# High heels **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [April 5, 2013, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903 "2013-04-05T07:31:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/21 "2013-04-06T21:30:28Z")
> [@colander](#): > > It wasn’t too long ago that heeled footwear was pretty much mandatory for professional women, and I don’t think it’s really out of line to say that anyone who seriously wants to go back to that way of doing things is basically some kind of human monster. The question is, how do we balance any individual woman’s right to wear what she considers to be snappy footwear in her workplace with the general right of professional women to be free from the expectation that they do the same? It’s a heavy quandary and there’s no one real right answer. I agree with that summary. I was just trying to counter the extreme view that _anyone_ that wears heels is sacrificing their health and cannot be taken seriously. Wearing heels and walking long distances / being on your feet all day is a bad idea but seriously I can’t recall the last time I saw someone do that. If some women do I don’t think they are the majority. ---
**Author:** ![colander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@colander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colander)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/22 "2013-04-06T22:23:27Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I agree with that summary. > I was just trying to counter the extreme view that _anyone_ that wears heels is sacrificing their health and cannot be taken seriously. > > Wearing heels and walking long distances / being on your feet all day is a bad idea but seriously I can’t recall the last time I saw someone do that. If some women do I don’t think they are the majority. Of course they aren’t the majority, but they’re hardly unusual. In my college town, I routinely see young women out and about in heels. Maybe they’re all on their last functional pair of shoes and heading to Foot Locker to stock up on sneakers, but I kind of doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/23 "2013-04-07T00:17:52Z")
I think there may have been a misinterpretation of “stress loading”. A woman in high heels will (technically) violate the allowable floor loading (in terms of PSI) for most floors.:eek: It doesn’t count because they have a gross weight substantially less than a forklift. Thankfully.😛 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/24 "2013-04-07T02:41:52Z")
I’ve seen nurses in Thai hospitals wearing high heels. Makes a trip to the doctor a bit erotic. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/25 "2013-04-07T04:04:19Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > I love my high heels because no matter what I weigh, my shoes are always awesome. > > I don’t care if other people think I look stupid in them. I didn’t ask what you thought. > > So the point might be: some people like high heels\*. > > The posts in this thread so far make me wonder: If women allegedly only wear high heels because we stupidly bought into some commercial standard of beauty that we were brainwashed to believe in, and 100% of the males in this thread think high heels are unattractive, where does this supposed message that high heels are sexy come from? Steve Madden? > > I will never understand why high heels is the item of clothing that people choose to pile on about. > > \*High heels force the bulk of your body weight to the balls of your feet. This causes accentuation of the calf muscles and it also forces you to arch your back just a bit to maintain balance, which has the effect of popping out the booty and boobs. It is my opinion that men who think high heels are unattractive are dead inside. I think Heels make women look sexy. BUT, that being said, they have their place, and slogging thru the mall or Disneyland or places like that are “stupid”. Save them for special occasions. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/26 "2013-04-07T10:21:34Z")
> [@colander](#): > > It wasn’t too long ago that heeled footwear was pretty much mandatory for professional women Professional? I’m guessing you don’t mean Doctors or Engineers ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/27 "2013-04-07T11:29:22Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Most guys’ shoes have at least an inch elevation in the heel, while women’s flats can range anywhere from totally flat to an inch or more in the heel. As a cobbler I have to disagree on this. Yes, there are men’s shoes with an inch heel (and we regularly get men’s cowboy boots even higher in the heel) but men’s shoes these days run from flat-as-heck (comparable in thickness to ballet shoes) to a lot of 1/2 inch and 3/4 in inch men’s heels. In fact, we stock heels in severel standard sizes, most of them less than 1 inch in height. So the statement “most guy’s shoes have at least an inch elevation in the heel” is not accurate. Could be the guys you hang out with favor higher men’s heels, though, just as some groups of women favor higher heels. I have had a lot of women complaining this past year about the lack of new flats available. Not ballet shoes, just shoes and boots with a heel a 1/2 inch or less (yes, I realize strictly speaking that’s not flat, but most flats have at least a token heel and the line is a bit fuzzy in practice). > [@](#): > > That’s a huge part of the problem, wearing crappy shoes where your toes are jammed together, the heel isn’t positioned properly to allow for easy balance (it needs to be under the ball of the heel, not at the back of the heel), and the arch isn’t supported well. ^ This is truth. So many people buy poorly fitting shoes. They buy the shoes because they’re cute or on sale and then ask me to stretch them 2 or 3 sizes (can’t be done - about a 1/2 size is the most we can do and even then you might be shortening the life of the shoe). Shoes with holes wearing through the bunion area or the little toe or where the big toenail is because of too-small toeboxes and feet crammed into shoes too small. And the point about heel location is very true - you want it under the ball of the heel. This is better (not great, just less evil) for you, and better for the shoe. I find a lot more heel bases snapped off poorly constructed shoes due the forces exerted while walking, leading to more stress on the heel structure due to side-loading. It’s also hysterically funny when some lady gets upset at me hammering a new heel lift into the high heels. The force exerted by my little arm is pathetic compared to your entire body weight coming down on that small area every time you take a step. In general, as noted you want the heel properly positioned and the larger the heel area the less toxic it is to the wearer’s feet. We get a certain number of women who, after years of wearing very high heels, have caused permanent damage to their feet and now require us to modify _every_ pair of shoes they own (which now have much lower heels) to accommodate damaged tendons and feet. That starts at $45/per shoe (not per pair) and goes up. I strongly feel people should be able to wear whatever they want, but should also be aware of the costs as well as the benefits. Healthy feet can wear heels on occasion. Wear them all the time, though, sooner or later your feet won’t be healthy. Regardless of what you wear **buy shoes that fit!** A well fitting high heel will be less painful and damaging than a poorly fitting one - that’s true of _any_ shoe. If your feet are big deal with it - one day I had two women in the shop, one of which was picking up her size 11 pumps. The other lady exclaimed she’d _never_ wear a shoe that large - and her feet showed the result of that attitude. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/28 "2013-04-07T11:44:32Z")
> [@enmity01](#): > > Once you’ve found this “average” profile of time/distance spent sitting standing, walking, climbing, running, crouching etc. You can figure out the amount of force or stress applied to the ball of the foot and create a reference value for each type of footwear. That won’t work - note what Una and Fierra found about the differences in where they put their weight on their feet. The person is a very important factor and differences in forefoot vs. heel wear occurs in _all_ types of shoes. As a cobbler I see this every day - I’ve got one lady who puts _so_ much of her weight on the ball of her feet that her heels _never_ wear down and I’m always rebuilding the front of her shoes. That’s an extreme end of the spectrum but wear patterns on shoes can be very distinctive. Whether heels or flats, female or male, different people are “toe walkers” or “heel walkers”. (I can also tell if someone is coming down harder on one foot or the other, and often if someone drives a manual transmission vs. automatic due to wear patterns on their heels) This likely accounts for why some people find high heels (or any other type of shoe) more comfortable than someone else would, or at least is part of the reason. Now, there might be great utility in discovering which shoe types/styles are more suited to toe walkers or heel walkers. You could find out which someone was, then steer them to shoes that are more comfortable for their walking style and/or less likely to cause damage. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/29 "2013-04-07T11:54:32Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Professional? I’m guessing you don’t mean Doctors or Engineers True. The medical types that come to my shop wear very boring “old lady shoes” (or “old men’s shoes”, I guess). Emphasis on skid-proofing the soles, too. Especially for the ER folks. Different professions require different “uniforms”. The women cops and military personnel who come to my shop wear shoes indistinguishable from their male counterparts while on the job (to the point their shoes/boots are often misfiled with the men’s shoes by the trainees and even the more experienced people when in a hurry). We also have a couple of pole dancers and _their_ shoes are amazing… and invariably with the heels properly positioned and very carefully fitted to their feet (and therefore larger than many would expect but a properly fitted shoe looks right on the foot). Unquestionably _they_ are required to wear incredibly high heels during their work day. I think was most folks refer to as “professional” women are those in corporate office work where, yes, some sort of heel is expected. Unless things have changed drastically, however, a tasteful pump with a 1 or 2 inch heel is acceptable, you don’t _have to_ wear a four inch heel in any office I’m aware of. Maybe we should stop referring to the subset employed women who work in an office as “professional” when women construction workers, doctors, and soldiers are every bit as professional as a corporate executive but have very different work attire requirements. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/30 "2013-04-07T12:18:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Melbourne** : > > Professional? I’m guessing you don’t mean Doctors or Engineers It also wasn’t too long ago that not-being-doctors-or-engineers was pretty much mandatory for women (in the same sense that wearing heels was mandatory). ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/31 "2013-04-07T16:42:10Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Professional? I’m guessing you don’t mean Doctors or Engineers Why wouldn’t she mean Engineers? I’m one and I wear heels in the office, as do many of the Engineers. My best friend, a multi-degreed power plant diagnostic Engineer wears 4-inch Jessica Simpsons all day long. It’s true many wear flats, but I’d say in my Professional Engineering environment at least 50% of the women wear heels on a daily basis. It might depend I guess on how you define “Engineer.” Some people with the title “Engineer” do not meet or work with clients on a regular basis, and are not at the same office “social level” as others. And no, no one wears heels to a power plant… ---
**Author:** ![colander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@colander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colander)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/32 "2013-04-07T18:53:49Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Professional? I’m guessing you don’t mean Doctors or Engineers In eras past where women were expected to wear aesthetically pleasing footwear at the expense of podiatric health and easy mobility, women were also afforded very little opportunity to enter STEM career fields. I hope this fact does not come as too much of a shock. ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/33 "2013-04-07T19:58:42Z")
In grade school we were taught that the Chinese were once chided for a custom of mutilating women’s feet. In the US women encourage women to mutilate their own feet. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/34 "2013-04-08T15:06:22Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I think Heels make women look sexy. BUT, that being said, they have their place, and slogging thru the mall or Disneyland or places like that are “stupid”. Save them for special occasions. I agree with this and this is why I think it’s really stupid during beauty pageants. The swimsuit competition? They always wear heels with swimsuits. Heels are not appropriate at the beach, nor at the pool, so why are heels paired with swimsuits in beauty pageants? Purely to pop out the T&A. :rolleyes: I wear heels a lot, but I’ll point and laugh just like anyone else when I see someone wearing heels on rough terrain, or where it’s just totally inappropriate. It’s like going hiking with flip flops on. It can be done, but you’ll probably be in a lot of pain by the end of the hike, so doesn’t it make much more sense to wear shoes appropriate for the activity? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/35 "2013-04-08T16:00:49Z")
Ummmm… Beauty contestants may wear swimsuits, but that’s not the same thing as being at the beach. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/36 "2013-04-08T16:12:11Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > Ummmm… Beauty contestants may wear swimsuits, but that’s not the same thing as being at the beach. Right, well my point is that swimsuits + high heels = does not go together. ---
**Author:** ![colander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@colander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colander)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/37 "2013-04-08T20:54:48Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > Right, well my point is that swimsuits + high heels = does not go together. They do if enough people think they do. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/38 "2013-04-08T22:08:08Z")
The purpose of the swimsuits is to show off T&A, too. If you prefer, just think of it as lingerie. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/39 "2013-04-08T23:50:57Z")
Rumor hath it that on the Internet there are pictures of women wearing high heels without any swimsuits at all! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903/40 "2013-04-09T12:54:15Z")
> [@Vashbul](#): > > Two observations: Attempting to measure weight distribution between heel and toe by balancing on two bathroom scales - well, that can’t be none too accurate. They said they ‘rigged something up’. Without knowing what that was, we can’t really address this question. > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > Fierra and I work very hard to try to have a correct balance on both our front and rear feet… You have front and rear feet?? :eek: I’d always assumed you were bilaterally symmetric bipeds. Oh well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/high-heels/654903.md?page=3)