August 10, 2009 • 20 mins
High heels are a popular fashion accoutrement for modern women, but they also cause foot and knee problems. So why do women still wear them? Learn more about high heels -- including their surprising origins -- in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House Towards dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. Yes, did you
(00:21):
know that we are in the middle of an epidemic? Oh, like,
it's not even swine flu, it's not disease related. But
there's an epidemic. Breaking news. I was reading about and stuff.
I was reading about it in the Washington Post and
this bulletin comes to us from the American Orthopedic Foot
and Ankle Society and they said that but problems resulting
(00:44):
from poorly thinning shoes have reached epidemic proportions and pose
a major health risk for women in America because of
high heels. Yes, they are the most dangerous shoes of
all and now we're an epidemic because of it. I mean,
you can't deny. Are you going to refuge the American
Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society? I think not listen to
(01:04):
this diary and statistic. Did you know that three point
five billion with the B is spent annually in the
United States for women's foot surgeries, and that because of
these foot surgeries, women are losing fifteen million work days
in a year. That's, according to the Washington Post, all
because of shoes. Yes, well this is it's bad news. Bears.
(01:27):
We are in the dark days of civilization. Yeah, I um,
you know, I think a lot of women know that
high heels are obviously not that great for their feet.
But do you want me to give you a rundown
of just how bad they are? Aside from those those statistics,
the reason why women are spending billions of dollars on
(01:48):
charactive foot surgeries because when you put on a pair
of strappy heels. Uh, the problems start with the knees. Yes,
the altered posture of walking and high heels as excess
force on the knees is all about like the pressure
um that you put on your your legs and feet
by wearing high heels. Um. One study to scoring to
(02:11):
that same article in the Washington Post, one study found
that knee joint pressure increased by as much as when
when women wear heels, and then it was all the
way down you're at your knees and then we go
down to the Achilles tendon. Uh. The Achilles senate is
tightened up and compressed when you are staying on your tiptoes.
(02:31):
And then we go down to the feet and you
get lovely things such as Bunyan's, who just sounds gross
because of those tight fitting um the toe boxes of
the end of the shoe, they're really tight um. It
can cause bony growths on the on the joints. Kristen,
can I talk you about my favorite problem on the foot? Yes,
(02:51):
the pump bump, pump pump. It's a bump you get
from wearing pumps. It's where the backs um are your
straps of your high heels irritate your heel and it
creates this bony enlargement also known as haglins deformitate. But
I prefer pump mom, pump up. That's that's good. And
then in addition to pump bump, you've also got hammer toes,
(03:12):
which comes in a close second to pump ump um.
And this is when the big toe contracts into a
claw like position. So your legs might look really good
when you're wearing the high heels, but then you take
them off at the end of the day and you
have some gnarly uh feet are so nat And that's
(03:32):
if you don't like break an ankle trying to run
down the street. In these things like ankle injuries are
a huge possibility. And just the way you put and
basically you're putting your whole body weight on your toe
and one our cloves ring in. The Washington Post compared
this too. Would you want all the weight in an
airplane situated at the front so that you were nose down?
I don't think so. No, you're it's gonna crash. But
(03:55):
we're gonna wear our heels. But why do we? Hes
very good question, that's the question of today. And why
would women put themselves through these potential problems torture. Well,
the funny thing about high heels Molly is that their
popularity really took off among men folk. First, this was
(04:16):
the most interesting fact my research this week. Is that
men used to love them some high heels. That's high heels. Yeah,
this all started. Um. They traced the high heel back
in Europe to these clod hoppers called Shoppin's. Shoppings. Shoppings
and Shoppin's were worn in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
(04:36):
and they were essentially just giant blocks of wood, sometimes
as tall as twenty high. That became popular first among
Venetian courtisans, and they were basically used to elevate your
feet from the grit and grime that you would be
walking through. Yeah, it was a practical purpose. The streets
(04:58):
for dirty back then in Europe, so you to keep
your elegant clothing clean. So wearing these very high essentially platforms,
it sounds like, i was a way to denote the
fact that you had the money to keep you know,
your elegant clothes clean and like the ragamuffins on the street.
But men loved these, and they loved also being the
(05:18):
accessories for women who needed help obviously walking down a
straight and platform shopping um. And then we have the
invention of the actual high heel. We go from the
block of wood to the heel sometime around the end
of the sixteenth century, and this made high heels a
little more, a little more practical. Yeah. In fact, men
(05:39):
liked them because it was easier to get in your
stirrup when you went off horseback riding. But for women
it made the foot appear small and dainty, and just
like the shipping, it's just this ultimate marker of status, right,
basically showing I'm not a peasant. I don't have to
go on the streets and work like I'm gonna stay
here in these impractical shoes, right because they wouldn't have
(05:59):
to go out and labor. And then when they were out,
they were elevated above all of the filth metaphorically and physically, yes, exactly,
and their popularity really took off in France in the
court of Louis the fourteenth, who loved him some heels.
He did. In fact, he and the people that he said,
(06:21):
we're okay, there were the only people who could wear
heels in his presence, and he was famous for his
red heel. Yes, he loved his red heels that were
sometimes even painted with with scenes of his military victories
and things like that. Now, he was one of the
last big guys to be into high heels. Men were
beginning to abandon them by the seventeen thirties. Um, but
(06:44):
you know, France went through some problems after Louis the fourteen.
Little think all the French Revolution, and at that time
you really wouldn't want to be marked by your nobility. Basically,
they sent Marie Antoinette off to the guillotine in her heels,
and everyone was like, well, I don't want those. Yeah,
so they kind of they kind of die out of
a fashion. But then they come back in the late
(07:07):
nineteenth century. Yeah, and this again it happens in France.
People were flocking to pair self to places like New York,
living this very costropolitan lifestyle, lots of nightlife. Um, and
when they reappear, they're very much entrenched as female footwear.
It's a it's a very strong gender marker. And the
revival of of the high heel came along with um
(07:28):
when roads started to be paved. When you have the
wide boulevards that are actually being taken care of, it's
a lot easier to walk. And so a lot more
women were out, you know, just taking strolls and parading around,
and they wanted to show off their dainty, well healed
foot Yeah, and no more cobblestone. But you know, it's
interesting to me is that even though these women were
promenading down alleyways and their fashionable heels, that even when
(07:51):
they went to work for women's rights, they did not
abandon the heell. You would think that it being in
this very um feminine thing that women who were trying
to get equality would put in their closet and say,
you know, we're like men, we want boats to But
actually suffragets made a big point about wearing heels because
they wanted to prove that just because they got the boat,
they wouldn't lose their femininity, right only they even they
(08:13):
even played sports and high heels. There were some high
heeled tennis shoes that women back then would wear as
they played tennis, which I think I think they should
just bring that back for Wimbledon next year, all right,
and special, just a special, you know, exhibition game. Okay, Um,
(08:33):
let's keep moving all right. So stock market crashes, you'd
think that luxuries like shoes would die away, right, No,
they became even bigger. They were especially used in movies
because they helped people escape these awful, you know, dreary lives.
And the war would not stop high heels either. Even
when there were materials that were rationed, you know, that
(08:56):
have been previously used for high heeled shoes, they found
ways around them. Right. They use a lot of wood
and even snakeskin and kind of got creative with the
materials they were using, and they did not stop making
heels just because of the war. In fact, we owe
the stiletto to World War Two because they had all
these new materials that they have been using for the war,
(09:16):
like steel, and that's how they came up with a
strong material that could support a foot on such a
tiny heel. Right, And since then, thanks to the steel heel,
um stilettos have been in vogue really ever since what
fifties and sixties. Yeah, I mean, basically you're not limited
anymore by physics. When they're making these wooden heels and
(09:37):
they would try and reinforce them with pegs, you still
couldn't go too high because the wood would just snap.
But now the sky is the limit or is it?
Or is it? But molly along with the stiletto, okay,
as opposed to a platform or a chunkier heel. With
the stiletto in particular, you have this new shape of
(09:58):
a woman's body because of what a siletto does to
the female form. Kind of like when you were talking
about the illustration they used in the Washington Post where
the all of the weight in the airplane is moved
to the front, and that's kind of what a siletto
does and actually adjust your your body so that it
tips the buttocks twenty to thirty degrees back and then
(10:23):
also pushes the bus line out. It creates more of
an exaggerated female curve. Yeah, animates your lugs look longer. Yes,
So if there's a benefit to be had from the
high heel, people say, it's because it makes the female
form look pretty amazing. So it's beneficial to have these
women walking around in high heels because you know, it
(10:44):
makes them more attractive to men. Right. So, but at
the same time, Molly, uh, the siletto has also become
this undeniable cultural sex symbol, which is why some people
don't like it. You know, they're certainly people who would
argue that it's a male all vision of what a
sex symbol should be. We put these women in these shoes,
we elevate their butts, make their legs look longer, and
(11:06):
that's how we'll find them attractive. Right and comparing it
to antiquated things like courses and foot binding, all compressing
in a woman's body to make this supposedly perfect form,
which is actually unhealthy at the end of the day.
For instance, uh, Sheila Jeffries, who is the author of
Beauty and misogyny says that men have traditionally demanded that
(11:26):
women walk and dance in pain and gained great sexual
satisfaction from this. So that's sort of like kind of
the extreme anti high heel view because of what what
it does to the to the female form. Yeah, and
all the other angue about women who just like the
way they look like sort of the art of it.
And if you're looking for a good benefit to throw
out in terms of sex life, let me offer you this,
(11:48):
which is from BBC News. Uh, there's this study done
in Europe that uh, sixty six women under the age
of fifty that when they held their foot at that
angle to the ground and to and sheiell thereabouts, um,
it showed that their pelvic muscles were stronger. Right, And
so the thinking was by this zurologist who was doing
this study was since women were getting this unintentional pelvic exercise,
(12:12):
they would be better in the bed. Yeah, better sex
life if you wore heels, because you know, those are
the muscles that get sort of traditionally weakened by childbirth
and the passage of time. But if you've got these
one walking around, it keeps the muscle strong. Now I'm
not going to buy this argument personally, Kristen. Yeah, this
this argument done was done by h self avowed high
(12:34):
heel addict, so she might have been maybe tweeting results.
I don't know. Um, maybe she just wanted another reason
to buy a new pair of heels. Yea. Sometimes you
start out with your hypothesis and find a way to
meet it, right. But there's there's another interesting point raised
about um this image of women in heels in an
column in The Guardian by Hannah Betts, and she was
(12:56):
saying that spikes are also a form of armor for women,
especially in the workforce. Like if you put on a
pair of very attractive high heels with a well fitting suit, Molly,
you feel kind of you feel pretty powerful. In fact,
Patricia Field, who did the costumes for Sex in the City,
(13:16):
in that same Guardian arcle, said that she always used
to let us to symbolize character, sexual power and their independence.
So I mean, deal with that what you will. Yeah,
they're definitely arguments, you know, pro heel anti heel arguments,
but it's interesting to know that we do have. I've
really got men to think for for high heels being popular. Yeah,
(13:38):
and maybe they'll come back. You know, in the seventies
during the disco age, that's what men started wearing some
heels again, it could come back some platforms. I am
personally not a fan of the heel Kristen. I'm I
would like to be comfortable, and I'm I rarely find
heals comfortable. Well, well, here's a little tip from a
British physicist who actually worked out an equation for or
(14:00):
the maximum heel height formula that a woman can wear.
And he took let's see the probability that wearing the
shoes will turn heads against the number of years of
experience you have wearing high heels, against the cost and
the time since the shoe is in the height of fashion.
And then the most critical element of this, which is
(14:20):
the unit of alcohol consumed while wearing these heels. And
he found that you women can't wear any higher than
five inches before before they'll fall, especially if they are
consuming alcohol. So you know, that's the thing is, That's
what I'm trying to get out. I do not need
a shoe that requires a formula to figure out how
much she can wear, particularly there's gonna be alcohol involve
(14:41):
which is too much work. So I personally on behalf
of all flip flop ballet flat wears everywhere. Do a
little research about whether that's better than a high heel.
It's not what it is unfortunate. I was in the
This Washington Post. Can we keep citing one Pedietris said
that the all thing that flip flops do best is
carry patients into my office. It's because there's no support.
(15:06):
You can't walk around the city all day with basically
just a wedge of plastic under there. And you know,
and and to get that signature flip flop sound, you've
got to move your heeler from the shoe surface. That
creates tension your foot, which just worsens painful conditions in
the foot. Like we're always going to have this battle
between function and fashion and when it comes to footwear,
(15:28):
because the only thing they really can recommend to us
are sneakers. Sneakers, and you know, there's just gonna be
outfits that we ladies have that will not tolerate a
sneaker or well, you know what you can make it work,
how Tim Gunn Just creativity and confidence. Well, the rule
of thumb is if you want something a little more
concrete than Christie's creativity and confidence is that if you
(15:52):
are going to wear three in chields, only wear them
for three hours. So save them for your nights out
for a dinner, and then get rid of them and
don't wear them every day. Save your feet sometimes, and
you know, maybe go a little lower because I was
reading in this infamous Washington Post article that a three
inch heeld puts seven times more stress on you than
(16:14):
a one inch heeld. So basically, make small little sacrifices,
maybe some kitten heels one day and some stilettos. We
can win this battle of fashion versus function with Kristen's
creativity and confidence. I'm just gonna try and bring back
the shipping myself. So keep an eye up for that, guys.
(16:34):
So along with for men to help you get around town. Yes,
uh usual, it is as usual. Um, speaking of things
we do as usual, shall we do some listener mail please?
So we got a lot of response about whether men
liked video games more than women? Yeah, I think my
(16:54):
two favorite responses for from Ryan and Nick, and they
both wrote in because when they saw the episode title
do men like video games more than women? They read
it as do men like video games? More than they
like women, and it both gave them a little bit
of a chuckle. Yeah. I think one of them even said, like, yes,
there are times when my wife snagging me that I'm
(17:15):
gonna like my video games better. It's understandable. Um. And
then we also had a lot of responses to things
we mentioned about what gender you choose to play the
game in. We had Britt right in who was talking
about how PlayStation Home is the PlayStation network equivalent to
Second Life. Sony's attempt to break into social networking out
of curiosity on the first day the test launched, she
made up a female avatar and immediately she's got male
(17:38):
avatars cat calling her, making low comments to her. She
tried to explore the different areas, so she gives up
creates a tall male avatar and that was the only
way should go through the whole thing in peace. But
then on the other time, we've got Tom who says
that there are a few benefits to being a female character, like,
while you do get that very explicit unwanted attention, he
(17:58):
finds that if you have a female avatar, you get
more help from other gamers. So, um, on several games
where my player was a female my character and my
friend's character was a male Tom Rights. I was able
to advance a lot quicker and easier because people were
more likely to help me. So there are advantages. Our
last example is not about being in an actual game,
but being in the gaming world. She works at game
(18:19):
Stop and or she worked there, and she said that
when male gamers came in and saw that there was
a girl there who could talk intelligently about games, that
they became immediately inclined to view girls who liked video games.
It potential romantic pursuits. Uh perceived scarceament that being asked
that was a daily experience for herself and the stores
other female workers. A volume that has never been duplicated
(18:39):
in any of other Lawrence jobs before or since. All right, well,
we've got a reading list and a video game list,
combo um to close things out today. And this is
from trevn and Trevin lives in Tallahassee, Florida, in case
anyone was wondering. And he is reading this summer a
(19:00):
lot of things, and I will pull out three of them.
He is reading Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.
Good choice. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking
Glass by Louis Carroll and Catch Her in the Ride
by J. D. Salinger. And then for a couple of
video games he's playing semi often he says Resident Evil four,
(19:22):
Super Super Mario, Galaxy, We Sports, and Legend of Zelda,
Twilight Princess. Wow. Thanks for writing in trevn. He's got
a lot of video games, on a lot of books
on his BoPET A guy Trevin does not doesn't waste
a lot of time. Well, if you can waste just
a little bit of time, but you may not see
it as a waste of time. To email Christen Amy,
We don't see it as a waste of time. We
(19:43):
certainly don't. We love your emails. Email us at mom
stuff at how stuff works dot com. If you want
to waste a little time online, you can read our
blog again not necessarily waste of time. It's how to
stuff And if you want to find more about fashion
through the ages again, you're gonna want to hit up
ord at how stuff works dot com for more on
(20:06):
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com Brought to you by the Reinvented two
thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House Towards dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. Yes, did you
(00:21):
know that we are in the middle of an epidemic? Oh, like,
it's not even swine flu, it's not disease related. But
there's an epidemic. Breaking news. I was reading about and stuff.
I was reading about it in the Washington Post and
this bulletin comes to us from the American Orthopedic Foot
and Ankle Society and they said that but problems resulting
(00:44):
from poorly thinning shoes have reached epidemic proportions and pose
a major health risk for women in America because of
high heels. Yes, they are the most dangerous shoes of
all and now we're an epidemic because of it. I mean,
you can't deny. Are you going to refuge the American
Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society? I think not listen to
(01:04):
this diary and statistic. Did you know that three point
five billion with the B is spent annually in the
United States for women's foot surgeries, and that because of
these foot surgeries, women are losing fifteen million work days
in a year. That's, according to the Washington Post, all
because of shoes. Yes, well this is it's bad news. Bears.
(01:27):
We are in the dark days of civilization. Yeah, I um,
you know, I think a lot of women know that
high heels are obviously not that great for their feet.
But do you want me to give you a rundown
of just how bad they are? Aside from those those statistics,
the reason why women are spending billions of dollars on
(01:48):
charactive foot surgeries because when you put on a pair
of strappy heels. Uh, the problems start with the knees. Yes,
the altered posture of walking and high heels as excess
force on the knees is all about like the pressure
um that you put on your your legs and feet
by wearing high heels. Um. One study to scoring to
(02:11):
that same article in the Washington Post, one study found
that knee joint pressure increased by as much as when
when women wear heels, and then it was all the
way down you're at your knees and then we go
down to the Achilles tendon. Uh. The Achilles senate is
tightened up and compressed when you are staying on your tiptoes.
(02:31):
And then we go down to the feet and you
get lovely things such as Bunyan's, who just sounds gross
because of those tight fitting um the toe boxes of
the end of the shoe, they're really tight um. It
can cause bony growths on the on the joints. Kristen,
can I talk you about my favorite problem on the foot? Yes,
(02:51):
the pump bump, pump pump. It's a bump you get
from wearing pumps. It's where the backs um are your
straps of your high heels irritate your heel and it
creates this bony enlargement also known as haglins deformitate. But
I prefer pump mom, pump up. That's that's good. And
then in addition to pump bump, you've also got hammer toes,
(03:12):
which comes in a close second to pump ump um.
And this is when the big toe contracts into a
claw like position. So your legs might look really good
when you're wearing the high heels, but then you take
them off at the end of the day and you
have some gnarly uh feet are so nat And that's
(03:32):
if you don't like break an ankle trying to run
down the street. In these things like ankle injuries are
a huge possibility. And just the way you put and
basically you're putting your whole body weight on your toe
and one our cloves ring in. The Washington Post compared
this too. Would you want all the weight in an
airplane situated at the front so that you were nose down?
I don't think so. No, you're it's gonna crash. But
(03:55):
we're gonna wear our heels. But why do we? Hes
very good question, that's the question of today. And why
would women put themselves through these potential problems torture. Well,
the funny thing about high heels Molly is that their
popularity really took off among men folk. First, this was
(04:16):
the most interesting fact my research this week. Is that
men used to love them some high heels. That's high heels. Yeah,
this all started. Um. They traced the high heel back
in Europe to these clod hoppers called Shoppin's. Shoppings. Shoppings
and Shoppin's were worn in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
(04:36):
and they were essentially just giant blocks of wood, sometimes
as tall as twenty high. That became popular first among
Venetian courtisans, and they were basically used to elevate your
feet from the grit and grime that you would be
walking through. Yeah, it was a practical purpose. The streets
(04:58):
for dirty back then in Europe, so you to keep
your elegant clothing clean. So wearing these very high essentially platforms,
it sounds like, i was a way to denote the
fact that you had the money to keep you know,
your elegant clothes clean and like the ragamuffins on the street.
But men loved these, and they loved also being the
(05:18):
accessories for women who needed help obviously walking down a
straight and platform shopping um. And then we have the
invention of the actual high heel. We go from the
block of wood to the heel sometime around the end
of the sixteenth century, and this made high heels a
little more, a little more practical. Yeah. In fact, men
(05:39):
liked them because it was easier to get in your
stirrup when you went off horseback riding. But for women
it made the foot appear small and dainty, and just
like the shipping, it's just this ultimate marker of status, right,
basically showing I'm not a peasant. I don't have to
go on the streets and work like I'm gonna stay
here in these impractical shoes, right because they wouldn't have
(05:59):
to go out and labor. And then when they were out,
they were elevated above all of the filth metaphorically and physically, yes, exactly,
and their popularity really took off in France in the
court of Louis the fourteenth, who loved him some heels.
He did. In fact, he and the people that he said,
(06:21):
we're okay, there were the only people who could wear
heels in his presence, and he was famous for his
red heel. Yes, he loved his red heels that were
sometimes even painted with with scenes of his military victories
and things like that. Now, he was one of the
last big guys to be into high heels. Men were
beginning to abandon them by the seventeen thirties. Um, but
(06:44):
you know, France went through some problems after Louis the fourteen.
Little think all the French Revolution, and at that time
you really wouldn't want to be marked by your nobility. Basically,
they sent Marie Antoinette off to the guillotine in her heels,
and everyone was like, well, I don't want those. Yeah,
so they kind of they kind of die out of
a fashion. But then they come back in the late
(07:07):
nineteenth century. Yeah, and this again it happens in France.
People were flocking to pair self to places like New York,
living this very costropolitan lifestyle, lots of nightlife. Um, and
when they reappear, they're very much entrenched as female footwear.
It's a it's a very strong gender marker. And the
revival of of the high heel came along with um
(07:28):
when roads started to be paved. When you have the
wide boulevards that are actually being taken care of, it's
a lot easier to walk. And so a lot more
women were out, you know, just taking strolls and parading around,
and they wanted to show off their dainty, well healed
foot Yeah, and no more cobblestone. But you know, it's
interesting to me is that even though these women were
promenading down alleyways and their fashionable heels, that even when
(07:51):
they went to work for women's rights, they did not
abandon the heell. You would think that it being in
this very um feminine thing that women who were trying
to get equality would put in their closet and say,
you know, we're like men, we want boats to But
actually suffragets made a big point about wearing heels because
they wanted to prove that just because they got the boat,
they wouldn't lose their femininity, right only they even they
(08:13):
even played sports and high heels. There were some high
heeled tennis shoes that women back then would wear as
they played tennis, which I think I think they should
just bring that back for Wimbledon next year, all right,
and special, just a special, you know, exhibition game. Okay, Um,
(08:33):
let's keep moving all right. So stock market crashes, you'd
think that luxuries like shoes would die away, right, No,
they became even bigger. They were especially used in movies
because they helped people escape these awful, you know, dreary lives.
And the war would not stop high heels either. Even
when there were materials that were rationed, you know, that
(08:56):
have been previously used for high heeled shoes, they found
ways around them. Right. They use a lot of wood
and even snakeskin and kind of got creative with the
materials they were using, and they did not stop making
heels just because of the war. In fact, we owe
the stiletto to World War Two because they had all
these new materials that they have been using for the war,
(09:16):
like steel, and that's how they came up with a
strong material that could support a foot on such a
tiny heel. Right, And since then, thanks to the steel heel,
um stilettos have been in vogue really ever since what
fifties and sixties. Yeah, I mean, basically you're not limited
anymore by physics. When they're making these wooden heels and
(09:37):
they would try and reinforce them with pegs, you still
couldn't go too high because the wood would just snap.
But now the sky is the limit or is it?
Or is it? But molly along with the stiletto, okay,
as opposed to a platform or a chunkier heel. With
the stiletto in particular, you have this new shape of
(09:58):
a woman's body because of what a siletto does to
the female form. Kind of like when you were talking
about the illustration they used in the Washington Post where
the all of the weight in the airplane is moved
to the front, and that's kind of what a siletto
does and actually adjust your your body so that it
tips the buttocks twenty to thirty degrees back and then
(10:23):
also pushes the bus line out. It creates more of
an exaggerated female curve. Yeah, animates your lugs look longer. Yes,
So if there's a benefit to be had from the
high heel, people say, it's because it makes the female
form look pretty amazing. So it's beneficial to have these
women walking around in high heels because you know, it
(10:44):
makes them more attractive to men. Right. So, but at
the same time, Molly, uh, the siletto has also become
this undeniable cultural sex symbol, which is why some people
don't like it. You know, they're certainly people who would
argue that it's a male all vision of what a
sex symbol should be. We put these women in these shoes,
we elevate their butts, make their legs look longer, and
(11:06):
that's how we'll find them attractive. Right and comparing it
to antiquated things like courses and foot binding, all compressing
in a woman's body to make this supposedly perfect form,
which is actually unhealthy at the end of the day.
For instance, uh, Sheila Jeffries, who is the author of
Beauty and misogyny says that men have traditionally demanded that
(11:26):
women walk and dance in pain and gained great sexual
satisfaction from this. So that's sort of like kind of
the extreme anti high heel view because of what what
it does to the to the female form. Yeah, and
all the other angue about women who just like the
way they look like sort of the art of it.
And if you're looking for a good benefit to throw
out in terms of sex life, let me offer you this,
(11:48):
which is from BBC News. Uh, there's this study done
in Europe that uh, sixty six women under the age
of fifty that when they held their foot at that
angle to the ground and to and sheiell thereabouts, um,
it showed that their pelvic muscles were stronger. Right, And
so the thinking was by this zurologist who was doing
this study was since women were getting this unintentional pelvic exercise,
(12:12):
they would be better in the bed. Yeah, better sex
life if you wore heels, because you know, those are
the muscles that get sort of traditionally weakened by childbirth
and the passage of time. But if you've got these
one walking around, it keeps the muscle strong. Now I'm
not going to buy this argument personally, Kristen. Yeah, this
this argument done was done by h self avowed high
(12:34):
heel addict, so she might have been maybe tweeting results.
I don't know. Um, maybe she just wanted another reason
to buy a new pair of heels. Yea. Sometimes you
start out with your hypothesis and find a way to
meet it, right. But there's there's another interesting point raised
about um this image of women in heels in an
column in The Guardian by Hannah Betts, and she was
(12:56):
saying that spikes are also a form of armor for women,
especially in the workforce. Like if you put on a
pair of very attractive high heels with a well fitting suit, Molly,
you feel kind of you feel pretty powerful. In fact,
Patricia Field, who did the costumes for Sex in the City,
(13:16):
in that same Guardian arcle, said that she always used
to let us to symbolize character, sexual power and their independence.
So I mean, deal with that what you will. Yeah,
they're definitely arguments, you know, pro heel anti heel arguments,
but it's interesting to know that we do have. I've
really got men to think for for high heels being popular. Yeah,
(13:38):
and maybe they'll come back. You know, in the seventies
during the disco age, that's what men started wearing some
heels again, it could come back some platforms. I am
personally not a fan of the heel Kristen. I'm I
would like to be comfortable, and I'm I rarely find
heals comfortable. Well, well, here's a little tip from a
British physicist who actually worked out an equation for or
(14:00):
the maximum heel height formula that a woman can wear.
And he took let's see the probability that wearing the
shoes will turn heads against the number of years of
experience you have wearing high heels, against the cost and
the time since the shoe is in the height of fashion.
And then the most critical element of this, which is
(14:20):
the unit of alcohol consumed while wearing these heels. And
he found that you women can't wear any higher than
five inches before before they'll fall, especially if they are
consuming alcohol. So you know, that's the thing is, That's
what I'm trying to get out. I do not need
a shoe that requires a formula to figure out how
much she can wear, particularly there's gonna be alcohol involve
(14:41):
which is too much work. So I personally on behalf
of all flip flop ballet flat wears everywhere. Do a
little research about whether that's better than a high heel.
It's not what it is unfortunate. I was in the
This Washington Post. Can we keep citing one Pedietris said
that the all thing that flip flops do best is
carry patients into my office. It's because there's no support.
(15:06):
You can't walk around the city all day with basically
just a wedge of plastic under there. And you know,
and and to get that signature flip flop sound, you've
got to move your heeler from the shoe surface. That
creates tension your foot, which just worsens painful conditions in
the foot. Like we're always going to have this battle
between function and fashion and when it comes to footwear,
(15:28):
because the only thing they really can recommend to us
are sneakers. Sneakers, and you know, there's just gonna be
outfits that we ladies have that will not tolerate a
sneaker or well, you know what you can make it work,
how Tim Gunn Just creativity and confidence. Well, the rule
of thumb is if you want something a little more
concrete than Christie's creativity and confidence is that if you
(15:52):
are going to wear three in chields, only wear them
for three hours. So save them for your nights out
for a dinner, and then get rid of them and
don't wear them every day. Save your feet sometimes, and
you know, maybe go a little lower because I was
reading in this infamous Washington Post article that a three
inch heeld puts seven times more stress on you than
(16:14):
a one inch heeld. So basically, make small little sacrifices,
maybe some kitten heels one day and some stilettos. We
can win this battle of fashion versus function with Kristen's
creativity and confidence. I'm just gonna try and bring back
the shipping myself. So keep an eye up for that, guys.
(16:34):
So along with for men to help you get around town. Yes,
uh usual, it is as usual. Um, speaking of things
we do as usual, shall we do some listener mail please?
So we got a lot of response about whether men
liked video games more than women? Yeah, I think my
(16:54):
two favorite responses for from Ryan and Nick, and they
both wrote in because when they saw the episode title
do men like video games more than women? They read
it as do men like video games? More than they
like women, and it both gave them a little bit
of a chuckle. Yeah. I think one of them even said, like, yes,
there are times when my wife snagging me that I'm
(17:15):
gonna like my video games better. It's understandable. Um. And
then we also had a lot of responses to things
we mentioned about what gender you choose to play the
game in. We had Britt right in who was talking
about how PlayStation Home is the PlayStation network equivalent to
Second Life. Sony's attempt to break into social networking out
of curiosity on the first day the test launched, she
made up a female avatar and immediately she's got male
(17:38):
avatars cat calling her, making low comments to her. She
tried to explore the different areas, so she gives up
creates a tall male avatar and that was the only
way should go through the whole thing in peace. But
then on the other time, we've got Tom who says
that there are a few benefits to being a female character, like,
while you do get that very explicit unwanted attention, he
(17:58):
finds that if you have a female avatar, you get
more help from other gamers. So, um, on several games
where my player was a female my character and my
friend's character was a male Tom Rights. I was able
to advance a lot quicker and easier because people were
more likely to help me. So there are advantages. Our
last example is not about being in an actual game,
but being in the gaming world. She works at game
(18:19):
Stop and or she worked there, and she said that
when male gamers came in and saw that there was
a girl there who could talk intelligently about games, that
they became immediately inclined to view girls who liked video games.
It potential romantic pursuits. Uh perceived scarceament that being asked
that was a daily experience for herself and the stores
other female workers. A volume that has never been duplicated
(18:39):
in any of other Lawrence jobs before or since. All right, well,
we've got a reading list and a video game list,
combo um to close things out today. And this is
from trevn and Trevin lives in Tallahassee, Florida, in case
anyone was wondering. And he is reading this summer a
(19:00):
lot of things, and I will pull out three of them.
He is reading Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.
Good choice. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking
Glass by Louis Carroll and Catch Her in the Ride
by J. D. Salinger. And then for a couple of
video games he's playing semi often he says Resident Evil four,
(19:22):
Super Super Mario, Galaxy, We Sports, and Legend of Zelda,
Twilight Princess. Wow. Thanks for writing in trevn. He's got
a lot of video games, on a lot of books
on his BoPET A guy Trevin does not doesn't waste
a lot of time. Well, if you can waste just
a little bit of time, but you may not see
it as a waste of time. To email Christen Amy,
We don't see it as a waste of time. We
(19:43):
certainly don't. We love your emails. Email us at mom
stuff at how stuff works dot com. If you want
to waste a little time online, you can read our
blog again not necessarily waste of time. It's how to
stuff And if you want to find more about fashion
through the ages again, you're gonna want to hit up
ord at how stuff works dot com for more on
(20:06):
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com Brought to you by the Reinvented two
thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you
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