Foot Fetishes

Age brings with it some privileges. One such privilege is the ability to say "no" to some of the craziest of "fashion" dictates. My "no" was to high heeled shoes. If ever there was an invention of the devil, high heels are it. Those shoes don't allow the wearer to walk with a natural stride, they allow no running, they produce a "mincing" gait, they pinch and deform the toes, they can catch in cracks in the sidewalk and in the loops of carpets pitching the wearer onto the ground, they cause back strain and leg strain, and those are only their "good" points. So why do women wear them?

I finally found an answer in one of those "History of all the Weird things and the answers you've been waiting for" type of books. Women wear high heels because of men. Men like the "look" of a woman's leg in high heeled shoes. But even more so they like the fact that women wearing those selfsame shoes can't stride freely and can't run away. If feminine for many centuries was defined as "decorative" then high heels were a necessity. All you can do in them is stand around and look "good."

The Chinese for centuries bound the feet of their women. The feet were wrapped tightly so that they would not grow large and so that they would be basically crippled. Such women took only tiny little steps, being unable to walk correctly, or they were carried everywhere they had to go. Thus, upper class women were basically housebound unless a man chose to take them somewhere.

High heels are an extension of this foot binding. They reduce women to less than capable in all areas of life. Even those women who claim that they can do anything and everything in high heels pay dearly. More women then men suffer from back problems and from hip problems and from knee problems. Doctors have been yelling for years that high heels are a health menace, and yet there they are, in every store window and on every foot.

Society likes to joke that it is other parts of the anatomy that are attractive to men, not a woman's foot, but history doesn't support this contention. Short skirts for women are a very modern invention. Most of history has women covering their legs. Why? There is no practical reason for a skirt that goes down to the floor, other then perhaps giving added warmth during cold weather. But in 90 degree heat? The covering was to remove the temptation that a woman's legs offered to men. In the Regency time period, women's evening dresses were cut almost down to the belly button. Arms were uncovered. But heaven forfend if the ankle was showing. In some historical writings of the period there was described the practice of young men hanging around carriage stops so that they might get a glimpse of an exposed ankle when women were stepping up into a carriage.

The vast majority of shoe designers for women are men. That figures. If men had to wear those darned high heels, day in and day out, they just might think twice about what they are designing. Or maybe they wouldn't.

I got "smart" relatively late in life. No more hours on end balanced on the tip of a three inch splinter of wood. You want real women's liberation? Then liberate yourself from footwear that puts you firmly in a place you don't need to be. Why am I writing this now? Because a friend's daughter, at a chasuneh two nights ago, was dancing in high heels and ended up in the emergency room when she twisted her ankle and tore a tendon in her knee.

You can stride through life confidently or you can mince your way through with limited abilities. You actually do have a choice. You only need to make it.