Why do women fall for such torture?

[question everything]

From the Wall St. Journal

OCTOBER 14, 2008

Women Fall Head Over Heels for Shoe Makers' Arch Designs
Six-Inch Spikes Are Painfully Hot Trend; A Balancing Act That Makes Models Cry
By TERI AGINS
The Wall St. Journal

Anne Betts was sassy and confident strolling down New York's Fifth Avenue in her strappy, 5-inch platform heels. Until, that is, she stepped off a curb and fell to the ground. "I felt it immediately," says the New York ad-sales manager, referring to the pain that shot up from her just-sprained ankle. Although her doctor admonished her to give up the skyscraper shoes and imposed a 3-inch-heel maximum, Ms. Betts admits she can't resist the allure of tall shoes. "I love to dance in them," she says. While standing still, she notes, "they improve your posture."

Not so long ago, high heels were defined as 3 or 4 inches -- a footnote to give a little height and a more appealing silhouette to the wearer. But this fall, shoes have been supersized with the proliferation of 5-, 6- and even 7-inch heels and platforms. The über-heels range from $100 versions sold by Steve Madden to deluxe pairs costing between $600 and $1,500 from designers such as Yves Saint Laurent, Marni, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin. They come in an array of shapes, including spiky stilettos, tapered cones, sloping wedges and thick wooden posts. Exaggerated platforms have thick, elevated soles, as well as high heels, making for a superhero, rather than a Barbie-doll, look.

(snip)

The heels are proving treacherous to many. At Prada's spring 2009 fashion show in Milan last month, two models fell down on the runway; others stumbled as they walked in mile-high shoes designed by Miuccia Prada. "I was having a panic attack, my hands were shaking. The heels were so high," one of the models told reporters after the show. "Some of the girls were crying backstage they were so scared." But instead of rejecting the extreme heels, many women can't seem to get enough of them. Claudia Chan, a 33-year-old owner of an event-marketing business, partly blames her super high heels for back problems and a herniated disc. And yet she wears 4- or 5-inch high heels to business meetings and for most social occasions. "I look taller, my legs look longer, and I feel more slender," says the 5-foot-2-inch New Yorker. "About half of the clothes I wear only look good in high heels. There is a price to pay for beauty, and high heels is one of them," she says.

(snip)

Women's shoes with heels 3 inches or higher represented 25% of all women's fashion footwear sold at shoe retail chains for the 12 months ended August 2008 compared with 21% in 2006, according to NPD Group Inc. At the same time, moderate heels, between 1½ inches and 27/8 inches, saw their market share fall to 26% from 34% in 2006. Whether the trend has legs is yet to be seen. New York-based designer Warren Edwards, who participated in the heel hype this summer, has since backed down. "I think they have become vulgar and unwalkable," he says. "They are figments of runway imagination -- it's like, how high can they go? They've become cartoony." Stacy Lastrina, executive vice president of marketing for retailer Nine West, acknowledges that "the majority of women do not wear shoes that are so extreme." But due to all the runway exposure, the company has adapted some of the looks -- with more "walkable" styles that top out at 4½ inches.

(snip)

Women who lack attendants -- or curbside limousine service -- have found a way to zap the discomfort of today's extreme heels. They get injections of a cosmetic filler such as Restylane or Juvederm to plump up the balls of feet. These "pillows" last for six to nine months. Suzanne Levine, a New York podiatric surgeon who teaches the $500 to $1,500 procedure to other doctors, says she's been getting calls from patients, especially women over 40, who want to put the cushioning back in their feet so they can wear higher heels.

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122394215518830965.html (subscription)

[Skittles]

1. I cringe when I see women wearing those ridiculous pointy shoes

our feet are NOT triangles :thumbsdown:

[aquart]

2. Gonna be a lot of injured, crippled girls.

Wait till they find out that surgery can't really fix it.

I'd arrest the shoe designers for malicious mischief and depraved indifference to human life.

[TXN in WA]

3. I have to admit I love them

But I recently threw my back out at an aerobics class, and wearing boots with a modest heel was pure torture. I'm not about to get rid of my shoe collection though, no way.

[pansypoo53219]

4. porn shoes.

actually this shoe toe issue goes back EONS. was just reading 'costume' in my 1891 encyclopedia britannica and it would go from square toe for 100 years or one king and then switch to very very pointed toes, curly toes. the fact that we are going thru this same shit tickles me.

or course i don't wear shoes at all. barefoot all year for about 4 or so years now.

[NashVegas]

19. I Once Had a Conversation With a Musician

Whose album cover featured a woman in 5-inch stiletto thigh-highs.

My comment: I could never walk in those.
His reply: "honey, those aren't made for walking"

Too bad no one is explaining it that way to the young women who are injuring themselves by wearing these shoes for the wrong purpose.

[emilyg]

5. Not this woman. Ugly shoes.

[Captain Hilts]

11. Wearing men's shoes and never walking barefoot...

has given me really good-looking feet. For private viewing only!

[no_hypocrisy]

6. This story reminds me of another story a few years back where women were having

elective foot surgery to make their toes and feet fit into preposterous shoe shapes.

[question everything]

7. And we would look down on the chinese with their barbaric

torture of women feet.

As I was reading the story I noticed that all the designers are men, of course, and I have to wonder whether they derive a secret satisfaction from conning women to think that this is what they need to... make their life better? sexier?

This story was also covered on NBC morning show and they showed Meredith Vierra with high heels shoes saying that she is short and has always loved high heels. I think hers were 5".

How sad. Seems that not much has changed from the 50s when women were stuffed into Corsettes to form an idealistic (in whose eyes?) form.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. My fourth grade teacher told us detailed stories about the foot binding.

She also told the class that the "tradition" ended not because of modernism but the mothers (with their own stunted feet) refused to continue unless the FATHERS unwrapped the feet and had to listen to the screams of their daughters in the process. I find that credible.

My Australian friend is pragmatic as far as designer footware for women: If you can't run in them, don't wear them.

[lukasahero]

9. Because some of us are idiots.

To wit: "blames her super high heels for back problems and a herniated disc..."There is a price to pay for beauty, and high heels is one of them,""

[Scout]

10. all of us don't ... i don't know why some do, because they are crazy

or have low self-esteem?

[One_Life_To_Give]

12. Competition

Some guys try to be the Football star. And some women try to be the best dressed/most stylish.
In the end it seems to be a way of establishing ones place in amongst a group of peers.

[Warpy]

13. Yeah, they tried to stick us in those stupid things in the 70s, too.

Fortunately, I saw the combination of microskirt and platform heel shoe for what it was and opted for jeans and Earth Shoes. In fact, I still own a pair of Earth Shoes and I still love the damned things. So sue me.

It did limit my job prospects, this distinctly unfashionable bias. I did a lot of zany and non traditional jobs until I went to nursing school. When people asked me why I'd gone into nursing, I said it was a job I could do in comfortable shoes, and that wasn't far from the truth.

I spent much of my nursing career taking care of women with horribly twisted feet from years of jamming them into high heeled shoes. My mother also had such feet, even though she hadn't worn high heels for a good 30 years.

I'm sure I've lost a fortune in income over the years by sticking to a patchwork of jobs that didn't require Suzy Secretary dresses and high heeled shoes. However, given my health history, if I'd worn them, I'd be in a wheelchair by now, unable to walk more than one or two steps at a time.

Models need to get together and do a class action suit against the sexist pigs forcing those dangerous shoes onto their feet as a condition of employment. Only when those assholes are hit in their wallets will they start looking at us as people and try to design things that don't injure us.

[Tumbulu]

14. I heard from an intern that worked for Senator Diane Feinstein

that all the women who work in her Senate office were REQUIRED to wear high heels to the office. I am still livid about this.

I find the high heel thing outrageously sexist and I think they should be made illegal, or else those who chose to wear them should have to pay higher health insurance premiums, much like smokers do. As they are a known health hazard.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. The passive tone here is misleading.

Torture is something someone else does to you.

Women who wear high heels are not "falling for" "torture", they're choosing (making a free and informed choice) to do something potentially unpleasant because they consider it worthwhile, for whatever reason.

[noamnety]

16. Warpy's post demonstrates that it's not a "free choice"

It's a bit like saying working in a sweat shop isn't torture because the people "made the choice" to work there.

As Warpy points out, the choice to wear comfortable and healthy shoes isn't "Free." There's a very real cost associated with it, it affects the jobs you get hired for and in many cases restricts you from some lucrative professional careers. There are other possible financial costs as well.

"Potentially unpleasant" is a misleading euphemism for dangerous and medically risky and I don't believe it's an appropriate word choice given the situation being discussed. I don't normally hear men talk about damaging results of work uniform requirements as "potentially unpleasant" if what they mean is "causing broken bones or lifelong injuries and disfigurement."

[Captain Hilts]

17. It also ties into the height=power/maturity/ intelligence that rewards taller people...

with higher salaries AND the Oval Office!

[crownchakrabound]

18. My mom had these pumps from the 50s that were way pointy

She had corns when I was a kid from those damn shoes!