By My Heel, I Care Not...

Growing up with a staunchly feminist mother and a very feminine older sister, I have discovered that my own feelings in regards to high heels falls exactly down the middle. As I have grown through my early adult years, I have decided that some of my mother's feelings more than likely stemmed from an insecurity with her own femininity than from a desire to scorn all things feminine in the name of equality. Nonetheless, years of hearing her scoff at the impraticality of heels and the physical damage they do, and all in the name of impressing a man who could only appreciate a woman as a sexual creature have really sunk into my psyche.

Likewise, living with a beautiful, older sister who wore heels and makeup, and in general finding myself drawn to beautiful women in a platonic sense, I have known myself to be a person who craves all the accoutrements of feminity without regard to it's challenges and without much regard to what it could say about my own empowerment. Fashion in lipstick, clothes and shoes is artistic to me, emphasizing the exquisite God-given beauty one already posesses. Empowerment for me has always lain in the knowledge of detachment from a notion rather than enslavement to it. And being a person who can indeed step outside without makeup and who can cut all her hair off in one fell swoop, I have not worried about myself, though sometimes my mother's words still ring in my ears...

And so when it comes to heels, my opinion changes daily according to one thing and one thing only-my own desire to balance comfort and beauty. There are some days, weeks and months, actually, where I feel the need to revamp the hotness and I will begin to wear heels again, more regularly, but out of respect for my feet, I try to work out a compromise. I bring flats with me and switch into them when the pain is too much.

I am aware of the fact that countless sources claim that high heels can do permanent damage to your posture and overall well-being, which is why I like to listen to my feet when they hurt. I am also aware that consistent wearage (if I may pervert the English language so) can lessen the pain. Of the women I know who rock it out all the time, they all claim that to wear a heel all day causes virtually no pain, and they walk everywhere in them. I believe them. Sometimes I am inclined to force my way into being one of these women. But then my confidence in my own natural beauty returns and reason wins out and I am back to flats and comfortable shoes again and the thought flies away from me.

I am ok with this teetertotalling of sorts. I admire women who wear the heels all day and I empathize with women who cannot due to actual physical constraints. I know that for most of the rest of my life I will probably be this way. I will go through a period of no-heels and transition into a period, however short, of heels-wearing hotness.

As to the pain, I just read a brief article about how wearing heels throws your spine out of alignment and can do permanent damage to the Achilles' tendon, among other things. What surprised me most about the piece was the number of comments from women who wear heels simply because their boyfriends wanted them to. I am single now and feel really ok with being apalled at this.

Nonetheless, a wonderful male friend of mine (who has impeccable fashion sense) recently told me he prefers a woman in heels, at least for salsa dancing. At this very moment, I wonder if he has heard about the damages women experience wearing them, and if it would matter to him? I have a hard time believing that he would consider it a deal-breaker if he met an amazing woman who did not wear heels for whatever reason, but maybe he would. I was wearing heels for the first time in many months at the time of our conversation, and he seemed sympathetic to the pain I was in...

Where my mother and I are the same, is in the fact that we both reject the notion that our choices in fashion are ultimately for men's appreciation of ourselves. That indeed, we would choose to do something, though painful or harmful, purely because a man would want us to. There is a difference between doing something to feel beautiful and to take care of yourself, than to do something for acceptance or approval on a conditional basis. There is even a difference in doing something because you think someone else would enjoy it, than because they expect it, or would treat you differently if you didn't.

Anyway, I have talked enough. Suffice it to say, my dad is getting married in a week and I have to wear heels at the wedding. After my conversation with my male friend, I realized that I have to get my feet ready. That is why I am sitting here, at the coffee shop, in heels, tapping away at my computer. My feet will hurt later, but I want them to. After the wedding I may go back to flat-footed comfort. I may not. No matter what, I will be fly.