The Pearlsong Letter

Ellen Frankel participates in Massachusetts legislature briefing on height and weight discrimination

Ellen Frankel, author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth, joined Massachusetts Rep. Byron Rushing recently to brief that state's legislature on the need for Rushing's bill adding height and weight to the Massachusetts anti-discrimination laws.

As reported by the Berkshire Eagle, Frankel told those present about the problems short people experience.

"Heightism is the discrimination of people of short stature," Frankel said. "In this case, males have a harder time. Men who are 6 feet 2 inches or taller receive 12 percent more for a starting salary than shorter men with the same education and qualifications."

Beyond Measure was published by Pearlsong Press in September 2006.

Ellen Frankel featured in Boston Globe

Ellen Frankel and Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth are featured in the Jan. 17, 2008 issue of the Boston Globe.

Read "In opposing heightism, she has found her cause" here.

Ellen Frankel working to expand Massachusetts' anti-discrimination law

Ellen Frankel, author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth, is featured at North Shore TownOnline.com talking about her work with Massachusetts Rep. Byron Rushing and National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance board member Jeanne Toombs to add height and weight to that state's anti-discrimination law.

To read about it, click here and scroll down the page to the section headed "Randy Newman has already filed suit." (Yeah, yeah, I know.)

Ellen Frankel & Beyond Measure featured in Marblehead Reporter

Ellen Frankel and her book Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth are featured in a Marblehead Reporter article published today.

Frankel said she owes a large part of her newfound acceptance for her height to her trip to Nepal to climb Mount Everest.

"We are also dwarfed by Mount Everest, and beyond measure," Frankel said, invoking her book's title and main theme. :It is about finding out what it means to be full in the sense of who you are.

Frankel added, "I have always told my clients that self-esteem cannot be measured by the numbers on the bathroom scale, just as it can't be measured by the numbers on the measuring tape."

For Frankel, there were a lot of risks to putting her life in print, as she detailed her search for power through a series of unhealthy relationships and relived points times (sic) when she had felt discriminated against.

"I had the feeling that I had to tell the whole story in order to do the story justice," Frankel said. "I had to figure out how to take my experiences with friends, family and my parents and have it not seem like I was attacking them, but speaking the truth."

The article also discusses Frankel's work with Jeanne Toombs of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and Rep. Byron Rushing to add height and weight to Massachusetts' anti-discrimination law. Frankel is a member of the board of directors of the National Organization for Short Statured Adults.

Read the entire article here.

Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature and Inner Growth by Ellen Frankel reviewed at Story Circle Network

The Story Circle Network has posted a review of Ellen Frankel's Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth.

To read the review, click here & click on F in the "authors" section.

Elen Frankel featured in Journal & Courier article

Ellen Frankel and Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth are featured in a Lafayette, IN Journal and Courier article on our culture's preoccupation with height.

Read it here.

ASDAH Newsletter review of Beyond Measure by Ellen Frankel

Dana Schuster reviews Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth by Ellen Frankel in the May 2007 issue of the newsletter of the Association for Size Diversity and Health:

Ellen Frankel is 4 feet 8 1/2 inches tall. In her "memoir about short stature and inner growth" she shares with us her experience growing up and living in a world which continues to joke about, judge, and discriminate against people who are physically shorter than the "accepted" cultural average height. In addition to sharing personal life experiences regarding her work, friends, and family, Ellen states, "It is my intention to tell you the truth about a prejudice against short people that includes researchers and doctors attempting to physically manipulate healthy short children's height because of the assumption that taller is inherently better and will lead to a happier more successful life." What follows in her expose of the NIH and their experiments with Human Growth Hormone (hGH) is both disturbing and chilling. It also frighteningly evokes thoughts of current efforts being proposed in the "war on childhood obesity," and holds relevance for all of us working in the realm of Health at Every Size.

In reading Ellen's book I became uncomfortably aware of the ways in which I inadvertently have contributed over the years to the discrimination of people of short stature. All of us who fight for the right to take up space as fat people need to expand even more to work for the acceptance and celebration of height diversity as well--an issue Ellen speaks to eloquently and with passion. Her inner and outer journeys are ours as well, and through her candid, bold, and totally engaging writing we are encouraged to be brave along with her and to escape the "box with walls built of stereotypes, with a lid offering reward for conformity to those expectations."

Ellen is a writer, a therapist, a mother, a wife, and an adventurer who has experienced Mount Everest firsthand. Whether she is sharing glimpses of daily suburban life or the colors and excitement of Nepal, in her writing Ellen dares us to be "fully alive" and allow our "heart, soul, and passions" to drive who we are in the world.

This is a reading experience not to be missed.

WorldCat listings of libraries with Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature and Inner Growth

WorldCat.org lists some of the libraries including Ellen Frankel's Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth in their collections:

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80179323

and

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/72530147.

Ellen Frankel to be interviewed by Neil Cavuto of Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox News

Ellen Frankel is to be interviewed by Neil Cavuto of Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox News at 4:50 p.m. Eastern time today.

Ellen is a Marblehead, Massachusetts social worker and the author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature and Inner Growth. She's been in the media eye a lot lately, talking about heightism and size discrimination, due to the proposed addition of height and weight to Massachusetts' anti-discrimination law.

UPDATE 6:48 p.m.: A video clip of Ellen's interview is posted online at www.foxnews.com. Scroll down the main page to the FOX 24/7 section listing video clips from various Fox shows, and (right now) Ellen's face is featured in a still from the video for the Your World with Neil Cavuto Show.

Congratulations, Ellen, on persevering to get your message across!

Beyond Measure author Ellen Frankel featured in Boston Globe article on proposed changes to Massachusett's anti-discrimination law

Ellen Frankel and National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance board member Jeanne Toombs are featured in a Boston Globe article on the proposed addition of "height and weight" to Massachusett's anti-discrimination law.

Rep. Byron Rushing, who is sponsoring the bill protecting short and fat people's civil rights, expects a hearing this fall. If the bill passes, Massachusetts would become the second state in the U.S., after Michigan, to add "weight and height" to its anti-discrimination law.

Most states have laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, age, gender, disability and other factors. A handful offer protection for gays and lesbians. But only Michigan includes weight and height in its anti-discrimination law. The District of Columbia also bans appearance discrimination and San Francisco and Santa Cruz in California prohibit weight and height discrimination.

Frankel is the author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth, published by  Pearlsong Press September 2006.