ShoeSense

Should feminists wear high heels?

Ah, now there's a loaded question if I ever saw one. My first instinct screams, "Well, what kind of a dumb question is that? They can wear whatever the hell they want. Scratch that: ANYBODY can wear WHATEVER THE HELL she or he wants!"

And look, Bitch Ph.D., a passionate feminist and academic, has on more than one occasion professed her love for super stylish, professorial budget-defying high heels. (It is through her that I also discovered The Manolo.) If I remember correctly one of her older posts (like months and months ago), she used to do the "feminist" thing (not shaving, etc.) but now she's into "femme-y" things, like high heels and lace lingerie, and that's what she wants to do. And who can argue with that.

Certainly not me.

I'm a feminist--in that, like any sensible person, I expect (and demand) equal rights and responsibilities for women and men (equal pay, etc.), I support a woman's right to her own body (yes, pro-choice all the way), and I am sensitive to any way, shape, or form of gender discrimination, whether it manifests itself in issues such as rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence, promotion, salary, or cornering women into stereotyped gender roles that prevents them from expressing their own personhood. I am also favorably disposed towards a variety of issues on the feminist agenda, too numerous to list here, so let's just stick with the basics.

Where was I? Oh yeah: cornering women into stereotyped roles that squash their personhood in order to re-assert societal (that is, patriarchal) norms, which basically can be reduced to the following barebones caricature: men are the strong, dominant sex in power, with more rights and privileges, and women are the second-class citizenry, kept around the house for the purpose of servi(ci)ng men by carrying their offspring, cleaning the house, and offering sex. Oh, and being pretty--for, no matter what progress we've made as a society, the pressure is ten thousand times-fold greater on women to be pretty than on men to be handsome, n'est ce pas? And if you still persist (wrongly) in believing that American women have gotten all the rights they'll ever need (again, you'd be very very wrong), all you have to do is cast a jaundiced eye to our sister south of the border. Or in Africa. Or anywhere in the Arab countries. Get the picture?


But hey, this is a fashion blog that attempts to put some sense into shoe-wearing, so why get into all these heady issues, indeed?


There are two main historical threads intertwined with the status of the stiletto today. The first is class. High heels were indicative of one's higher social status in 15th century Venice or 17th century France, for example. Higher status was literally translated through height. The second is sex fetishism. Bizarre forms of high heels have been used from the Victorian era on in order to exacerbate shapes and curves (e.g., making the instep protrude, etc.) as well as to immobilize the wearer in erotic stances.

The modern stilettos and high heeled platforms no doubt owe some of their allure to these two historical trends. The classist hint assures their prominence in "haute couture" or "high fashion." The "sexy" hint (somewhat diluted from the S&M games they was once confined to) has been preserved in all of their incarnations. I have my own reservations to the kind of "sexy" the high heel alludes to, but hey, I'm not going to judge.


My main problem comes (no surprise here!) from trying to reconcile comfort with stlye. While I am aware of the feminist (and Marxist) critiques of fashion, I love frou-frou (to quote Henri V), I love style, I love clothes, I love shoes, I love pretty things; I am a feminist who shaves her legs and armpits and plucks her eyebrows and likes to play with fashion and will even wear mascara every once in a while. I regard it as a game to be enjoyed, as yet another avenue to explore beauty in our lives. Our sartorial choices, as I've pointed out in an earlier post, always say something about ourselves, the kind of person we want to be or want to be perceived as, even if it's only something like, "lover of color," or "lover of comfort," or "thinks layering is fun." The people who claim they don't care about what they wear will still send the message "I don't care how I look, and I don't give a damn about what you think of me either," which in and by itself is always telling, depending on the context. So, I have no problem with wanting to look "sexy" or "desirable" to a point, but I want to do it on my terms, terms that will make me feel good and make me feel comfortable (after all, I've never had a single masochistic tendency in my life). As such, taking care of myself, highlighting my strong points and de-emphasizing my flaws is part of the image I want to project for the others as well as for myself. I draw the line, however, when that requirement cripples my movement, makes me dependent on Band Aid and podiastrists, and sends me into middle or old age with back or knee problems.
For the record, I also abhor plastic surgery of any kind and I also think we’ve gone too far with the ubiquitous “pamper yourself” and “indulge” slogans (they’re everywhere people, from beauty treatments to chocolate to department stores! Doesn’t that make you a bit self-reflective?).

I guess that the idea of somebody dictating us what to wear in the name of "sexiness" should be at the very least disturbing (and don't forget who you want to be sexy for, ladies!). The pictures I've peppered this rather heavy entry should be enough to start questions the standards of fashion we are forced to measure up against. And looking at them, the question I posed in the title of this post doesn't seem to be that stupid, all of a sudden. How high is high enough? How painful or impractical does a shoe have to be to cross the line between couture and fetish? What kind of message are we transmitting when we walk in these shoes? If you are a feminist (and you SHOULD be!), how do you reconcile the classist and sexist assumptions embodied in the notion of a high heel with your own convictions about women's rights? And, finally, if you don't really care about that, the still most important question of comfort still remains: can we walk in these shoes and feel good (comfortable) at the same time?

And as I write this, I just saw, from the window of the coffee shop, a young girl walking barefoot on the (most unsanitary!) streets of Philadelphia, carrying her 3" or higher black slides in her hand.

Ha.

All the pictures in this post have been shamelessly scanned from Linda O'Keeffe's great little book Shoes: A Celebration of Pumps, Sandals, Slippers & More, which contains, despite the evidence collected for this blog, a large number of really beautiful shoes. Mouse over the images for a brief caption.

posted by Cristina Hanganu-Bresch @ 12:48 PM