Nancy Mulkey, a basketball player who stands at 6ft 10in tall, has said strangers should stop asking tall women one particular question about their family. The 28-year-old from Texas, US, shared her frustration in a post to her 214,000 Instagram followers.
'How tall are your parents'
In the post, Mulkey said: "There is one question I wish people would stop asking tall women and that is 'how tall are your parents'." She explained that the question often leads to a series of follow-ups about her relatives and personal details.
She added: "I understand why you're curious but sometimes it feels like I'm being interviewed for a genetics documentary because then comes how tall are your siblings, what size shoes do you wear, how tall were you in the 5th grade."
Joke about family medical history
Mulkey joked that one simple question about her parents leads her to give strangers her "entire family medical history at the checkout line". She ended the post by asking: "So what's a question strangers constantly ask you, if they ask you one?"
The post drew plenty of comments. One person wrote: "Very similar with being a redhead because people want to know where red hair came from, my mum or dad, do all my siblings have red hair, etc." Another added: "Only tall thing I may ask is if you can change that light bulb in my 10ft ceiling?"
Career and views on height
Mulkey, who previously played for the Las Vegas Aces WNBA team, currently works as a coach for the Texas A&M Aggies women's basketball programme. In a recent Instagram post, she defended short men and said their height should not make them more unattractive.
She said: "I'm 6'10 and I've met plenty of men who are technically 'short' compared to me and some of them have way more confidence than men who are 6'4. You can't control your genetics but you can control your personality, how you dress and how you carry yourself. So ladies be brutally honest could an amazing personality make you forget about a man's height because for me it can."
