So this article was going to be about the rise of leather in
the latter of this season that will inevitably find its footing firmly in our
autumn /winter wardrobes but then something much more important came up. I
happened across a survey by foot care brand compeed published by vogue that
found of all the women in Europe, British women wear (on a daily basis) the
highest heeled shoe , averaging at roughly 3.5-4 inches far surpassing our
French and Italian sisters (the French donning a mere 2.5 inches) . hardly top the agenda for the
next united nations crisis meeting so far but bear with, the article then went on
to apply this to the principals of aesthetic psychology. In essence these ideas
address the way in which we relate appearance to our knowledge and perception
of the external word a subject and theory I became very fascinated with while
studying fashion/textiles during my A-level days. Anyway I digress, the article
in essence went on to say that we afford height certain connotations of power,
authority , beauty , control status ect
and studies have shown we afford those with height more respect and authority
(different to power and responsibility) we are more intimidated by them
ect. In essence the piece was getting at
women in the workplace and how women in strong positions within a company are
feeling that they have to wear such a high heeled shoe in order to attain this
height and its connotations. 
Exaggerating
height in many cases can have a profound effect on the physical form of the
body as well as mental perception, sense of self ect. When we put on a heeled
shoe it raises the heel (duh) bringing it closer in line with the leg, what his
does for the body is it makes you stand properly ( and generally strong posture
indicates confidence and authority, grace ect) and actually gives the illusion
of elongated limbs adding a sense of tone to the form. And in all fairness do make you feel sexier ,
stronger and more powerful as a woman
something many men are both attracted to and intimidated by and certainly the heel does have a profound
effect ad power over the opposite sex (my ex-boyfriend even had a minor fetish
for my heels) but, when applied to aesthetic principles this survey appears to
quite indefinitely infers that in order for women to command respect
(particularly in the workplace ) she must (among other things) don a pair of
four inch heels that could be potentially permanently damaging to her feet (
now ladies I’ m all for slipping on a sexy pair of stilettos and have admitted on
several occasions to not owning flats but really !) moreover it appears then to
imply that the united kingdom affords its women –particularly those in the
workplace- the least respect and that in order to be seen as an equal (and
in fact to excel in a corporate
environment a woman must appear to
significantly better her male counterparts to even begin to be taken seriously)
within society? What kind of world is this where a woman must risk permanent
damage to her feet and in some cases spine in order to be noticed and respected
in her environment? And really if you look at it not much has fundamentally
change since feminism an women’s lib, a woman still earns less than her male
counterpart , women everywhere find maternity leave almost impossible as they are generally phased out upon
returning to their previous jobs, I personally know many strong professional
women all of whom were made aware that maternity leave ,, unless they chose not
to take it or carried on doing much of their work from home mean the need of
their employment with that company . 
now
many of you readers will scoff at this
claiming that it’s only a minority of employers who do this and things have
changed for women at work but really how many of you have been on maternity or
felt she had to wait until the last possible moment to take leave and be back
asap ? and to those women out there who have and have decent bosses who respect
a woman’s fundamental right to bear
children and work without being penalized
for the children she may have ( in her wage packet ) or being gradually pushed
out of her job once she has said children
I say congratulations. However , the harsh reality is that that women ,
in 2012 are still deal ta really raw deal by the workplace, particularly in the
corporate environment ,and why you may ask/ because fundamentally nothing has
changed, because the companies are still owned and run by the same bigoted ,
philistine men who openly discriminated against women only some 30 years ago.
Now of course I don’t suggest
that women burn their heels like we did with our bras in the seventies no and
realistically no one will notice if you move to a more foot-friendly shoe and
it would be extremely hypocritical of me to do so and such was not the aim of
this piece I am simply commenting on the harrowing results of a survey I
happened to stumble upon and what it says about the eternal tragedy of our
society.
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