At the recent Women In Film's Crystal + Lucy awards dinner, Nicole Kidman dropped some excellent advice for tall girls everywhere: that you should stop apologising, stop being ashamed of your height, and start loving how strong, powerful and beautiful it makes you. As huge advocates of loving thyself, we at The Debrief salute her. While looking up. Because she's, like, 5ft 11, and is consistently spotted in heels.
'I was afraid of my own power,' she said in her speech, 'afraid that it would threaten people, intimidate people. And it's a great sadness wishing to be less than you actually are. And it's hard to take on the world when you're constantly in a battle with yourself. I worked through it... I’m working through it. I wanted to be the kind of actress with long flowing hair [who] kissed boys, but I was not ready to do the kind of work that threatened anybody.'
And the guy thing, too. Remember she went out with the famously short Tom Cruise and became the poster girl for those who are taller than their boyfriends? Well, she's right in thinking that there's no good reason why girls are supposed to be the short ones other than an outdated concepts of power, and confidence. Something a lot of us need to work on - if you're tall, why can't you wear heels and tower over people, especially men? It's, as she said above, feeling scared of the power you wield. But you shouldn't be, because hey, men don't worry about being taller than you. And we're the same as men. So there.
'Women are too susceptible to the voice that tells us we need to be accepted,' she explained. 'Men say, 'I want this.' And then they set out to do it. Women say: "Do I want this? Don't I want this? Do I deserve this? Can I get this? Hmm, what do you think?" And framing things this way leads women to second-guess our decisions, to ignore our own confidence, to revert to a place that we think is safe, acceptable.'
It's true. The amount of women who don't ask for pay rises, who don't feel like they can go for the promotion, is just symptomatic of this lack of confidence. As is the tall thing. So next time you're out, whack on those heels and walk proud, yeah? Because, as she says, you should never wish to be less (as in physically or otherwise, less) than you are.
Plus, your legs look awesome.
Like this? You might also be interested in...
Follow Stevie on Twitter: @5tevieM
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.