UK Edition
Bravo, Nicole Thorp. The actress and part-time temp worker has made a stand for women everywhere when she refused her temp agency’s demand that she wear heels to a job at PwC as a receptionist to comply with its “female grooming policy”. Having turned up in perfectly acceptable black flats, she was sent home without pay for having not contorted her feet in the brutal creation that is the high-heeled shoe.
Let’s be clear: there is nothing reasonable, professional or acceptable about this. It is no better than any authority demanding that self-respecting women bind their feet or wear a burqa or niqab. Ms Thorp’s temp agency, Portico, should be ashamed.
Ms Thorp did not go quietly and has started a petition to make it illegal for employers to require women to wear shoes to work. I’m rarely one for piling additional regulation onto companies, but the requirement for women to wear heels is simply sick and shouldn’t pass any normal health and safety test. Every right-thinking person who supports the right of women to dress smartly for work without pain should agree.
There is something retrograde and depressing about the fact that many professional women still feel the need to wear heels to be truly “dressed”. The history of women’s fashion is filled with impractical, grotesque physical distortions, but thanks to the much-maligned feminist movement, almost none now remain – except the high heel.
I believe it is high time that society moved on from the gruesome convention of heels. Men’s fashion abandoned them over a hundred years ago. That’s not to say that women should be ostracised for wearing heels, especially lower, more practical ones. I can even see the logic of wearing them very occasionally or requiring them to be worn for jobs that require outlandish costumes (like acting or stripping). But in society at large, tastes need to move on.
Of course, there are many uncomfortable clothes that look fabulous. Most men and women will at some point compromise on comfort to look professional or beautiful. But heels cross a line and the convention that most women wear them is sick.
Why?
Firstly, they are bad for the human body. A recent review of scientific studies done on high heel usage, published in the British Medical Journal, revealed that they were associated with developing bunions, musculoskeletal pain or a variety of other significant injuries in thirteen out of eighteen studies. Heels force women to walk with their chest and bottoms thrust out, dragging hips out of alignment with spines, and sending the shock impact of every stride straight into knee joints. All for what? If we find an everyday gait that is damaging the human body more attractive than one that isn’t, we might as well live in a world of cartoons or pornographic ideas of beauty.
Secondly, wearing them for any prolonged period hurts. There are few sights more pathetic than that of a limping, high-heeled woman at the end of an evening’s partying. A frightening number of women will actually cut short their evening’s entertainment for the sake of their aching feet – aching because of shoes they have chosen to wear. A powerful set of feminine conventions surrounds these choices, justifying and normalising them, such as the mad declaration that a certain pair of heels is “really comfortable”. What this usually means is: “I can wear them for more than two hours without pain.” That is not comfort. Going home because your feet hurt is not normal. Wear something suitable for the activity you are planning.
Thirdly, they immobilise women and separate them from non-heeling wearing humans. Women in heels can’t walk at a normal pace and they certainly can’t run. They are always on the lookout for a seat or support to lean against. When they sit down on trains, they quickly tip their feet back to compensate for the discomfort of their bizarre footwear. They demand their companions take taxis and buses to go normal distances because they can’t bear to walk. They hang off men’s arms and demand their friends walk at a snail’s pace. They are rendered all round physically less capable and more liable to complain.
No doubt, some women will read this and think: “That’s not me. I never complain. I have learned to walk in heels. My heels are comfortable.” Perhaps that’s even true in certain situations, like a dinner party in which very little standing is required. But I don’t believe it’s true for a night out, for a conference, for a commute and whole day at work, for a party or a wedding or a flight or a train journey – or almost any normal activity.
For all these reasons, when I see women in high heels, I don’t think they look glamorous. I shudder. I wish they would wake up and realise they are participating in an insane, needless self-torture that makes them more dependent, more fragile and less healthy.
High heels aren't glamorous, they are physically damaging and requiring women to wear them is sick