The added inches. The multi-million dollar American industry. The sensuous curve of a woman's calf, flexed ever-so-"naturally" by the boost of a high heel.
It's no secret that the high heel was invented by a man. But not for any of the reasons above-stated.
Any American woman who has any real grounding on the planet Earth knows that high heels are impractical, nonsensical- and just plain uncomfortable. They serve no obvious purpose other than to sexualize women, which they indeed do, but as a mere side-effect. They define the little-known muscles in most women's legs, wherein it was discovered that adding a few inches of artificial boost to a woman's heel could strenuously carve out some otherwise forgotten musculature. That's what they want you to think.
I am here to contend that modern men invented the high heel as a contemporary form of ancient Chinese foot binding.
Foot binding, for those who are unfamiliar, was a Chinese practice that emerged during the Song dynasty, but spread to as late as the early 20th century in aristocratic China. It was achieved by breaking the feet of the eldest daughter in an aristocratic family and wrapping them tightly in order to take off inches of the foot's length and reform the healed bones into tiny stumps. A barbaric procedure, foot binding would be considered a violation of human rights in today's society.
But how different, at its barest bones, is wearing stilettos from foot binding?
High heels were invented by men to immobilize women, both literally and figuratively. Foot binding, in its ancient form, was a practice meant to keep aristocratic young women "dainty" and enslave them to be future keepers of the home- it was what rich men wanted. Those women who did not have their feet bound were lower class and worked in the fields next to their husbands- a position of equality, albeit in destitution.
Let's examine the practicality of high heels. How fast can you walk in high heels? Is it even possible to run in them? How seamlessly can you move with six-inch, skinny, artificial inches between your achilles tendon and the earth beneath? Even the most experienced high heel-wearers among us will tell you: "Not very." The logic is simple: high heels were designed by men to immobilize the modern woman from straying too far from the home and and climbing the career/social ladder autonomously.
Think back to the early 20th century. High heels were not commonplace. Sure, there were some June Cleavers out there who wore heels (and pearls) when they did the laundry and cooked their husband's dinner. But June Cleaver's heels were about 1.5 inches high- not nearly the stiletto standard we all must adhere to in recent decades.
The advent of the feminist revolution in the mid-twentieth strangely coincided with a new invention: the ridiculously high, high heel.
That's right, folks- men feared the emerging power of women in American society and, being leaders in the fashion industry, sexualized ridiculous footwear from the top down- high heels became the standard of femininity and sexiness.
High heels have since enveloped the fashion industry, trickled down to the masses, and have become widely regarded as the standard of "sexiness" to all men, and foot-bound women, in the U.S. of A.
