 'expose the addictive' nature of social media and the corresponding health effects it may have on Australians. 'Both students and parents may realise that this isn't actually healthy for them,' Einstein said. For parents wondering what to do now, before the ban is imposed, Einstein encouraged adults to lead by example and cut back on their own technology use. 'The most important thing a parent can do is model,' she said. 'Parents need to be aware of what we do when we walk into the house (or when) at the dinner table: 'Do I have a phone that's near me?'' Einstein said using phones during arguments between parents to show the other person they were wrong had also become common practice but this could be easily stopped if phones are put out of sight. Despite the potential difficulties with executing the ban, Einstein said the federal government's decision to prevent harm to young Australian's should be looked at as a 'tremendous success' as other countries look to follow our example. 'We are leading the world, and we should be very proud of that,' Einstein said. 'Around the world, we've seen people wake up and start to question tech use. 'In Spain, there are paediatric guidelines coming out to show children from zero to six shouldn't have technology, aside for supervised use.' The social media ban for children under 16 years old is expected to come into effect in December 2025. The ban was first announced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last year, who said he was 'calling time on it' due to a number of tragic deaths relating to bullying on social media. But there is yet no guarantee technologies aimed at blocking young kids from social media will always work, according to early trial results. While the early findings of a federal government-commissioned trial found age assurance technologies are available, there's no silver bullet. 'Age assurance can be done in Australia and can be private, robust and effective,' the report found. 'We found a plethora of approaches that fit use cases in different ways. 'But we did not find a single ubiquitous solution that would suit all use cases, nor did we find solutions that were guaranteed to be effective in all deployments.' Under the social media ban, platforms will have to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from creating new accounts and could face millions in fines for systemic breaches of the new rules. Cabinet minister Murray Watt maintained the need for restrictions around social media. 'The Australian people believe that we do need to see some restrictions around social media use when it comes to young people,' he told ABC News on Friday. 'Unfortunately, it has become an insidious force, both for young people and more widely.' Australia's ban is world-leading and, in the aftermath of the November passage of federal laws, other nations indicated a desire to emulate the measure. However, the legislation does not indicate how exactly the ban will be executed. The report found parental control and consent systems could be effective when first introduced. But there is 'limited evidence' that they would be effective as children grow up or allow kids the right to participate in the breadth of digital experiences. Even after the coalition helped secure an amendment to ensure Australians wouldn't have to provide any form of government identification to verify their age, the trial found there was a risk of privacy breaches. Some age assurance service providers had over-anticipated the needs of regulators and built tools that led to an 'unnecessary and disproportionate collection and retention of data'. Opposition communications spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh has urged Labor to confirm what technology or verification tools will be used to protect kids online. 'No more young lives can be lost or families destroyed because of the toxicity of social media,' she said in a statement. The Age Assurance Technology Trial's final report is expected to be published later in 2025.
