This is great, tell all your friends to subscribe! Why I put myself on a blog budget and waited to get here, I can't explain. I laughed out loud, because I'm a trans widow and was an involuntary audience member for performances of "womaning" by my former husband, who thinks he's a special kind of female, as he went through his "hot chick" phase in the mid 1990s. During his experimentation with CFM shoes, the acronym meaning, "come fuck me," I'd drop off our 5 and 8 year old sons at the court-appointed location, as some dude chatted him up on a bench outside of Connecticut Muffins in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
I learned about CFM shoes from a cosmopolitan friend who grew up in Manhattan. We don't talk now, as my TERF identity is radioactive with her crowd. (she has a great story about Woody Allen trying to pick her up when she was 16 though) I never wore high heels, having taken heed from my very traditional father that men will look at me the wrong way. I believe he succeeded with all of us, and we were a family of five daughters. One of the granddaughters is a high powered attorney for a multinational corporation and I think she carries a pair of Jimmy Choos or something in her designer handbag and wears them for effect an hour at a time.
I'm very thankful to my lesbian friends going back to the early 1990s, who said, "He's not your ex-wife. Don't let anyone tell you that." I never did. I went through a Hungarian-dance-boots phase in my 20s and graduated to those rocking shoes after dancing took its toll. The Hungarians did not prepare me for Neddy's mini-skirt and over-the-knee boots period, the one he went through right after the surgeries. I believe the purpose was to show the world he'd practiced how to cross his legs. It was so odd to see that six inches of thighs paraded out in the world, so our sons could watch passersby averting their eyes.
I have to go order some fresh rocking shoes now. Really looking forward to the next one~
Thanks to the much-maligned 2nd Wave Feminism which I encountered as a teenager while babysitting for young women in the US who had subscriptions to Ms. magazine, I began college in 1977 with a fervent, if immature commitment to feminism. Every paper I wrote in my first year had the word "women" in it. As a freshman in a history class about China, one paper I wrote was entitled "Women and Footbinding in Ancient China." I was just a kid and didn't really know how to properly do academic research, but I learned some shocking shit. I learned that it was the privileged and wealthy women, not the peasants, who had the tiny bones in their feet crushed for the sake of fashion, making it nearly impossible to walk. The smaller the better. the more bones crushed the better. This practice was not only "fashion," it served the sexual fetishes of men. The wrappings on the feet with the smell of decaying flesh were prized sexual artifacts. Ugh. This was before the internet of course. The books I got from the library in my college had large parts redacted because of the pornographic nature of the content. The connection to the barbarity of high heels in our own culture was obvious to me. There is a reason most humans who must get treatment from a podiatrist are female--and that reason is high heels. Not as bad as footbinding, but they are truly barbaric and crippling. I have rarely worn high heels in the subsequent decades of my life. I am healthier, stronger, and more stable because of it in my 60s. I am grateful for this early understanding of a serious feminist issue.
Tried high heels and instantly went for kitten heels. My office job in the 80’s required them, along with a tight skirt that broke veins on my thighs when I sat too long, and tights that snagged at the slightest provocation which were expensive to buy. How I envied my male colleagues who only had wearing a tie to complain about (I wore a tie at school) - pff!
Total insanity! How were women persuaded to wear shoes that crippled them? And that created a slew of industries producing everything from inserts to relieve pain, to soft,folding slippers that you can keep in your handbag for when the pain becomes unbearable!! AND to pay more than I paid for my first car, by some considerable margin, for these instruments of torture?
I read an article in today’s Slate advocating “bring back high heels” (yeah….no.) One thing I learned is that Gen Zers say you are “officially old” if you wear high heels to the club - good for them! I’ve also noticed that for GenZ sneakers are fashion. See, e.g., 10/28 article in NYMag. So maybe some hope of putting high heels in the ash heap of history.
With a straight colleague years ago two couples - straight and gay, did Rocky Horror Picture Show in Houston one Friday night in full heels, fishnet, corset, mitaines and boas (husband is a costume designer, they were flawless).
Colleague tied size 11 stilettos at home for a day before, his daughter humorously complained “it’s come to this”.
We had to dance on stage to the “Don’t Dream It Be It” number, and at 250lbs of muscle in size 12 heels, it was astonishingly painful, as well as dangerous. I was sure I’d break my ankles. His wife acted like it was nothing. She also had a body after two kids and 45 years as perfect as Janet in the film.
My question is why shave and make-up either? I groom my face to not look like Captain Caveman, but all the rest? Big ouch also.
This is great, tell all your friends to subscribe! Why I put myself on a blog budget and waited to get here, I can't explain. I laughed out loud, because I'm a trans widow and was an involuntary audience member for performances of "womaning" by my former husband, who thinks he's a special kind of female, as he went through his "hot chick" phase in the mid 1990s. During his experimentation with CFM shoes, the acronym meaning, "come fuck me," I'd drop off our 5 and 8 year old sons at the court-appointed location, as some dude chatted him up on a bench outside of Connecticut Muffins in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
I learned about CFM shoes from a cosmopolitan friend who grew up in Manhattan. We don't talk now, as my TERF identity is radioactive with her crowd. (she has a great story about Woody Allen trying to pick her up when she was 16 though) I never wore high heels, having taken heed from my very traditional father that men will look at me the wrong way. I believe he succeeded with all of us, and we were a family of five daughters. One of the granddaughters is a high powered attorney for a multinational corporation and I think she carries a pair of Jimmy Choos or something in her designer handbag and wears them for effect an hour at a time.
I'm very thankful to my lesbian friends going back to the early 1990s, who said, "He's not your ex-wife. Don't let anyone tell you that." I never did. I went through a Hungarian-dance-boots phase in my 20s and graduated to those rocking shoes after dancing took its toll. The Hungarians did not prepare me for Neddy's mini-skirt and over-the-knee boots period, the one he went through right after the surgeries. I believe the purpose was to show the world he'd practiced how to cross his legs. It was so odd to see that six inches of thighs paraded out in the world, so our sons could watch passersby averting their eyes.
I have to go order some fresh rocking shoes now. Really looking forward to the next one~
Thanks to the much-maligned 2nd Wave Feminism which I encountered as a teenager while babysitting for young women in the US who had subscriptions to Ms. magazine, I began college in 1977 with a fervent, if immature commitment to feminism. Every paper I wrote in my first year had the word "women" in it. As a freshman in a history class about China, one paper I wrote was entitled "Women and Footbinding in Ancient China." I was just a kid and didn't really know how to properly do academic research, but I learned some shocking shit. I learned that it was the privileged and wealthy women, not the peasants, who had the tiny bones in their feet crushed for the sake of fashion, making it nearly impossible to walk. The smaller the better. the more bones crushed the better. This practice was not only "fashion," it served the sexual fetishes of men. The wrappings on the feet with the smell of decaying flesh were prized sexual artifacts. Ugh. This was before the internet of course. The books I got from the library in my college had large parts redacted because of the pornographic nature of the content. The connection to the barbarity of high heels in our own culture was obvious to me. There is a reason most humans who must get treatment from a podiatrist are female--and that reason is high heels. Not as bad as footbinding, but they are truly barbaric and crippling. I have rarely worn high heels in the subsequent decades of my life. I am healthier, stronger, and more stable because of it in my 60s. I am grateful for this early understanding of a serious feminist issue.
Tried high heels and instantly went for kitten heels. My office job in the 80’s required them, along with a tight skirt that broke veins on my thighs when I sat too long, and tights that snagged at the slightest provocation which were expensive to buy. How I envied my male colleagues who only had wearing a tie to complain about (I wore a tie at school) - pff!
Total insanity! How were women persuaded to wear shoes that crippled them? And that created a slew of industries producing everything from inserts to relieve pain, to soft,folding slippers that you can keep in your handbag for when the pain becomes unbearable!! AND to pay more than I paid for my first car, by some considerable margin, for these instruments of torture?
Not to mention the podiatrist and orthopedic surgeon bills!!!
Indeed
I read an article in today’s Slate advocating “bring back high heels” (yeah….no.) One thing I learned is that Gen Zers say you are “officially old” if you wear high heels to the club - good for them! I’ve also noticed that for GenZ sneakers are fashion. See, e.g., 10/28 article in NYMag. So maybe some hope of putting high heels in the ash heap of history.
What is the back story? Why did you take on this challenge?
Nice piece.
With a straight colleague years ago two couples - straight and gay, did Rocky Horror Picture Show in Houston one Friday night in full heels, fishnet, corset, mitaines and boas (husband is a costume designer, they were flawless).
Colleague tied size 11 stilettos at home for a day before, his daughter humorously complained “it’s come to this”.
We had to dance on stage to the “Don’t Dream It Be It” number, and at 250lbs of muscle in size 12 heels, it was astonishingly painful, as well as dangerous. I was sure I’d break my ankles. His wife acted like it was nothing. She also had a body after two kids and 45 years as perfect as Janet in the film.
My question is why shave and make-up either? I groom my face to not look like Captain Caveman, but all the rest? Big ouch also.