Honestly? It’s because the stuff you ladies put on your feet look incredibly uncomfortable, and judging from the fact that I have seen a good number of women taking them off and slipping into something else at the first opportunity, they probably ARE uncomfortable.
Also, it has long been a contention among certain feminist groups that high heels exist for the purpose of making women look more appealing to men.
If shoes are your thing, far be it from me to try and stop you. But it doesn’t make any sense to me (not that it has to). One would think that comfort would be of paramount concern more so than aesthetics.
I have a shoe section on my blog. I don’t just like wearing shoes, I groove on writing about them, too. I not only think about shoes on my feet, I think about what shoes my friends and coworkers would like. Some people are matchmakers; they set about fixing up other people’s love lives. I daydream about fixing people’s shoe lives.
Nobody needs Uggs, though. They are an insult to all that is Shoe.
Y’know, this is all connecting in my mind to high fashion. A lot of people sneer at manyofthethingsonrunways*, saying things like, “who the hell would wear that in real life?”, “that looks ridiculous!”, “that’s ugly!” When you get into a lot of higher fashion, the purpose isn’t even always to look like nice clothing. It’s using clothing as art. Sometimes the intention is to look ugly, if that’s the statement they want to make. There’s pottery that’s not made to be used as dinnerware or to put flowers in, but that doesn’t make it useless. But people assume that if they don’t find it attractive or important, then the fashion is either stupid, dumb or useless.
A lot of women like shoes because of the shoes themselves. They may not care what men or other women think at all. I have a pair of leopard print flats that my husband think are weird and I have friends who actively dislike animal prints. So what? I like them. I wear heels that my husband will complain about since I’ll be a bit slower than I usually am (which is already slower than he is, since I’m 8" shorter than he is). When I get ready in the morning, I don’t think about whether or not my husband, friends or co-workers will like my shoes.
Usually what runs through my head is something like:
“Okay, got my work clothes on; wearing my charcoal pants that need a 2” heel (flats will make the pants drag on the ground and higher heels will make the pant leg too short)… I could wear the black and gunmetal ones with the little leather bow at the toe. There’s also my cute 20s-style t-strap in the deep burgundy and black. But the burgundy doesn’t really go well with my sweater today. The 2" heeled sandals would be great if it were a bit warmer. Okay, black and gunmetal it is!"
Or sometimes it’s the reverse:
“I haven’t worn my tan and brown high heel oxfords in forever! Okay, what should I wear with them… definitely a skirt. Let’s get out the brown sweater dress and maybe the deep teal tights to contrast with the shoes (etc.etc.)”
Sometimes shoe choice is around what you’re wearing and sometimes what you’re wearing is around the shoe you want to wear. But “you” is the key word, here. Not what I think “some random man” is gonna want me to wear.
I love those shoes and I think they’re cute. They’ll go with my outfit and badaboom, badabing, there’s my shoe choice.
All Alexander McQueen because 1 - I friggin’ loved him and 2 - he killed himself this week.
OK, but women with Uggs should wear them only when it’s appropriate. It should be cold out, and the street/sidewalk conditions should be such that you are not tiptoeing around and impeding pedestrian flow because your “boots” can’t handle the terrain/slipperiness/puddles. I trudged right through a puddle that a woman in Uggs (with what looked like a knitted exterior) was tentatively touching at with a toe, and then looking for a way around, because the water was going to actually go higher than the sole of the boot.
They may be comfy, but it’s like wearing suede/heeled boots - if the weather isn’t appropriate, don’t wear them.
Uggs are made of sheep skin and most certainly can be waterproofed- Lord knows I wear mine when it’s all rainy and gross out. And while yes, they are great for when it is cold, I find it funny that people get all uppity about folks wearing them in summer. Insulation works both ways, people. You’d be surprised how nice it is to wear some soft Uggs when it is 110 degrees outside.
If you’re talking about either fake Uggs (synthetic) or those crocheted boots that sort of look like Uggs- ya, those aren’t waterproof and it’d be pretty dumb to wear them outside in the elements.
It looked Ugg-ish (Uggly? ) and I thought I saw the little tag on the back of the boot heel. Might’ve been a knockoff tag, but yes, it was the knitted/crocheted-look version. Oh-so-not practical. DianaG, good point. Whenever I see people walking around the hospital where I work with both scrubs and the Crocs with the holes on the top of the shoes, I cringe. The solid-topped ones are irritating, but the holes are at the very least invitations to getting biohazardous waste on your feet :eek: and at worst literal dangers to you (a dropped hypodermic needle hitting needle-down in one of those holes?!).
If they’re getting in the way of usual traffic, yep. If they’re going ahead and soaking their feet, then that’s ultimately silly but admirable. I wear big-ass, waterproof, unapologetically Winter Boots ™ for this kind of weather, and if there are puddles at nearly every corner like what we’ve had lately, pedestrians need to reconsider their footwear options. Even rain boots are a better option than something that you can’t get wet.
I get what you mean (I don’t even own a pair of Uggs, heh). If you just plow on through, then good for you. It’s the mincing that’s annoying. I wore some cool heels one day (Rocketdog; they’re corduroy fabric and the sole and heel are rubber like sneakers :D) and during the day it started pouring. As I stepped out to the sidewalk, someone made a snide comment about my shoe choice and how I’d have to mince around. Naw. I just tromped around, getting my feet soaked.
A lot of women seem to actively dislike men being interested in their shoes. I’m very observant and if someone wears a new pair of shoes or changes their hair style or even just wears some type of clothing that’s unusual for them I notice and tend to comment on it. Some women are happy to talk about their new shoes to anybody, but a lot find it weird that I noticed. In contrast, I can’t think of anybody ever reacting poorly to me commenting on their new hairstyle or glasses or saying I like a new sweater.
The OP wasn’t about uncomfortable shoes or the avoidable pain they cause, it’s about women’s shoes in general and what a waste of time and money it is for women to care about shoes because men don’t notice them. There are plenty of comfortable women’s shoes out there, but trust me, they don’t take any less time or money to select and buy.
*The OP wasn’t about heels, either. And while many earlier feminists objected to social pressures that made women feel they had to wear heels, these feminists were so successful that such pressure has largely vanished in the US. I’ve never owned a pair of heels in my life and frankly I think they’re stupid, but I’d consider it a failure of feminism if women weren’t allowed to choose their own shoes. If you see an American woman wearing heels today (which in my experience is fairly rare, although I work in a field known for sensible footwear) it’s because she chose them from a wide variety of readily available and socially acceptable styles.
*One would only think that if one were wholly unfamiliar with any human culture on earth. We as a species have been greatly concerned with aesthetics for thousands of years.
I’d like the OP to know that plenty of men do notice shoes. And the feet in them.
Maybe it’s just me, but I know a ton of men who have a ‘thing’ for feet.
I don’t do this. I ‘dress up’ (heels, dress) sometimes when I’m going out with my partner, but that’s the only time I feel comfortable doing it. I really don’t like attention, and I try not to notice if guys are checking me out because it makes me so uncomfortable when they do.
You’re hardly alone in the world, obviously. I have several friends who dress every day in a way that will get them the most sexual interest. They love to have people look at and admire them.
My husband may not notice my running shoes or my Chucks but he certainly notices and appreciates all the rest of my shoes. He loves my various strappy heels, he LOVES my knee-high heeled boots and he particularly appreciates these because, even though they’re very respectably flat, he loves the bondage vibe.
BTW, I notice shoes on men too and I am not the only woman who does. It started when I was in high school and hung out with a bunch of people who went to a school with a dress code…the only way they were able to distinguish themselves was in their (black leather) shoe choice. Doc Martens? Hello.
My husband wears GREAT shoes. Interestingly, he has run a few businesses, and to paraphrase him, “When faced with identical candidates, with identical backgrounds and identical experience, who do you hire? The guy wearing the best shoes.” You don’t dress to your job, you dress to the job you want to have.
Me, I’m a housewife. Mostly I wear jeans, a t-shirt and Chucks. When I want to make my husband happy, I swap out the jeans for skin-tight ones, the t-shirt for something with a low neckline and the Chucks for something sexy that my husband always notices. Maybe I’m just lucky.
