front cover of Shortchanged
Shortchanged
Height Discrimination and Strategies for Social Change
Tanya S Osensky
University Press of New England, 2017
Would you like to be taller? Many people—except very tall people—would likely answer yes. Why should this be the case, when height has nothing to do with intelligence, talent, fortitude, compassion, or indeed any of the factors that make us human? In her thoughtful and provocative book, Tanya S Osensky examines “heightism”: the widely held and mostly unconscious notion that taller is better. She explores how and why short people are considered by many to be inferior, and describes the ways in which height bias affects them. Prejudice against short people is so common and casual that we do not even notice it, yet it factors significantly into discrimination in the workplace, in social situations, and beyond. The most helpless victims are short children, who are frequently subjected to years of hormone therapy, even when they have no physical need for such treatment, simply in an effort to make them taller as a way of countering this social bias. There is little legal recourse for short people who suffer workplace discrimination based on height. This succinct book exposes the cultural, medical, and occupational issues that short people face, which are often deemed unimportant and disregarded. Osensky challenges heightism by disclosing some beneficial aspects of shortness and suggesting avenues of activism and change.
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front cover of Strategies for Social Change
Strategies for Social Change
Gregory M. Maney
University of Minnesota Press, 2012

The theory and practice of social movements come together in strategy—whether, why, and how people can realize their visions of another world by acting together. Strategies for Social Change offers a concise definition of strategy and a framework for differentiating between strategies. Specific chapters address microlevel decision-making processes and creativity, coalition building in Northern Ireland, nonviolent strategies for challenging repressive regimes, identity politics, GLBT rights, the Christian right in Canada and the United States, land struggles in Brazil and India, movement-media publicity, and corporate social movement organizations.

Contributors: Jessica Ayo Alabi, Orange Coast College; Kenneth T. Andrews, U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Anna-Liisa Aunio, U of Montreal; Linda Blozie; Tina Fetner, McMaster U; James M. Jasper, CUNY; Karen Jeffreys; David S. Meyer, U of California, Irvine; Sharon Erickson Nepstad, U of New Mexico; Francesca Polletta, U of California, Irvine; Belinda Robnett, U of California, Irvine; Charlotte Ryan, U of Massachusetts–Lowell; Carrie Sanders, Wilfrid Laurier U; Kurt Schock, Rutgers U; Jackie Smith, U of Pittsburgh; Suzanne Staggenborg, U of Pittsburgh; Stellan Vinthagen, U West, Sweden; Nancy Whittier, Smith College.

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