I see what you did there!
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My boss loves wearing high heels. She says she even wears them at home when nobody is around. She can run in them (although it beats the hell out of me how she does it). I think sheās suffering from an overreaction to growing up poor in the old Soviet Union. She loves over-the-top jewelry and perfume too.
Meanwhile, I like to wear boots but Iām pretty tall. So I have to shop around to find boots with heels less than 3/4 inch tall, or Iāll bang my head against things even more than usual. Most menās boots are high-heeled.
People are weird.
Eddie Izzard on total clothes freedom:
Jen from The IT Crowd and the shoes:
Iāll stick with my black Oxfords, thanks!
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No, youāre thinking of the trilby. A fedora-like hat that used to be for ladies. Fedoras, real ones, are still worn by men. 
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I think you mis-understand us. Weāre talking about fashions from the 1600s. Make up, wigs, high heels, hosiery, all used to be the domain of mens fashions. It was considered unfeminine for women to ābeautifyā - we were supposed to be lovely au natural. But men wore makeup, high heels, hosiery and showed off their sexy sexy calves! And then women said, screw that, and starting wearing all the fun stuff and the men stopped.
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I agree with all of what you say here about the oppressiveness of expectations. I guess I thought I was addressing the institution of heels, or even just the existence of the things themselves, rather than the individual choice to wear them or not. I didnāt want to hit it too hard, though as I have found that men or women leaning too heavily āvictims of an institutionā argument in conversations are often are met with women being personally offended at the suggestion that they are cowing to pressure and they just love how they look/feel.
Iām not trying to come down on one side or the other, I am just boggled that the engineering choice ever got off the ground. I work in a company that consists of myself and one other man (who is something of a clotheshorse) and about 80 women, many of whom donāt wear heels, as we are an early childhood non-profit. Our executive director has so many pairs under her desk, though, that I never know where to put my feet under her desk when she asks me to recover a lost Word draft. I definitely donāt judge other parts of her intelligence by her wearing of heels, sheās the finest executive Iāve ever had the pleasure to work with, and Iād vote for her for president in a heartbeat given the choice.
My āshortnessā comment is in direct response to arguments in favor of the personal choice of heels that Iāve heard from women that that genuinely disarmed me. Kinda like how someone on these boards a while back complicated my understanding about school uniforms, which i thought (from my scholarship-kid-in-a-rich-kid-school wifeās experience) were the great equalizer. They countered that in fact, their uniformity can highlight the different body types of kids in a way that can be uncomfortable and suffocating.
I agree, disclaimers donāt give free reign, but I donāt expect free reign, i fully expect and respect criticism and corrections on my limited point of view. But is there no value in hearing that there are people who donāt like/expect heels? Otherwise how do we make cracks in the institution? If the institution is upheld by both men and women, surely some menās voices will also be neededā¦
Depending on how complete this hegemony truly is (again, I admit ignorance), this certainly feels like personal choice. Outside of workplace pressures, this seems self-imposed. I donāt go to clubs either because I definitely donāt own the accoutrement to fit in (I got axed from a job as an extra in a Jay-Z video for my style of dress, despite having tried my hardest)ā¦well, that and i donāt like loud music or non-conversational socializingā¦It would seem to me there would be places where non-heel-wearing folks could gather to socialize.
Soā¦as you said, heels are a damn-if-you-do-damned-if-you-donāt situation, as is commenting on them, so Iāll duck out before I dig myself in any deeperā¦
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While Iām sure that this is more broadly true, a restaurant is always a specious argument for appearance requirements. They are notorious for being able to skirt flout employee protections in this regard. I mean, Hooters, for cryinā out loudā¦
Dresses, enh maybe. I did regularly wear a kilt till middle age waistline changes ruined the fit and I have been bad about getting a new one, and my main commute vehicle these days is a 400cc scooter so pants are pretty much it for now.
I will say strictly anatomically speaking why guys wear pants makes no sense to me.
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I used to work in a hair salon/spa, I was expected to wear a full face oā make up, every day, and have my hair ādone upā, every day, it was part of the employment agreement. It was non-negotiable. I didnāt have to wear heels per se, but it was suggested, a lot, that I do. Cuz my ability to schedule appointments and run inventory were obviously dependant on my full face oā makeup and high heels.
This is the world we live in. To deny it, to pretend that appearance is all a matter of āpersonal choiceā is doing a disservice to those of us that have to abide by all these rules. Not all of us can be engineers or work in industries that allow that kind of aesthetic freedom. Someone has to answer the phones, and whether people admit it or not, we expect that someone to look a certain way. Those of us who answer the phones understand these unspoken rules, denying they exist is insulting.
And if women donāt abide by these unspoken rules we run the risk our freaking psychiatrists writing op-eds about us and our ādowdinessā - damned if we do, damned if we donāt.
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No, I hate the Tribly. Damn you Justin Timberlake.
ETA - the Tribly works with certain face shapes.
But no, I mean the Fedora. It was first a womens hat in the late 1880s. and later morphed into a mens, though it is rather Unisex, women look great in it too.
Older style:
Newer style:
And you had many examples of the mens.
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And the ānatural lookā takes so much more time & effort to get right. Easier to slap it on.
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Supposedly men originally wore pants so they could ride horses, and later so that they could wear certain types of armor. Women and Scots did neither of those things, so they got to wear more comfortable leg covering.
This doesnāt actually wash if you look too closely at history, though.
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My wife is one of the thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of nurses out there. She never wears heels and I donāt even think she has owned any in the 17 years weāve been married.
While your comments may be true in some fields they arenāt true for all. Or, I would argue, even most.
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Iām happy your wife is happy with her choice in footwear and career. Just as Iām also sure she would be spoken to about appropriate shoes if she showed up to work in heels. Nursing require āsensibleā footwear, if she did show up repeatedly in heels I wonder what would happen?
Both of my sister in laws are nurses too, but they wear heels in their off hours. So do my two nurses trump your one? 
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When I see a woman in high heels, I want to ask her āWhy? Why? Do you really hate yourself so much?ā
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The ladies department?
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Er, excuse me, could you show us the dog kennels, please, hm?
You want a dog, she wants a dress.
Each to his own.
You can still buy plenty of menās cowboy boots with 2.5-3" heels on them. I personally have zero issues walking in that kind of heel. When you get to those 4-5" stilettos - now those look like torture devices.
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