Late in 2009, the Trade Union Congress (mostly made up of men) proposed banning high heels from the workplace. Why? Well, they say it’s for health and safety reasons – they can cause injuries, but also because they’re demeaning to women. Aw, nice. And over in Scotland, Network Rail (bet that’s mainly men too) is encouraging women to ditch the stilettos for … less accident-prone shoes on railway concourses.

But then of course, as with any new suggestion, out come the nitpicking columnists and letter writers who object just because they can…but this time, the opponents are women! Scottish councillor Maxine Smith (an avid high heel wearer) said: “I would not see any good reason to suddenly swap my high heels before arriving at the station. This may well be a case of Network Rail looking for a ‘get out’ clause in the face of customers submitting less than altruistic insurance claims. If so, it is a sad reflection of the compensation culture in the society in which we live.”

And, on the Trade Union Congress story, the Telegraph quotes Nadine Dorries, Tory MP, who apparently says heels are beneficial for women in the workplace:”I’m 5ft 3in and need every inch of my Christian Louboutin heels to look my male colleagues in the eye,” she said. “If high heels were banned in Westminster, no one would be able to find me. The TUC need to get real, [and] stop using overtly sexist tactics by discussing women’s stilettos…”

She’s backed up by Michelle Dewberry, a former winner of TV reality show ‘The Apprentice’: “This is absolutely ridiculous and I think these union officials should be spending their time dealing with more important issues. I’m at work in five-inch heels and perfectly able to do my job. Heels are sexy, they boost your confidence and they are empowering to women. I can’t imagine these officials debating a motion about how tightly men should wear their ties. Wearing heels is a personal choice.”

So…and I’m scratching my head a bit here – it’s women’s personal choice to wear heels that can cause accidents and injuries. Fine. But it’s also their choice to wear heels because if they don’t they’re disadvantaged, disempowered and have less confidence in the workplace? Says who? Women. Strange. Whatever happened to feminism?

Suffice to say, spare a thought for short men. Who’s sticking up for them in the corporate world? Let’s hope they have access to complementary counselling for their – undoubted – self-esteem and inferiority issues.

As you can see in another post on this site – Assume the Position - the wearing of high heels forces women into a more sexualized position, whether they realise it or not. Now obviously some guys will find that sexy. Personally it’s in the same category for me as wearing too much makeup, overdoing the perfume or becoming surgically enhanced. Ladies, you’re sexy because you’re sexy without the add-ons or being artificially forced into contortions.

Another reason given for wearing heels by women is to gain the extra height. Now I know for a fact that most men like to be taller than their mates. Ever been to a party where there is a short guy with a partner who is taller? Hear the titters of amusement, or the wee nudges to check that out? 21st century guys are being outperformed in the classrooms and boardrooms by women throughout the developed world so hey why not take away one advantage they naturally have? Doesn’t make sense to me.

I know the clackity clack of high heels over a hard surface is a head turner for many guys and it is for me too. Particularly if they’re skyscrapers I’m interested in how she manages to walk in them successfully and why she is bothering. So it’s with a feeling of amusement that I’ll turn and gawk a little.

Most guys are practical beings and will see the sense of something if it has a practical purpose. From a male view, the purpose of high heels is the fact that a lady being pursued can’t get away easily as you simply can’t run in the things! Maybe you need to ask the question: Are the men you’re attracting by wearing high heels really the men that you want to attract?

Well that’s just my humble male opinion anyway…..

Late in 2009, the Trade Union Congress (mostly made up of men) proposed banning high heels from the workplace. Why? Well, they say it’s for health and safety reasons – they can cause injuries, but also because they’re demeaning to women. Aw, nice. And over in Scotland, Network Rail (bet that’s mainly men too) is encouraging women to ditch the stilettos for … less accident-prone shoes on railway concourses.

But then of course, as with any new suggestion, out come the nitpicking columnists and letter writers who object just because they can…but this time, the opponents are women! Scottish councillor Maxine Smith (an avid high heel wearer) said: “I would not see any good reason to suddenly swap my high heels before arriving at the station. This may well be a case of Network Rail looking for a ‘get out’ clause in the face of customers submitting less than altruistic insurance claims. If so, it is a sad reflection of the compensation culture in the society in which we live.”

And, on the Trade Union Congress story, the Telegraph quotes Nadine Dorries, Tory MP, who apparently says heels are beneficial for women in the workplace:”I’m 5ft 3in and need every inch of my Christian Louboutin heels to look my male colleagues in the eye,” she said. “If high heels were banned in Westminster, no one would be able to find me. The TUC need to get real, [and] stop using overtly sexist tactics by discussing women’s stilettos…”

She’s backed up by Michelle Dewberry, a former winner of TV reality show ‘The Apprentice’: “This is absolutely ridiculous and I think these union officials should be spending their time dealing with more important issues. I’m at work in five-inch heels and perfectly able to do my job. Heels are sexy, they boost your confidence and they are empowering to women. I can’t imagine these officials debating a motion about how tightly men should wear their ties. Wearing heels is a personal choice.”

So…and I’m scratching my head a bit here – it’s women’s personal choice to wear heels that can cause accidents and injuries. Fine. But it’s also their choice to wear heels because if they don’t they’re disadvantaged, disempowered and have less confidence in the workplace? Says who? Women. Strange. Whatever happened to feminism?

Suffice to say, spare a thought for short men. Who’s sticking up for them in the corporate world? Let’s hope they have access to complementary counselling for their – undoubted – self-esteem and inferiority issues.

Where should we start? How about the achilles? Heels force your feet into such a position that the front of the foot is lower than the heel, which means the achilles tendon is in a contracted, shortened position. Over time, the achilles will become shorter and tighter and you can develop achilles tendonitis, a painful condition that is difficult to treat. Often, the tendon simply becomes permanently damaged. Some doctors have elderly patients who still have to hobble around in high heels because it’s too painful to put their feet flat. Heels that are 3in or more are the dangerous ones – and you only have to wear them more than once or twice a week.

From the Daily Mail

Ever had calf cramps? Heels are notorious for causing these, due to – once again, muscles that are contracted as they are forced into an unnatural, angled position. High heel wearers are also at risk of osteoarthritis of the knee. This is a result of posture – the pressure of the leg places excessive force, even up to 26% more, on the medial side of the knee. With this also comes lower back pain, as the weight of the wearer shifts forward. In order to avoid falling forward, you then need to compensate for this by arching your lower back. Do this for any period of time and you’ll have considerable back pain. This type of posture puts pressure on nerves in the back, and can cause sciatica, a painful condition where nerves become trapped, triggering pain and numbness as far down as the feet.

Have you ever seen bunions? They’re pretty ghastly. Funny how one of the main reasons for wearing high heels – beauty – leads to one of the ugliest conditions. Again, causing the foot to overarch means there is more pressure on the medial side of the foot. Weight distribution of the body is altered, and a bony growth (bunion) can develop on the joint at the base of the big toe. Hammertoes are also common, where tight-fitting shoes force a wearer’s toes to bunch up. This shortens the muscles inside and leaves them permanently bent, even without shoes.

The thing about high heels is that the body works as a whole. When you force your feet into an unnatural position, the rest of the body has to compensate. This is why you get calf, knee, and back problems. But it can even extend further, with some women experiencing shallow breathing and a tight neck and shoulders.

Wearing high heels also puts you at a greater risk of falling. It’s common for women to fall on to the side of their foot and twist their ankles. If you’ve never had an ankle injury, then you need to know how debilitating they are – and painful. You could quite likely end up on crutches and out of action for six weeks or more. Some falls even result in fractures, which may need surgery.

Oh, sure, there are medical studies out there that say heels are great for strengthening pelvic floor muscles, and hence may result in a better sex life. Chances are, though, that if you’ve got achilles tendonitis, calf cramps, bunions, hammertoes and chronic back pain, are you really going to be that keen?

Seems to me that sacrificing pain-free movement for (what was it again?) – longer legs, a tighter looking butt and extra height – seems pretty daft to me.

Now leaving aside the fact that Maria Cerruto herself says she loves high heeled shoes and, “I tried to find something healthy in them…”, and also that the study was based on a small sample of incontinent women (!); the results sort of make intuitive sense. Stay with me here…

Dr Helen Fisher, an anthropology professor at Rutger University in New Jersey says that “High heels thrust out the buttocks and arch the back into a natural mammalian courting – actually, copulatory – pose called ‘lordosis’. Rats do it, sheep do it … lions do it, dogs do it…”.

So when women are wearing high heels they are contorting their body into a sexual posture, that men see as sexual readiness. So doesn’t it stand to reason that if a woman spends a lot of time in high heels, that the muscles used in sex will get a good workout?

I guess if I walked around in a golfing stance often enough it would build up my quadriceps and probably tone my gluteal (butt) muscles too. If it didn’t create a real handicap, it might even help my golfing one. But I’d feel pretty stupid doing it.

P.S:

And of course, it all hinges on whether or not you believe what people say about their sex lives

The history of high heels goes back further than you may think – B.C times, in fact. Egyptian figures on murals dating from 3500 B.C show some type of high heel being worn. And, in ancient Greece and Rome, kothomi – what we’d describe as platform sandals with wood or cork soles – were worn by men and women of the higher classes and female prostitutes. In fact, that link between the upper classes and prostitutes is an interesting one – and one we’ll see crop up again.

High heels were around in Egyptian times

The Middle Ages brought patterns, which both men and women wore. They had wooden soles and were clearly a precursor to what we would recognise as high heels today. Patterns were attached to fragile and expensive shoes to lift them above the mud and other street debris while walking outdoors. By the 1400s, Turkey had created chopines, which were popular throughout Europe until the 1600s. Chopines could be seven to eight or even 30 inches high; so high that it was impossible to walk in them unaided. You either had to hobble around on canes or lean on servants.

The chopine was largely confined to upper-class women who could afford to rest on the shoulders of others. Why bother? Well, apparently height conferred status – the taller you were the more superior in class and wealth. They were worn almost exclusively by women. In Venice too, they became well known as a status symbol – representing wealth and social standing for women. Yet, at the same time, the impossibly high shoes began to be associated with domination and submission – it was said that upper class women would be less able to become involved in illicit liaisons, and prostitutes unable to escape from the bordello or harem.

In the 1500s, Catherine de Medici brought a pair of heels with her to the French court, and with it a new fashion trend. Her two inch high heels gave her short stature extra height and an alluring sway when she walked. Not a bad way to get attention when you’re competing with your husband’s tall and beautiful mistress! The trend quickly caught on and heels were eagerly worn by Parisian noblewomen and by those across Europe. By 1580, heels were popular for both sexes and were associated with authority, privilege, or wealth, giving rise to the expression ‘well-heeled’.

Then along came the French revolution, Napoleon banishing high heels in an attempt to enforce equality and break down social hierarchies. She who ate too much cake, Marie Antoinette, wore two inch heels to the guillotine and became the symbol of all the lavish decadence of the aristrocracy. So, when the French monarchy fell, so did the height of the shoes.

It wasn’t until the 1860s that heels became popular again. High-heeled lace-up boots with a slight glimpse of the toe were worn under flowing dresses. Again, lavish fashion associated heels with wealth and class. But, in general, women in the late nineteenth century demanded more comfortable, flatter shoes. That is until the roaring twenties, when short hem lines encouraged more visible, elaborate heels. Short-lived though, as we know – the Depression and World War Two years brought more difficult and practical times, which meant heels were generally lower and wider.

The 1950s saw Christian Dior and his shoe designer Roger Vivier designing the first shoe with a narrow, ‘dagger’ heel – a stiletto. The 1960s miniskirt meant that stilettos were often attached to boots to enhance the look of bare legs. But, with the rise of feminism, stilettos went out of favour. Feminists claimed they were designed by men to cripple and subordinate women, an act comparable to the foot binding and corsets of the past.

This meant low-heeled shoes were back, this time with square toes – but the hippie movement preferred platforms. Platform shoes were hugely popular in the 1970s, a decade which proved to be an experimental time for fashion. It was all about dressing to shock – with higher and higher platform shoes in bright and psychedelic patterns and colours.

In the 1980s, women started to reject the idea of heels being imposed on them by men. Women now claimed they were wearing high heels for themselves, and that heels gave them not only height, but power and authority, as they allowed them to stand eye-to-eye with men. In the 1990s, Manolo Blahnik’s high heeled shoes were seen everywhere on catwalks and television shows. High heels were seen again as signals of financial success. And then, of course, along came Carrie Bradshaw and Sex and the City….and the rest, as they say, is history!

Ask any woman on the street and she’ll give you an answer that will probably be similar to the following – to be taller, and to make your legs and butt look better. And that’s true – heels do. Then there are the other benefits women claim – that heels give confidence, a sense of elegance, beauty and even power. All in all, it boils down to attitude, posture, confidence and femininity. And in the corporate world, wearing high heels is simply something women do – have to, it seems.

Of course, there are feminist scholars who sit in glass towers and know the purportedly ‘real’ reasons – according to Sheila Jeffreys, wearing high heels “fufils the dictates of male dominant culture and gives satisfaction to men…Women are immediately recognizable as they walk with difficulty on their toes in public places. Thus high heels enable women to complement the male sex role of masculinity, in which men look sturdy and have both feet on the ground, with clear evidence of female fragility.”

Academics generally agree that women, as they teeter around on these stilt-like shoes, are making themselves look vulnerable. So, just like in the movies, women need the male hero to save them, as they can’t run from danger or protect themselves. Heels also send a signal to men that women care enough about male sexual satisfaction to wear them.

I think most women would deny that they wear heels to attract men (at least as the main reason). They would say they wear them ‘because they want to’…that it’s their choice, and that heels make them feel more confident and beautiful in themselves. Nothing to do with a man.

So then it becomes not what men have forced on women, but what women do to themselves. There could very well be that undercurrent of subordination/ sexuality working there, but it’s become so embedded in gender roles and society that women just don’t recognise it anymore. The enslaved become their own captors.

Of course there are plenty of women who dislike heels, and refuse to wear them. But ask these same women if they ever wear heels, and they’ll admit that they bring them out for special occasions; when they want to dress up.

Down on the practical level, it’s what’s available in the shops, too. Are there really many ‘dress me up’ flats for the average Janes out there? But, of course, that’s a circular argument…women decide what they want and the manufacturers are just giving it to them… or are women just buying what fashion designers tell us we have to have, and what manufacturers make? If there’s no alternative, what are women supposed to do? Wear running shoes with ball gowns? And then of course, there’s the  ‘everyone else is doing it…’, and in a corporate environment, you might find that glass ceiling’s lower than you thought if you insist on being a flat shoe wearing, (and, perhaps pant-wearing, non-shaving) woman…

Backing up a little now, let’s look at one of the other main reasons women claim to wear heels – beauty. From that I would assume that some women wear heels to appear more attractive to men. OK, so, what do men think? I’d hazard a guess that most men would agree that heels look better – yes, a contracted calf is, on the face of it, more attractive – muscle definition and so on. But do men like the impracticality of it, the fact that their partner can only walk very slowly, and not on cobbles, or uneven streets, and not for very far….most men I know are pretty practical blokes who just roll their eyes at such ridiculousness. A practical, ‘functional’ woman who can keep up with them would be a far more attractive partner, surely? An equal?

Mmm… think I should put down the can opener about now….before the worms make it all the way out of the can.

“Now I can wear heels. (on divorcing Tom Cruise)” – Nicole Kidman

“High heels were invented by a woman who had been kissed on the forehead.” – Christopher Morley

“I don’t know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot” – Marilyn Monroe

“Not diamond but heels are a girl’s best friend.” – William Rossi

“Nothing has been invented yet that will do a better job than high heels at making a good pair of legs look great, or great ones look fabulous.” – shoe designer Stuart Weitzman

“According to Harper’s Index, the average increase in the protrusion of a woman’s buttocks when she wears high heels is 25%.”

Yep, it turns out that General Motors are adjusting the pedals on their cars to better suit women driving in high heels, by changing the tilt of the accelerator and brake pedals…although they won’t admit it because they don’t want to put potential male customers off!

How cars are being designed for women in high heels

Guess it shows how, to keep customers happy, you’ve got to give them what they want, right? And it seems that’s all General Motors are doing, following on from an experiment in 2002 when 100 male GM staff members wore skirts and stilettos, long fake fingernails and carried toy dolls in an attempt to experience their latest SUV from a woman’s point of view.

Although….I wonder what it might do to your car premiums, if an insurance company knew you were a serial stiletto wearer? Be Wiser Insurance in the UK has a page on its website specifically advising women not to wear high heels while driving. They cite research that shows over 80% of women wear inappropriate footwear while driving, and 10% of female motorists have had an accident or near miss as a direct result of the shoes they have been wearing. They also blame heels on the increasing number of deaths at zebra (pedestrian) crossings – wearing heels slows down your reaction time. Bad luck if you happen to be crossing when Sarah Jessica Parker comes down the road!

Driving in heels causes accidents