Nothing makes a woman feel more empowered than embracing her sexuality.
It’s what she is born with. It’s desired, coveted, and sometimes exploited. But it is always hers.
Whether she’s relaxing in a pair of worn out jeans, or heads out to buy stripper shoes, she is owning her body.
High heels can be traced back to 9th century Persia, when riders on horses developed them to keep the foot in the stirrup. The modern day cowboy boot serves the same purpose, with the narrow toe and block heel.
They remained as men’s shoes for many centuries thereafter, with women in soft leather slippers. High heels were considered a functional shoe back then!
When Queen Elizabeth I donned a pair for a portrait, the craze for women in high heels began. Madame de Pompadour borrowed King Louis XV’s heels, and French shoemakers began making more feminine shoes to ride the craze.
Throughout history, heels and flats have been vying for popularity, but in 1953, Christian Dior designer Roger Vivier created the first stiletto heel – named after the sharp, narrow knife blade on which the heel of the shoe was based. Marilyn Monroe famously claimed to shave 1/4″ off one of her stilettos, to give her the sensuous wiggle she was known for.
During the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, the high heel became something to be fought about. Were they a tool of the oppressive patriarchy, meant to keep women bound and sexualized? Or were they a matter of personal choice and feminine beauty?
The high heel endured, and became a symbol of the third wave of feminism in the Slut Walks of the first decade of our current century. Otherwise modest girls went out to buy stripper shoes, to walk the streets in sky-high perspex and black patent leather, all to take back their power from law enforcement who “slut shamed” rape victims for what they wore and how much they drank.
Since then, “stage heels” – as strippers and pro fitness models both refer to them – have become as common as a pair of Chuck Taylors’. You’ll see soccer moms in 5″ spikes, tottering out to their SUVs, and supermodels strutting the catwalk in next season’s style.
There’s just something about the way a high heel lifts a woman’s instep, making the foot more feminine and the leg more shapely. The calf tightens, showing the much-admired diamond shape at the back, and the bum is lifted.
We can thank Queen Elizabeth I, Madame Pompadour of France, and Marilyn Monroe for making the high heel so iconic that we are unlikely to ever permanently opt for the comfort of flats.