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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

High Heels WTF is it about

164 replies

FattyArbuckel · 05/02/2011 17:04

Why in this day and age do we STILL worship high heels

I think they are one step away from chinese foot binding and can't look around the pavements without cringing...

Really, why do women wear them? I think they look awful.

Rant over - just could not keep it in any longer today....

OP posts:
FiammiFreeway · 07/02/2011 08:19

Something just occurred to me; at 5ft7, I actually noticed recently that I feel uncomfortable talking with shorter people.

It feels as though I ought to shrink down to their level, so as not to appear patronising, threatening or too powerful.

Especially when they are confiding things in me and I want to appear sympathetic.

It's very strange. Not sure how this fits with the high heels thing but it struck me as interesting.

MarshaBrady · 07/02/2011 09:56

Yes I suppose the environments in which I found myself have been different. It was much better to look good than it was to look unnatural.

So it was much more acceptable to wear fashionable but more comfortable things than a suit and heels.

Now I am delighted to find that nearly every woman at ds's school is quite 'into' a particular style, but not at the expense of a career or anything else. I saw a woman on a red bike today with a great flowing poncho and wool hat. She looked great, really brightened my day. Women who wear whatever they wish, and look good.

I bet if I were surrounded by the obligatory heels / makeup or suits I would feel constrained and annoyed.

I do like being the tallest (female) in the room however!

So I have never felt it was expected of me to wear heels or makeup.

Actually I have a pair of beat up boots (originally very nice) that have a small cone heel. Small! But a heel. And some builders felt they should point out the sexiness of my boots as I walked past. Now that annoyed me. The lack of freedom to wear what I wish, it annoyed me more than feeling expected to wear any one thing.

David51 · 07/02/2011 10:34

A colleague is wearing a pair today, possibly connected with her getting a promotion. Very elegant looking, but I was wondering whether it's OK to compliment her (on the heels not the promotion)?

David51 · 07/02/2011 10:35

By the way Petalouda what are 'keep-ons'? I thought they were socks for babies, that's a strange fetish Hmm

IngridBergmann · 07/02/2011 10:41

David, it depends on what sort of terms you are already.

If it were me and it were a female colleague, I would not say anything unless we were good friends already. I would suggest similar to you - if you are good friends and she won't take it as strange or a come-on, then of course.

But if not, best left unsaid.

David51 · 07/02/2011 10:50

We do get on well but I think I'll give it a miss. If in doubt...

AnyFucker · 07/02/2011 11:13

Take my advice, David

never compliment a woman on wearing heels, unless she is your partner

IngridBergmann · 07/02/2011 11:14

or best friend!

AnyFucker · 07/02/2011 11:33

ok, I will budge on very best friend

but not work colleagues

sakura · 07/02/2011 12:25

but women's feet have always been a patriarchal fetish, and that's where this comes from. CHinese footbinding was all about making sure women couldn't stride like men and emasculate them.
I was a bit Sad reading in Beauty and Misogyny that ballet shoes are part of this sado-masochistic fetish- sad because as I was reading it I knew it was true, and DD goes to ballet. She's 4 so not on points, obviously, but the bunions and damage done to ballerina's feet is really a gender specific issue. THey spin and spin on a block of wood fitted into a satin shoe tied with ribbon Confused Very often there's blood on the stage at the end of the nigh. Ballroom dancing is another. Men never have to squeeze and squash their feet like women are expected to.

dittany · 07/02/2011 15:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

rubyrubyruby · 07/02/2011 15:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Lucy85 · 07/02/2011 15:41

They make me too tall. And they make my feet hurt. But they look so nice.

Also it is annnoying as trousers all have to be different lengths to go with shoes.

I think lots of make up is ageing esp. blusher - looks like people are trying to cover their smokers' cheek wrinkles.

Lucy85 · 07/02/2011 15:44

FiammiFreeway, I am 5'7" too and feel exactly the same - started when a man started working for me and he was only 5'2". i felt I intimidated him.

He was shite at his job though...had to sack him in the end. Grin

nooka · 07/02/2011 15:53

I tend to think that everyone else is smaller than me, pretty much regardless of height Grin. It has to be a very tall person to make me consciously aware of them, but I think that's just a consequence of having a 6'5" dh.

I have occasionally described someone as short and had a surprised response.

Original poster
FattyArbuckel · 07/02/2011 18:07

I was struck the other day looking out of my window when I saw a slim, attractive woman dressed in a dark trouser suit with high heels. She is the saleswoman for the showflats opposite me.

She was conventionally and conservatively dressed in "business style" and looked smart and yet also to me suddenly utterly ludicrous because of the shoes. So this expectation that in order to dress for business in a smart, conservative and conventional way you need to wear shoes that are uncomfortable, bad for your health and impractical for walking (although walking people around the flats is part of your job) suddenly struck me as stupid.

As has been said earlier in this thread, women in the public eye never wear flat shoes. So is it really a choice?

OP posts:
JessinAvalon · 07/02/2011 19:32

@Sakura-I read that chapter in Beauty & Misogyny past night too and was also sad to read about ballet shoes. It has never occurred to me to think that they were anything very bad. I have danced en pointe but it was when I was in my teens and we used animal wool to cushion our feet. We were told that professional ballerinas don't cushion their feet and I remembered feeling a bit horrified by this.

I am seeing the ballet twice in the next month and am now feeling a bit guilty about it.

It was a very interesting chapter though. I was sat in a staff briefing today and found myself assessing the shoes of the 30 odd women in the room. There is something about the female professional uniform which "requires" heels, it seems. Those who were dressed most smartly were also wearing heels.

I do feel pressure to conform to this look but I guess the pressure comes from within. No one has set out that I must. And I don't think my boss would care if I wore make up or heels as long as I get the job done.

TryLikingClarity · 07/02/2011 21:57

I know this is the DM, and they are a MN no-no, but I saw this article and just thought WTF are you wearing, love?! Confused

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1354400/Chart-topper-Jessie-J-gets-extra-lift-extremely-high-wedges-performs-intimate-gig.html

sakura · 08/02/2011 01:03

I know Jess, it's heartbreaking to apply feminism to ballet because a) you know Sheila Jeffrey's is spot on and b) ballet is an almost etheral art, it's like nothing else, and to find that it's almost entirely based on patriarchal values is just so sad. I lived in Russia and watched the Bolshoi many times.
The plus side of ballet, i suppose, is that it's really a female art. It's one of the only arts where women are paid far more than men, for example.

Unrulysun · 08/02/2011 11:43

I think I may be right in saying (and Sakura may know) that there were some cases in Japan a few years back where women were involved in terrible car crashes because their heels got stuck under the brake pedal/on the accelerator or something?

I have lots of heels and I love makeup but I'm with Dittany - the only reason I feel I need these things is cultural conditioning. I have one friend who doesn't wear heels or makeup and she's 6ft with porcelain skin.

There's a playground joke: why do women wear makeup and perfume? Because they're ugly and they smell. :(

NacMacFeegle · 08/02/2011 22:13

Re: the ballet - I saw a company doing Sleeping Beauty where the bad fairy was played by a man, who went on pointe - it was fantastic. Really amazing to see.

sakura · 09/02/2011 01:04

I bet it was amazing. OH well maybe ballet is allright then if men are starting to go on points (although I realise the point of feminism is not to get men to suffer like women have to...)

NacMacFeegle · 09/02/2011 08:58

I think he might be the only one.

I thought about what I said afterwards - I didn't mean it was physically amazing because he was male and did it, after all, women have been doing it for hundreds of years (and it's one reason for the tininess of the women too, I did pointe work as a teen, but at 5'7" and size 10/ 9 stone, it was very difficult indeed.) I just meant that, as an individual, he was an amazing dancer, and that it was very cool that he was disregarding expectation and tradition in that way.

I actually think ballet is a feminist nightmare, but it is also very beautiful and art - tricky area altogether. DD does ballet and Irish Dancing, DS1 only does the Irish, not for gender based reasons, he just took a notion against the ballet teacher and lay on the floor and GROANED for the whole trial lesson Blush

sakura · 09/02/2011 09:02

sorry, it was me. I fell into the old trap of valuing something more because a man happened to be doing it Blush

NacMacFeegle · 09/02/2011 09:04
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