Heels why

They made me feel powerful in a womanly way; suited up, compliant, like I was buckled in to the workday. Perhaps I had something to prove; or perhaps I had been made, repeatedly, to think that.

It is a shoe for events, display, performance, authority and urbanity. In some settings and on some occasions, usually the most formal, it is even required. High heels are something like neckties for women, in that it can be harder to look both formal and femme without them. Women have been compelled by their employers to wear high-heeled shoes in order to attend work and work-related functions across the career spectrum, from waitresses in Las Vegas to accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Rather paradoxically — or maybe not — according to the year-old fetish industry, it has also consistently been viewed as a shoe for sex. For women, what is the most public is also the most private, and vice versa.

Along with being our most public shoe, it is also considered the most feminine. Modern elevated shoes were born in Paris, invented and then reinvented for western fashion as the classic high heels we recognize today. The first came in the 17th century at the court of King Louis XIV, when blocky talons hauts, inspired by Middle Eastern riding shoes, were deemed the best way for a nobleman to accentuate the muscles of his silk-stocking-clad calves and proclaim his status.

The second came in the s when Dior designer Roger Vivier put steel rods into the shafts of skinny stilettos, raised their height to three inches or more, and encouraged regular women to wear them in daily life.

Thus, in the postwar era, when an emergency female workforce had recently been shuffled back to the kitchen, the template for the contemporary high heel made its debut. He was among the first mainstream designers to push his creations to the edges of practicality and into the realm of art.

He was not the first to use steel in his heels, nor were his shoes the first to feature heels that were both very high and very thin. But it was his work with Dior in the s that finally made the look de rigueur.

The fashion gods transform women into something other than human. Not bad. Except once the flats came off and the heels were strapped on, that time got cut in half. Pickup lines were happening within seven minutes. In another experiment , Gueguen took the women to the streets. No, not like that. He had them stop pedestrians to answer a survey about gender equality. The study found that 40 percent of men would respond to a women wearing flats, 60 percent to women in medium heels, and 80 percent of men were all ears when the women were wearing high heels.

Could this be applicable to court cases? Business pitches? Or maybe even convincing husbands to wash the dishes? One of the first accounts of people wearing heels dates back to BC. Aristocratic men and women wore them for ceremonial purposes. It has been said the added height set themselves apart — or above — from the social classes. Aristocracy, perhaps, doesn't apply in today's world. But power does. Women in heels are often women of power. Do a quick search for " business woman ," and if the picture is a full-length shot, you can bet that woman is wearing heels.

Business organizations like Business in Heels and Leaders in Heels use women dressed in spikey heels on their home pages, or a red pump for their logo. As a woman who stands at 6'1" in her bare feet, heels have never been a necessity for me. When I put on 4-inch heels, I become a colossus.

People literally have to crane their necks up to talk to me. But for my 5'1" friend, heels are an instant confident boost. Even though her office doesn't require them, she wears them almost daily. It was always important to 'show up,' and I would say I often commanded more respect the more well put together I was," she says. Psychologists at the universities of Liverpool and Central Lancashire might agree.

They conducted an experiment in which they digitally lengthened and shortened pictures of women, asking for instant judgments from the viewing participants. The results revealed some harsh truths.

The heightened women were judged as more intelligent, assertive, independent, and ambitious — not to mention richer and more successful — than their shorter versions. VT and WI assisted with conducting the study. All authors approved the final version of the paper for submission. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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He helped an entire generation learn to accept non-binary gender, heels and all. By the s, heels, particularly in the form of the Cuban heel, had come to symbolize a certain kind of rough, rocker aesthetic. From the Beatles and David Bowie, to Motley Crue and Prince, the male heel is still very much part of all of our cultural identities. Paul Getty Museum.

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