Tall for a woman

The other day I was doing some thinking about Erin's height. This came after I had described her to someone as being "tall for a woman." With the average height for women being 5 feet 3 ½ inches, she is tall for a woman standing at 5 feet 10 inches. However, I realized that the part about "for a woman" was key. Because, compared to men, she is not tall. If she were, say, 6-foot-3, she would be tall not only for a woman, but for a man as well. And she would probably wear 36x36 jeans, which is quite frightening.

This led me to another thought. Since men are taller on average than women – the national average for a man is 5-foot-9 – what if I figured out how tall Erin would be if she were a guy? And please, quell your instincts to associate my thoughts with some suppressed desire wishing Erin were not female.

Here's what I did: Using some basic ratios, I compared Erin's height to the height of the average American female, which Erin is roughly 7 inches taller than, then compared that height to the height of the average American man.
I have discovered that, when controlling for the height disparities innate to the human species in regard to gender, Erin would be a gangly 6-foot-4 ½ if she were not born with the misfortune of being female.

That is quite tall, I would say. And having three older brothers who range somewhere between 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-5, her being 6-foot-4 ½ wouldn't be abnormal in her lofty family.

What did I do with this information? I told her to immediately call her 6-foot-3 brother to stick it to him that he was the shortest sibling in the family.

(For the record, I would be a boring 5-foot-7 if I were a woman.)