Shoes for Women - why is their pressure to wear uncomfortble footwear to 'fit in'?

[TwoCotbeds]

When buying shoes, I am remindeed of the old chinese culture on foot-binding. Why is it one gender ( men) can buy shoe which are smart for work AND can also walk all day, round town in comfort, or over grass, say.... but Women have the only Option of 'smart' shoes for work that go with a suit,and look professional or shoes that they can easily wear in comfort all day - but not both ?

I think this has got worse recently with the fashion for very, very high shoes which actually damage the foot.

I always think to myself, a womans and a mans foot is structurally the same. They are not different shapes, like torsos are. Of course I like to look feminine not male, but I also like to walk as much as I like.

I was also told by a chiropodist that the only reason court shoes ( ones with no strap) ever actually stay on, not fall off is because they are actually too small !

I love brogues

I have a tan pair, they are fab (and have got me many complimets)

I wear them with socks, not remotely "feminine" at all, but who cares ?

I have my eye on a pair of dungarees to go with them (not serious about that...)

arf at seth!

I've seen some women look very stylish in brogues around here. But you have to have a certain 'look' to carry them off, IMO. A 'look' which I most definitely don't have.

I love brogues too, but you can't always get them.
court shoes are bloody agony

i was hugely shocked when i went shopping for shoes to wear to a wedding this summer. what i consider to be a high heel, two and a half to three inches, is now designated as a mid-heel. i'm only a size five and average height, so that makes me topple forward...so it is simply not a mid-heel.

anyway i mention this to the sales assistant in office, and she said that so many of the young girls nowadays pull out utterly mangled feet and are not put off by the fact that they simply cannot walk in them.

i worry for my dds, tbh, my mother's rule for shoes when i was going out clubbing etc was 'don't wear anything that will stop you from running away FAST if you need to' but these shoes are just barely available any more...

I had this hammered home to me the other week when I needed to look smart for work (normally I wear v comfy flat suede ankle boots) and the only pair of shoes that I had which went with my suit had a medium-to-high heel and a fairly pointed toe. "What the hell" thought I, "I don't have to do too much walking today".

Well, it turned out I had to do more walking that I thought - not much, but a fair bit - and I ended up with a 5cm circumference blister on the ball of each of my feet.

WTF was I doing owning a pair of shoes that I can't walk a normal distance in without damaging my feet? What madness is this??

I guess if you wear them all the time then your feet toughen up. But god, it's some crazy torture.

harpsichord, those shoes are very bad for your spine, actually, because they don't have a heel. So all the impact when you walk rockets into your heel and up your legs, spine and neck, creating long-term health problems. But you could always get a shoemender to add a heel for you.

seth - are you secretly the Pulp Fiction guy? (mind gone blank)...what's his name, the high-pitched voiced weirdo who directed all those gore flicks?

harpsi -- Sinologie? black cotton, black velvet, black denim

Unless you take a larger size than 41/42, in which case you are on your own...

I've never got the shoe torture thing. I'm pleased I saw the light early on! At my high school prom, I wore flats - lovely suede pumps, but lacking a heel. At the end of the night, I was the only girl there still actually wearing her shoes! Those shoes were so comfy I went on to wear them in waitressing jobs until they disintegrated!

I'm only 5'3, so I could use the extra height, but I've always worn sensible shoes. Even when I worked in an office environment, I've gone for smart flat pumps instead of heeled ones.

Make-up too, I save for special occasions, because it's fun. I think men look good with a bit of eye liner, so I think they should start to wear make-up for special occasions, and women should stop wearing heels and limit make-up to special occasions too.

On the other hand, I don't get why men go on strangling themselves with ties (which, as far as I'm aware, all of them hate) and all wearing exactly the same uniform of a suit and tie in the office. Have they no imagination?

Or Office do this in black jersey up to a size 8 UK.

but very very good for your FEET.
and very very COMFORTABLE.
so I walk a lot, everywhere.
and I have no problems with my spine... or indeed any of my joints at all :-)
I don't really buy it, tbh.
After all, men seem to manage without wearing heels

I quite agree with the OP. In the summer I mainly wear flat sandals (or flat canvas shoes/trainers when weather not so good). In the winter, mainly boots, either flat or with a very modest heel. I just can't walk in anything very high. And I don't drive, so need to walk reasonable distances most days. A lot of "fashion shoes" just don't allow for that.

I also can't wear ballet flats/court shoes most of the time. Partly because my feet just slip out of them when walking (unless they have a strap further up to keep them on) and also because many of them are just not wide enough at the front of the foot, and therefore rub/pinch on my toes.

oh those velvet ones are LUSH

go on speedy, explain that to me:
if flat shoes are bad for your spine (boots/maryjanes) why don't men's shoes have a heel?
and why aren't men terrifically crippled?

In general though, I think fashion-wise I've been pretty lucky. When I was at primary Kickers or similar were the shoes to have, went through a slightly dodgy stage in the late 80s when it was all New Romantic stilletoes or winkle pickers (but ameliorated by the fact that my mum generally wouldn't let me wear them and so I had to change out of my sensible shoes round the corner from the house which limited the wear time [grin[), then into DM boots for the next 5 or 6 years which must be pretty good for your feet really.

Men's shoes always have a heel (compared to ballet pumps or the like). Usually a cm or so.

I've always wondered if that was spurious too Harpsi - if you go barefoot you don't have heels, and through history relatively few people have worn high heels at any time.

Oooh, love those sinology shoes, esp as I don't wear leather. But I just got a "forbidden" error when I tried to add a pair of luscious black velvet mary janes to my basket!

Do they deliver to the UK?

Yes, but you don't generally go barefoot on concrete or paved surfaces all the time. The surfaces that we walk on aren't natural, less give (I'm guessing).

Some shoes currently in fashion have more in common with bondage than footwear. Think those ridiculous ones by Gwyneth Paltrow. They are CFM (come fuck me) shoes.

They are so ugly as well. The shoes.

yes, and our ancestors presumably used to walk much longer distances, much more frequently
without the benefit of a two inch heel to help them

very good point harpsi

a lot of women from my mums generation bewail the fact they cannot wear flat shoes

but that is because their achilles tendon is abnormally and chronically shortened from wearing unsuitable (high heeled) shoes from an early age

oh, and the bunions don't bear mentioning

I don't buy all this needing a heel or arch support stuff either. So are bare feet a bad design then? Mine seem to work fine... I went barefoot through most of my uni days (in South Africa where this is slightly less barking mad).

a heel of one centimetre?
well most ballet pumps have at least that