It's what I call "social safety"......
My theory is this: young, sexually viable, fertile women value social safety a great, great deal. What is social safety? It's meeting the approval of one's girlfriends and immediate family. Not doing anything to embarrass oneself in front of these people. There is a "sisterhood" amongst female friends that is enormously powerful between the teen years until somewhere in the 30's when women start to become more independent of the opinions of others. Social safety is especially important with college and post-college age women. Women in this age group are ENORMOUSLY concerned about what certain folks think of them and the decisions they make.
And the plain truth is that girlfriends and family get really concerned when a young woman they love is dating a short man.
Nicole Beland, who used to be a relationship/sex expert for Men's Health Magazine, said before her recent marriage partner that her best boyfriend ever was a short guy. He was something like 5-5. He had everything you'd want in a guy, including a killer body. Good lover as well. However, this guy's height was the CONSTANT source of commentary from her girlfriends, her mom and her dad. It just never ended, no matter how many times she asked them to stop, and no matter how many times she spelled out his great qualities. It got to be so bad that she finally had to break up with him. In the end, social safety mattered the most at her age. Instead of telling these people to "F" off, it's none of your business who I date, it was incredibly important what her girlfriends, especially, thought.
That's really where this is coming from. Yes, there maybe some evolutionary psychology components, and the Disney films, romance novels and heartthrob celebs don't help either, but I really feel that "social safety" is the biggest factor in women having a bias against short guys on the dating circle.
I truly feel that beyond all this B.S. that people fall in love who they fall in love with. True love has no boundaries. If you removed the social safety component, I feel you would see more tall girls dating short guys, more interracial dating than ever, lots more equally sized couples, etc.
The GOOD thing is that as females age, they become less concerned with what OTHERS think about their partner. They're more independently minded. When you get to that age, you simply date the man that you love. You also just emotionally mature more....looks matter a little bit less, etc. You may not want kids or can't have them anymore. Bigger questions emerge. Women start thinking: "Is this the kind of man who would stand by me if I developed breast cancer?" "How emotionally supportive would he be if I lost my beloved mother?" 23 year old chicks from New York City who are living 3 to an apartment off of daddy's money don't care about these questions. To them, life is eternal.
Also, those NYC women are remarkably ignorant. They should realize how many more heterosexual single men there are compared to heterosexual single women in NYC. There are 3 single women for every single guy in Manhattan. According to most studies, 1/3 of NYC Manhattan single guys are gay, and a lot of other guys work all night and day and don't have time for a relationship or are already in relationships. A single woman in Manhattan cannot afford to be that choosy, which probably explains why the city is more amenable to casual hookups than real relationships. It's one of the reasons why I hate shows like "Sex In the City" and so on. NYC (specifically Manhattan) is unlike any city in the nation. It couldn't be anymore different than San Francisco, Omaha or Houston.
That being said, I would like to recognize that Mexican-American ladies and many other women of a Hispanic background seem to be less concerned about a man's height than women from other cultural backgrounds. It's probably because their Dad's tend to be short. The last two women I seriously dated were Latinas (I am white). Both of their parents in each case were shorter than 5-4. In fact, one woman's Dad was two inches shorter than his wife. Now both of these Latinas were first generation Americans, so they weren't totally immersed in a culture that told them that dating short guys was bad.
Anyway, I have more things I could talk about, including a big rant I have against sperm banks who don't seem to realize that 35% of all men are short, and that a percentage of them are infertile and would like to have a child with their spouse that resembles them and not some 6-2, blonde, North European stud...........