My co-editor Jack says you can't wait to hand me my ass.
Jack is assuming I have an interest in your ass.
Ha — maybe he was just trying to get my blood pumping. But I do think heels are a little fucked-up. Heels, like long nails, are a holdover from an era of fashion that was unconsciously designed to immobilize women.
Uh, "olden times"? Do you have a good grasp of the history? Am I already in over my head?
You're a turnip. Have you never seen a French-period porn film? Those poncy guys in the over-wigged Louis era were all flouncing about in heels...
That's true. They were also designed to be immobilized because the leisure class could make it obvious that they didn't have to lift a finger in their damn lives.
Perhaps. Or, like men's wigs and women's gloves, heels were just another way to ornament the body.
In that case it's akin to how it used to be considered attractive if you were really pale, because it meant you were wealthy, not a laborer. Today, laborers work inside, so it's attractive to be tan because it means you spend your time lounging by the pool.
Cue the '60s, when a tan meant you were jet-set and in Capri. I won't disagree that heels afford less mobility.
But — and I grant that all fashion is on a continuum from more convenient to less convenient — heels are pretty extreme. They can really fuck up your body.
Eh. A tan can give you cancer. Playing football can give you concussion and brain damage. Sitting in an air-conditioned office for forty years fills your lungs with pathogens. Alcohol kills the liver. Pork skin clogs your arteries. I can stop now, right?
I take your point, but the fact is, alcohol is inherently fun to drink. And no one sits in an office for fun.
And heels are not fun to wear? And bacon is not fun to eat?
They're fun to wear for the wrong reasons. It's fun to feel sexy. And feel that you look good.
And you find fault with that how exactly?
I don't find fault with women for wearing them, I just think the subtext is a little fucked-up. Women get badgered so much by the culture about looking good.
And men get badgered about being tall and making money. We're all doomed.
I won't argue with you there. But women have it worse: they're forced to either actively make a point of resisting beauty standards that are inconvenient and maybe unhealthy, or accept them. As a male, I'm grateful I don't have to make that choice (at least not as explicitly).
Women continue to earn two-thirds (or whatever embarrassing percent it is) of what men earn, have 1/10,000 the positions of power in governments, and you want to pity us because society (and by that I think you mean a dozen fashion magazines) "force" us to wear hells?
(Heels, not hells, but I'll allow you to snigger at the Freudian typo.)
Wouldn't dream of it. And, it's not pity, buddy, it's empathy.
Listen, in all seriousness, pity that my gender doesn't have access to power. Or, feel empathy, rather. (And I really disagree that men don't have to make choices about their dress, but let's table that for a second.)
If women had had more access to power historically, they might not be obliged to wear heels. And I wouldn't under-weigh the impact that "a dozen fashion magazines" — but really the entire industry of female beauty, from media to manufacturing — has on the psyche. Men have to make choices about their dress, but those choices aren't nearly as extreme.
If you were talking to me about being thin, I wouldn't disagree with you as much. But heels — I swear, you just have the wrong target. Especially now. Women have never had more or better access to gorgeous flat shoes. My closet is full of them. This is an absolute shift in taste and trends in the past five years.
I admit, that's news to me. Yet heels are still desired.
On some occasions. At the moment I'm wearing jeans. Wednesday, I wore heels and a dress to dinner. Thursday, I wore flats and a dress to a party. I picked what I wanted to wear based on my mood.
Yes, and anyone who can negotiate the cultural obligations and feel happy and attractive and comfortable, more power to them. But you've got to admit, the subtext is a little perverse.
It's just not an argument for me. The subtext is that I want to feel attractive. That's what's perverse?
But why does feeling attractive have to be so difficult? If you Google "how to walk in high heels," you get hundreds of thousands of results, because the damn things need an instruction manual.
Who says it's difficult? Might I suggest that if you Google "how to do a headstand," you'll get as many results.
Well, women aren't obligated to headstand their way through fancy-dress occasions.
Don't be such a bozo. Women are NOT obligated to wear heels! I go to plenty of fancy-dress parties. I assure you, I never judge the women in flats. Well, not beyond thinking, "Those flats are pretty with that bubble skirt."
Ha ha. That's progressive of you, but I think you're underestimating the internalized pressure.
I wear heels. Sometimes I wear flats. It depends on the dress, not on the internalized, soul-destroying pressure you think I feel.
Yes. It's not that free will is entirely taken out of the equation. We all still have agency, but that agency is also compromised by external forces. What if formal menswear included wearing lead boots, and the ability to get around in lead boots were considered an indicator of masculinity? And I'm an unfashionable cat, I usually don't wear 'em. But then I go to a wedding, and everyone else will be wearing the damn things, and there I am shuffling around, and it would have been my CHOICE to wear convenient shoes —
Can I stop you? Because this is a load of crap. Fortunately, humankind's monkey brain was able to avoid that whole let's-put-men-in-lead-boots debacle.
Because men were in charge.
You really think heels are the same thing as lead boots? How do you feel about mascara?
I could do without it, but mascara doesn't make it any harder to do anything.
Heels make it a little harder to sprint to the train. I'll grant you that. But I can still get there with a brisk stride.
Again, more power to you.
But you think I've internalized a false power?
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