Trace the evolution of high heels across 100 years

[jerwin]

This can only be solved by a properly designed, controlled longitudinal study.,

[jerwin]

that gif is messing with my perception of case and effect.

[Medievalist]

@chgoliz

but a video of one person’s feet wearing 10 moderately different versions of the same type of shoe from the same socio-economic lifestyle isn’t worth the time to watch it.

Thank you Liz! I watched @Nelsie’s video instead.

@milliefink

No overview of high heels deserves to be called a history when it has zero reference to the patriarchal imperatives that cause women to wear the damn things in the first place.

My boss claims she wears high heels when she’s alone, at home, in her free time. Because she does what she wants.

[milliefink]

@Medievalist

My boss claims she wears high heels when she’s alone, at home, in her free time. Because she does what she wants.

Yeah, so? I don’t know how to put that together with what you quoted from me…

[Medievalist]

I don’t know of any patriarchal imperatives that impact my boss when she’s home alone.

Edit: I just remembered this! My boss spends all day telling men (including me and also her nominal superiors) what to do, and she once made the (male) CFO of the company dance for her in high heels. Totally not kidding.

[milliefink]

So, feminism is a bunch of bullshit then?

I still don’t get what you’re driving at. To say, as I did, that patriarchal imperatives have caused women to wear high heels is not to say that that’s the only reason they ever wear them.

[Medievalist]

@milliefink

To say, as I did, that patriarchal imperatives have caused women to wear high heels is not to say that that’s the only reason they ever wear them.

Sorry, I misparsed your sentence, then. I have no idea what you are talking about.

[Grey_Devil]

One could say that it is empowering for a woman (or man) to rock some heels, especially if it gives them confidence and makes them feel good about themselves. I would never dare take that away from someone or pass judgement on it. However the history of ladies footwear has a colored history that should not be ignored. The desire for perfect dainty feet and being able to wear high heels does come from patriarchal ideals, this is for the most part not the case nowadays but it does play a role in what society expects a woman to look like and what they should wear.
TLDR: I don’t think you should discount that heels could be considered a patriarchal concept of beauty, but a person can still do whatever makes them happy.
Also good on your boss for being a ballbuster. And i mean that in the best way possible, that’s hilarious.

[milliefink]

@Medievalist

I have no idea what you are talking about.

@Grey_Devil (to whom I say thank you) summed it up well.

[Medievalist]

Hmmm… I was taught in history class that high heels originated with men, and were voluntarily taken up by women, against men’s wishes. That they started out as stirrup holders, and then were taken up by one of the Louises of France because he was short, and then by French women as a protest against patriarchal sumptuary laws.

The same professor taught that neckties begin with the same Louis’s cravat, which he wore to hide a goiter.

Edit: This woman mostly agrees with my history prof, but adds some interesting additional context. She says it was Louis XIV.

[milliefink]

All interesting historical influences on high heel wearing as well, no doubt. But also all less relevant to the particular history of high heels covered in the video, in which case, the influence that Grey_Devil elaborated on so well is certainly far more relevant. Indeed, in the historical context illustrated in the video, the influences you describe all seem distinctly irrelevant.

[Medievalist]

@Medievalist

I watched @Nelsie’s video instead.

 

[SoItBegins]

Oh my god, shoes.

[link]

[Grey_Devil]

Shoes…

[wrecksdart]

@milliefink

Indeed, in the historical context illustrated in the video, the influences you describe all seem distinctly irrelevant.

In other words, don’t be a heel.

[popobawa4u]

@milliefink

But also all less relevant to the particular history of high heels covered in the video, in which case, the influence that Grey_Devil elaborated on so well is certainly far more relevant. Indeed, in the historical context illustrated in the video, the influences you describe all seem distinctly irrelevant.

I don’t doubt the factors that @Grey_Devil outlined, but they do not create the context I brought to watching the video. All that it says is “100 years of shoes”, and noted as @chgoliz did that it is not much variety for 100 years. Most of these “100 years” videos are very much constrained to specific geographies without broader context. These shoes probably don’t represent shoes of the 70s in Thailand or Ghana any better than a listicle of the best songs of the 70s does, it is all very Eurocentric without acknowledging their awareness of the fact.

As for whether or not it embodies men’s or women’s contexts of shoes, I made no assumptions about who might have been wearing them. Would my perceptions change if I knew that it was a man or a woman wearing them? I don’t know, because I did not have that information.

[milliefink]

@popobawa4u

I don’t doubt the factors that @Grey_Devil outlined, but they do not create the context I brought to watching the video.

I’m well aware that you bring a very unusual context to just about everything you experience. E.g.:

@popobawa4u

As for whether or not it embodies men’s or women’s contexts of shoes, I made no assumptions about who might have been wearing them. Would my perceptions change if I knew that it was a man or a woman wearing them? I don’t know, because I did not have that information.

I would guess that if one hundred bbs commenters viewed that video, only about one would not assume those are women’s feet (or perhaps, the feet of one woman). Out of one hundred bbs commenters, you are the one that I would think would be that one.

[SoItBegins]

[nod] Let’s get some shoes.

[anon35121463]

@wrecksdart

In other words, don’t be a heel.

But all my fave wrestlers are heels.

[L_Mariachi]

I hadn’t at all noticed women’s shoes becoming hideous this millennium. Now I’m going to be surreptitiously looking at strangers’ feet and they’ll think I’m a pervert.