High Heels and the Feminist Construct

I was listening to the radio on Tuesday, and almost every (AM) station was talking about the fact that this season's heels are supposedly ridiculously high.

ABC news radio cited the example of this year's Oscars (which I didn't watch, so I can't comment), which were supposed to be especially 'feminist' (their words, not mine. Apparently the fact that a woman won best director for the first time made it 'feminist'), every woman had to be helped onto the stage by a man because of the ridiculously high heels they were wearing.

As I've already said, I didn't actually watch the Oscars, nor do I have any inclination to do so, so I'm unable to give my own opinion of the ceremony as such, but with regard to the women being helped onto the stage: WHO CARES?

Seriously, why is it such an issue that women are wearing incredibly high shoes? It's not as if feminism is regressing, and I highly doubt that it's all part of an elaborate plot by men to subjugate us, so why all the furore?

High heels do admittedly have detracting factors. The shrinking of one's Achilles tendon being an especially notable one. But such effects only occur with habitual wearing. Just like everything else, heels in moderation are actually a good thing.

They make short people, such as myself, seem taller. At 165 cm, my height is towards the short end of average. At 165 cm with an extra 15 cm of shoe, I'm just short of six feet tall. Which is an improvement.

It could be said that I'm pandering to the masculine defined construct of what women should look like etc. but I'm not. I'm just using Lamarck's theory of evolution in the vain hope that it'll work.

Just as Lamarck believed that giraffes, whilst trying to reach leaves which were progressively higher up on trees stretched their necks, and passed on this characteristic to their offspring, who further stretched their necks and so on, I'm hoping that if I wear high heels, by body will grow, and I will become taller. This is the theory of learned behavior. I'm reasonably certain that it's not going to work, but whatever.

And now returning to the initial issue of the Oscars, if a bunch of actresses and the like decide to wear painfully high shoes, I'm happy for them. Admittedly, if the shoes are so high that they can't actually walk in them, then that poses a bit of an issue with regard to practicality, but it's entirely their choice. It doesn't mean that women will engage in a mass exodus from the workforce, deciding to become stay at home mothers who live to do nothing more than pander to their husband's every whim. Perhaps it's just because, like me, they're short.