{"id":29,"date":"2010-10-15T09:59:34","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T08:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/?p=29"},"modified":"2010-10-15T09:59:34","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T08:59:34","slug":"manolo-inferno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badreputation.org.uk\/2010\/10\/15\/manolo-inferno\/","title":{"rendered":"Manolo Inferno"},"content":{"rendered":"

We should have burned high heels instead of bras. I\u2019m not sure why the bra was taken as a symbol of female repression: at least it serves a practical purpose. Bras allow us greater physical comfort and security – especially if you have larger breasts – protecting delicate nipples and posture, reducing the strain on the back and giving the freedom to do exercise without the fear of black eyes.<\/p>\n

Ditching bras led to the hippy generation exposing their newly \u201cliberated\u201d breasts, much to the excitement of the male populous, but though the swinging sisters\u2019 knockers were emancipated, their feet remained in chains. Brave souls fought the revolution from the floor up, rejecting those spiky torture devices in favour of Birkenstocks and Doc Martens. Rather than becoming a symbol of a new femininity, they were (and still are) decried as unfeminine, butch, ugly and a little bit silly. Aside from a core group of defiant activists, most women clung on to their high heels and attempted to teeter-totter their way to equality.<\/p>\n

As anyone who has ever walked in high heels knows, it\u2019s difficult, it hurts and you make slow progress in exchange for a bit of perceived power and some flattering glances. Which is a pretty good analogy for how women are hampered in general life, so why should we persist in adding to these problems by going along with something that limits us?<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to admit that I own several pairs of high heels, and have even worn them on a number of occasions. There is not a single instance of doing so where, at some point, I haven\u2019t wished I\u2019d worn flats instead. I am pretty certain that the only reason I ever wear them is because I think they make me look \u201csexy\u201d. Yet, I know that I don\u2019t always feel sexy in them. For the first few minutes, yes. Then I often feel footsore, annoyed, uncomfortable and insecure. Which is hardly sexy as I understand it.<\/p>\n

Understand this instead – high heels make me feel sexy because I have been socially conditioned to believe that they do. There\u2019s a lot of wibble that is spouted over how high heels emphasise the curve of the calf, or mimic the way the foot appears in orgasm (I actually know very few people who look at their partners’ feet during climax). These are all smokescreen attempts to try and make the high heels = sexy equation make sense. In reality, we (men and women) think that they are sexy because society tells us that they are sexy. Because of the hundreds of thousands of images and descriptions of sex and sexual arousal that involve high heels. In the same way that black lace, Haagen Dasz, the Cadbury\u2019s Caramel bunny, red silk and feather boas are put in the big box of \u201csexiness\u201d these are things that we have repeatedly conflated over and over and over again with sex until they are themselves signifiers of sexiness.<\/p>\n

And who doesn\u2019t want to be sexy? The problem is that high heels have become entwined with an idealised feminine sexuality that actually has very little to do with real women having real sex.<\/p>\n

In order to be considered either feminine or sexy, we have to adopt these symbolically and socially appropriate signals to show off how attractive and womanly we really are.<\/strong><\/p>\n

High heels are a fetishised (often literally) and almost untouchably sacred shibboleth of accessing femininity: a litmus test for being a \u201creal woman\u201d. In fact, that act of wearing high heels for the first time, perhaps from our mother\u2019s wardrobe, is almost a rite of passage. I never did this because my mother, also a tall woman, didn\u2019t own any, which may go some way to explaining my perspective on heels. Being able to walk in high heels is a desirable skill, which women should learn in order to be \u201cproperly\u201d sexy. Although it is also possible that if you feel you have to wear them in order to feel feminine then learning how to walk in them is a necessary survival mechanism to avoid falling over all the time.<\/p>\n

The high heel, and walking on it, is part of the mask of constructed femininity, ways in which we contort our bodies into more socially-accepted shapes. Alongside corsets, padded bras, make-up and so on, the high heel is a tool in the Frankenstein workshop in which we create these fake shapes, themselves a distortion and extension of our own shapes to the point where our \u201cnatural\u201d bodies look like failures, consistently being too big here or too small there.
\n
\nWe are addicted to high heels, and like many addictions, they are not good for us.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have friends who adore high heels, including a friend who has several pairs she has never worn and dedicates a portion of her life to the process of breaking in new ones. The stock responses when I criticise high heels is that they make you taller, especially when compared with men, they make your legs look better and that they are pretty. I understand all of these points. I also understand that there\u2019s a need to dig deeper into those reasons and appreciate that they centre more around feelings about power and self-worth than bits of leather and plastic on your feet.<\/p>\n

Height is associated with power. We perceive \u201ctaller\u201d as being better and physically attractive. It\u2019s no wonder then that women, when they want to look powerful and sexy, try and be taller. Men too, but they have a genetic advantage, certainly over women, in that area, and a social constraint against trying too hard and fussing over their appearance.<\/p>\n

\"Barbie<\/a>

The female dolls can't stand up without their high heels...<\/p><\/div>\n

For women, no such luck \u2013 in fact, not trying enough and not \u201cdressing up\u201d properly for social occasions can sometimes cause offence, even amongst other women. In fact, I would go as far as to say especially from other women. Our heel addiction is something we push on other each other, like crazy drugged-up people giggling whilst encouraging our sober friends to try just one little inch. Then another, then another. There\u2019s a tendency to blame mysterious (male) fashion gurus for difficult or challenging clothing that doesn\u2019t suit or fit or just plain makes us feel silly. But the vast majority of the social force behind wearing heels comes from other women.<\/p>\n

Which is actually a good thing. Because it means that we can stop it. We know that sexiness is something that is socially defined \u2013 certainly over time and across different cultures what it is to be sexy has looked totally different. And so too, what has been considered feminine. We can control it, by choosing to accept or reject these ideas. High heels have no more and no less control over about our femininity, our power or our sexiness than we, collectively, let them. In and of themselves, shoes are just bloody shoes. I realise that in saying this I am committing deep heresy and may as well hand in my women\u2019s club membership card and will have any number of women ready to beat me to death with their precious designer spikes. This of course, only really goes to emphasise my point.<\/p>\n

We need a heel amnesty. All of us, as one, should take them off and put on those beloved trainers that we only wear on a \u201cscruffy\u201d day, those boots that make us feel like we could kick the arse of the world, those flip flops that remind us of wandering along the beach, free for a day. If we all gave them up, we could all stop trying to compete in the height stakes and learn to accept ourselves \u2013 even just a tiny bit \u2013 for being the shape we are. Which is a natural, normal, comfortable and above all, powerful shape. Your shape: the one that you own and navigate the world in and which lets you run, jump and move like a human being rather than with the stiff gait of socially-conditioned sexiness.<\/p>\n

Women of the world \u2013 buy comfy shoes! You have nothing to lose but a few inches!<\/p>\n

And remember, it\u2019s not height that it\u2019s important. It\u2019s stature.<\/p>\n