Originally Posted by
Marianne S
Wow, Krisi! Did this question hit a nerve! Look how many responses! There must be something intensely "symbolic" about shoes.
My answer is the same as many others'. Granted, I don't wear heels that high, though I'd love to do so, because it would be fun. Also I had an incipient ingrown toenail on my right foot that makes it painful to wear high heels for very long. I have a huge collection of shoes in various heights accumulated over the years in an attempt to find what's comfortable. (I'm a size eleven, which makes the selection more restricted. I hate to think what some males face when they're a size twelve and larger.)
But in the end it's a balance between "femininity" and comfort. I admit I wear women's sandals around the house most of the time when I'm "dressed." I'd like to wear heels more of the time, but they can get uncomfortable after a while.
So what's so great about heels? As others have found, they make me "feel feminine." And what's the point of "cross"-dressing if it's not to "feel feminine"? Naturally we want to accentuate what "feels feminine" to us, even if it isn't what most women wear much of the time. Sure, scads of women sling on a T-shirt and jeans, "unisex" clothing for convenience, just as men do. But in formal contexts we accentuate our masculinity and femininity. No woman would be seen dead at the Oscars parading herself in sneakers. It's high heels for sure. Same with men. We don't wear neckties any more, much of the time, but we do at a formal event; even with a ceremonial sword, where military officers' uniform requires it.
I don't know which is worse: wearing high heels and a tight dress, or having to tote a clanking sword around the house! Anyway we don't have to go to those extremes. We don't have to wear a five-inch heel either. An inch or two is enough. When it come to shoes, there is a compromise between femininity and comfort. The "femininity" part comes from knowing we "look" more elegant, the shoe itself more delicate, the angle between foot and ankle straightened out, like a ballerina on her "points." The whole "different feel" of women's clothing (shoes included) compared with men's, reminds us of our enjoyment of "being women." And of course there's the way "heels" make us walk differently, all the way up to the hips, more the way a woman walks.
An excellent compromise is a woman's high-heeled open-toed sandal, which jacks up the heels in a stimulating way without painfully compressing the toes.
Ain't gonna happen, Monica. And thank HEAVEN for that! Sure, there's been "convergence" between men's and women's clothing, but only on the grounds of convenience and utility. "Utility"--what an ugly, soulless word that is! Who wants to see men and women all alike in those dismal "unisex" uniforms worn in communist China?--the ultimate in "drab"! Where's the fun in that? Boring, BORING!
No, human nature doesn't change, unless it's deliberately suppressed. Men and women will continue to assert themselves in their gender-divergent ways; in fashion above all. Thank goodness! Fashions may change, but differences remain, even if they're annoying at times.
Forty years ago I couldn't wear earrings in public without being thought "weird." Today I can.
Twenty years ago or thereabouts I could wear denim cutoffs as a male without being thought weird. Later, gangs of females invaded that "fashion space" and tight shorts became "girly." So today as a male I wear cargo shorts. It was annoying to be pried out of a comfortable fashion space--was there anything "essentially feminine" about tight shorts that I enjoyed?--but at least cargo shorts have pockets I can use! What we lose on the swings we gain on the roundabouts.
In spite of these changes, differences remain. Could I wear a crop top, or one of those off-the shoulder tops, or women's jeans, without being seen as "feminine"? No--and I'm glad about it. Differences between the sexes remain, and always will--ever since the time "sexual reproduction" first emerged eons ago, the splitting of life into "male" and "female," the engine of change and progress that powered our evolution and advanced us to where we are today: imperfect and conflicted, but sentient and intelligent, conscious and aware, with a future ahead of us, where without the division into "male" and "female" we might still be nothing but germs floating in the mud of some primordial swamp.
So hey, "Vive la Difference!"
(I know you were only joking, haha)
