High heels-another theory

[JessinAvalon]

Apologies in advance-I am typing on my phone & am thinking as I type...

I was at a meeting today representing my boss (finance director). It was a regional meeting with lots of other FDs and was 50/50 men/women. Since reading Beauty & Misogyny I've started noticing women's footwear more & also their appearance. (There is one woman who attends who is just beautiful but it must take her a long time to achieve the look she has - at the hairdresser, doing her makeup very carefully..can I be bothered with all of that?)

Anyway, there was one woman there today wearing ridiculously high heeled shoes. I wondered why and then I thought that perhaps it's a desire to feel taller, rather than to give the legs a better shape or whatever reason women are supposed to choose heels. I wear heels to work but I don't choose to any other time & I do wonder if it's the desire to make myself feel taller because, if I think about why I like wearing them, feeling taller is really the only reason.

When you're up against men in suits in the boardroom, on executive teams, I think that feeling taller, and thus reducing the physical differential between the sexes, is one way that women (me) try to establish themselves on more equal terms, subconsciously or consciously.

Once you lose the physical differential, you can then compete on grounds of ability and talent. All this may be felt entirely subconsciously but I think that this is why I wear them. In the rest of my life, I rarely wear heels.

Sorry to ramble! Hope this makes some sense!

[thenightsky]

You could be correct. I rarely wear heels, being 5ft 9in tall already.

However, I do feel gauche and weird if I do wear heels and tower over the men, and find myself stooping.

Wonder why we are 'supposed' to be shorter.

[TondelayoSchwarzkopf]

I agree. I'm pretty tall and in heels I'm over six foot and like to be the tallest in a room. If I wear flat shoes I feel too girly, weak and insignificant. I realise this doesn't exactly square with my feminist principles.

IIRC there is a lot of research (of probably poor quality) about the positive relationship between height and earnings.

[JessinAvalon]

Interesting....!

I think what I was trying to say, and failing, was that the wearing of heels is yet another way in which we are trying to be like men, ie taller. The woman wearing the stupid heels today would have been Kylie-size without them!

[JessinAvalon]

I was writing from the perspective of someone who, at 5'7" does like a boost of a couple of inches. I hadn't thought about women who were generally taller than many men.

[thenightsky]

I do feel less feminine in heels I suppose. Which is strange as high heels are so very female. I just feel like a bloke in drag.

[JaneS]

I agree. I am 5'4 and wear heels often. It is great to be able to look people in the eye and in all seriousness, I think all things being equal, people treat tall women as if they are more adult. A friend of mine is well over six feet in heels and I know she enjoys being taller than the men she works with.

I feel feminine in some heels, but usually I don't especially. If you wear heels your stride has to be quite heavy and decided - unless you teeter, I guess!

I possibly ought to find another way to achieve the same ends, I know.

[nooka]

I think this would be a fine theory if small men (and there are plenty of them) wore heels too. But they don't. Maybe they'd really like to?

Perhaps I can only say this as a tall women who has never worn heels, however the most powerful women that I have worked with is also quite small. It used to take me by surprise at times :)

In an office world my experience is that most decisions are made sitting down (or on the phone, by letter, via the internet etc), where height is fairly immaterial.

[msrisotto]

Yeah most men don't wear heels but some brave shorties wear cuban heels.

I'm 5'10 and hardly ever wear heels. I work in healthcare though so it's not at all male dominated or competitive and I want to be as unintimidating for my patients as possible so I do sometimes feel a bit awkward about being tall. In bars and clubs etc I used to feel 1. quite confident with being tall but 2 that I put some men off if i was taller than them (which in heels, I was quite often!)

[JessinAvalon]

But high heels is a feminine thing to do so men wouldn't wear them even if they wanted to make themselves look taller. They might achieve extra height but would appear less masculine as a result. As with make up-some men would probably like to change their appearance with it but, at the moment, it's a feminine activity and therefore would be seen as emasculating.

[sethstarkaddersmackerel]

I definitely agree the extra height is part of it, though only a part; it can co-exist with all the other reasons.

I've hardly worn them since starting to SAHM and I am sure this has a lot to do with not having to compete in status with the other school run mums (the only thing I 'dress for' most days).
When this was discussed on another thread recently a few tall people admitted that they feel uncomfortable sometimes talking to people who are much smaller than them, which I found very telling, and kind of proof of the fitting in argument; height actually reduces the discomfort of tall people you are working with and makes it easier for them.

[ValiumSingleton]

I like to feel taller but I can do that in fly shoes with a wedge heel. I feel 'stable' as well as taller! If you feel a bit wobbly that totally ruins any advantage of being closer to the men's height I think. I hate those pointy stiletto type shoes. I feel they are man-pleaser shoes.

[JaneS]

I am aware this is probably bad on many, non-sisterly levels, but I have to admit I like being able to walk properly in high heels and not wobble! I guess it would be pathetic to say it pleases me to have control over such a minor physical thing, but it does.

In all honesty, I've never actually met a man (as opposed to passed in the street) who genuinely found heels all that sexy. I think it's a bit of a myth - men are told they're sexy so say 'mmm, yeah!', but there's not really much to attract them. Either you can't walk in them and wobble (which looks daft), or you can walk properly in them and men just don't notice them.

Most blokes I know don't notice I wear heels.

[amiheartless]

I think this may be true alot of women who wear massive heels are like 4'10 or something

they probably feel a bit 'hello up there' in a a male enviroment

at 5'9 I don't wear heels often because I don't want to soar above all them men I feel like goliath

[TondelayoSchwarzkopf]

Ah, you see as a taller woman (same height as you) I don't mind being taller than men. DH is 5'8 and I tend to tower over him in heels.

Surely its less feminist to want men to be taller

[nooka]

That was my point Jess, why are heels only a feminine thing, if they are just an aid for smaller people to be a little taller. Either there is greater pressure on women to be taller or height is not really the reason for heels.

[JessinAvalon]

I don't know why heels are only a feminine thing. I can only think that they have become associated with the feminine because men are generally taller than women (speaking very generally there). I don't know why the use of make up is now seen as predominantly feminine. In centuries past, men would wear as much make up or more than women and would also wear wigs too (not just discreet toupees!).

I was thinking about the reasons why I wear heels and I wear them even if I'm wearing trousers to work. But I only ever wear heels to work or if I'm going out in the evening. The rest of the time I don't. And it occurred to me in the meeting I was in (with a bunch of suited men) that the only reason why I was wearing them is because I like the tall feeling they give me. It certainly doesn't make a difference to the shape of my legs if I'm wearing trousers.

When I'm in a meeting with a bunch of middle aged suited men who are FDs and I'm a woman, on average about 20 years younger than them, I'm very conscious of the age/sex differential. I wondered if my desire to reduce the height differential was one way of lessening the intimidation that I feel (a little) at the age/sex/experience differential between me and these men.

[mellicauli]

I thought the idea was they pushed your bum out and made you look more sexy, rather than made you taller. Which is of course, a good power play. Usually no shortage of testosterone in the board room.

[zest01]

I wear heels because I like them and because, after years as a sahm when flat shoes were the only practical option, it feels like a luxury to be able to wear heels again.

For me it's just the difference between active, practical Mummy and smart office woman. We are an active family with lots of walking/sports/outdoor stuff when I'm home, so it's just the contrast I like. I am happy with my height and don't feel the need to be "sexy" at work it's just a little "luxury" for me, for want of a better word.

[karmakameleon]

There is some evidence that short people are discriminated against.

Malcolm Gladwell writes about this in blink.

So it makes sense that a woman would want the extra height, not necessarily because she is trying to "be like a man" but simply because people do subconsiously discriminate on height.

[TanteAC]

Hmm, interesting. I love heels and wear a mixture of heels and flats to work, depending on how far I have to walk that day!

However, I would automatically go for heels when giving a presentation/interview, etc as it makes me feel more 'formal'. (maybe because it takes effort? It definitely changes my posture and speed of walking, etc. Not a wobbler here, btw!)

Am 5'4 so a bit of a shorty but don't really feel that the height thing is relevent to me (work most closely with females), but absolutely agree it must be in other scenarios.

In fact, I teach drama and as one of the units we do physicality, one class being on power. The whole objective is to show how to present power without speech, in body language and staging - the students love it and always start to talk about each other and teachers and how they feel when people tower over them. I also let them into the little secret that I find it easier to be authoritative in my classroom, not the drama studio, because the only one standing is me, which subconciously represents power in the teacher-student relationship (and they are easier to control! )

Actually my original statement about height is bollocks!

I have one boy heavy class of 16 year olds and I usually wear heels because when the stand up they tower above me!

Never realised that before....hmm

Sorry, total ramble there, pick a point if you find one...