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On High Heels, Backwards

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Philip Garner High Heel Roller Skates 1986

At the age of three, Grandmother’s feet had been wrapped tightly witha long, narrow cloth bandage, forcing the four lateral toes under the soles so that only the big toe protruded. This bandage was tightened daily for a number of years, squeezing the toes painfully inwards and permanently arresting the foot’s growth in order to achieve the tiny feet so prized by Chinese men. Women were in effect crippled and their inability to walk with ease was a symbol both of their subservience and of their family’s wealth. Grandmother’s feet caused her pain throughout her life. Later, she braved social ridicule rather than inflict this suffering on her own daughter.

Falling Leaves: The True Story Of An Unwanted Chinese Daughter, by Adeline Yen Mah

I was going to write a long, boring post about the problems with high heels and how they’re the modern equivalent of Chinese foot binding but after collecting a bunch of links I realise that I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said before.

Then there’s this, in a chapter about fashion (particularly in relation to goth subculture) and fetishization of fashion items:

I try to explore both what men were finding erotic about fetish fashion– which did often have to do with phallic symbolism, and with ambivalence about female bodies–and also what women found appealing about it, when they did find it appealing–which some did, particularly younger women. And what kind of fantasies they were constructing around something like a high heel. In both cases there frequently were power fantasies. What was interesting though, is, contrary to what feminists would assume, most male fantasies had less to do with “There’s a woman in high heels who can’t run away from me, so I’m going to catch her and rape her,” but on the contrary, “There’s a woman in high heels who’s going to walk all over me.” Women’s fantasies also tended to be like that: “I’m in high heels, and I can say, “Get down on your knees.” So in both cases, for rather different sets of reasons, there were often power fantasies, or stories about gender slippage.

– from a conversation with Valerie Steele in Goth: Undead Subculture

There’s A Fetish For Everything: Muddy High Heels, from Frisky

What Is It About A Woman In High Heels? asks Slate, in regards to Anthony Weiner. Who else?

While I think everyone should steer clear of talking about ‘feminists’ as an homogeneous group with homogeneous misconceptions, just as everyone should stay away from making assumptions about the wearers of high-heeled shoes, what Steele says is important. Any sexual act or garb can be on either side of the power dichotomy, and it depends on the participant.

So did high heeled shoes start as a regular fashion item which became fetishized, or was it the other way around? The articles below suggest it was the latter:

From Manly To Sexy: The History Of The High Heel from The Society Pages

And here what manly high heels were called. Brand Name From The Past: Sorosis from Fritinancy

The Real Reason Men Stopped Wearing High Heels from The Frisky

Where Did High Heels Come From? Mental Floss.

Sexualization of the female foot as a response to sexually transmitted epidemics: a preliminary study, from Discover Magazine

My own feminist problems with high-heeled shoes have nothing to do with what goes on in the bedroom, and everything to do with the male gaze and objectification of women, and the pain and discomfort and straight out physical damage that happens when women start wearing high-heeled shoes on a daily basis — or worse, when they are required to wear high-heeled shoes as part of their work, as flight attendants are.

Cringe-inducing 3D scan of a woman’s foot bones in high heels from io9

More Women Are Literally Chopping Off Their Pinkies To Fit Into Heels from Jezebel

Andrea Hasler sculpture5

Artwork by Andrea Hasler

So Should We Just Start Calling High Heels Body Modification? from Feministe

I also don’t like that female fetishistic fashion has become mainstream for little girls.

‘Mini-Me’ With High Heels of Her Own from the New York Times, about how heels and wedge shoes have become mainstream for little girls now.

Can Evolution Explain High Heels? from Salon, in which the title is rhetorical: some of us think it can. I’m very suspicious of these kinds of studies. (Who on earth funds them?) Too often ‘evolution’ is used to excuse substandard status-quo, especially in regards to maintaining the current power structure. This research argues that high-heels have stayed even as other fashions come and go because they exaggerate the femininity of the natural female gait.

Do Not Want: A High-Heeled Flip Flop, from Frisky, but Reversed Heels Are The Scariest Heels. From LAEM

Stiletto Workouts: Finally, A Way To Get Skinny AND Break Your Foot Bones from Jezebel

Women Wear High Heels Because We Are Idiots, Says Science from Messy Nessy, though of course, women wear high heels because we are so often judged for not wearing them. Which answers the following question: Are Women Foolish To Love Stilettos? from CNN

High Heels And Distinction from The Society Pages

The Frisky’s Guide To Comfortable High Heels, evidence that buyers of such footwear don’t even usually expect the damn things to be comfortable.

Seven Terrifying Beauty Practices From History

Let’s Shop For Shoes In The 194os from Jezebel



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