Women Wear Uncomfortable Shoes. This is News?

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Check out this recent headline:

Vital Signs: Study Finds Women Wear Shoes That Cause Pain

This is so obvious to me that it is laughable. These researchers could have saved a grant’s worth of money by asking almost any woman on the street about her footwear. She would likely admit that, as fabulous as her shoes might look, she wasn’t necessarily comfortable.

Stillettos obviously were never intended to be practical footwear. Neither are most other options like pointy-toed boots, mules, strappy sandals, platform pumps, or heels of any sort. Some women can wear heels for 16 hour days (models, politicians, and ministers’ wives come to mind), but that is due to years of conditioning. For the less proficient heel wearers, if the height doesn’t propel the wearer into a perpetually forward motion, the toe box pinches her into itty-bitty geisha steps. I’ve known women who were so accustomed to heels they couldn’t wear anything else, and some who could rock a pair of pumps but whose abused feet would look positively diseased in revealing flip-flops.

Personally, I refuse to wear uncomfortable shoes routinely but am not above suffering occasional discomfort for a good cause, i.e., special events that are sure to be photographed. It’s not a practical nature so much as a personal limitation I’ve recognized. As marvelous as heels look, I can’t overcome the exteremely foul mood they put me into. When your brain sends a continuous throbbing signal to SIT DOWN, everything else is just an annoyance.

The headlined article goes on to mention that, while women’s shoe choices are evidently setting them up for later dependence on a podiatrist, only 2% of men wear uncomfortable shoes.

Didn’t we already know that as well?