Only if the high heels are shouting up at you: "Oi, Sarah! Women aren't good for anything but cooking, cleaning and shagging! Go and make us a cup of tea, will you, love?"Other than that, there's nothing inherently bad about high heels, just as there isn't about most clothes. Sure, complaining about how it's men who decide what's sexy in a woman and then promptly stripping off to pose for a men's magazine won't help feminism and will make you look pretty silly, but let's let sleeping dogs lie.Look, feminism isn't very complicated: it's about equality. That's it! We can all pack up and go home now!
Except not quite, because there are some niggling issues still. Leaving aside the ongoing argument about whether mainstream feminism still ignores various demographics of women (namely, non-Caucasian, non-middle class, non-heterosexual) as it once did, there are still many queries that are all basically variations on the theme of Sarah's question: what is feminist and what isn't? It would make life much easier if someone could just knock up an encyclopaedia detailing whether eye shadow is feminist and mascara isn't, but that cannot be.You see, what is one person's embrace of their sexuality is another person's patriarchal oppression. And you know why that is? Because women aren't just women – they're individuals. And individuals have different reactions and needs. Women are also, by and large, smart enough to tell when they, as individuals, feel elevated or downtrodden by something and whether their feelings come genuinely from themselves or because they have been brainwashed by the patriarchal society. So, in regards to feminism, while the overall message – equality – is universal, the details (marriage, sexual predilections, high heels) vary from woman to woman. And you know what? That's just fine.Feminism gave women the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives and they can choose whether they want to wear high heels or not.
Personally, high heels are anti-feminist for me – and only for me; I'm not issuing some edict from on high here – although it took me until my early 30s to realise this. I careened through my 20s on heels so high they allowed me to see the world from the perspective of someone 6ft tall, albeit only for a few minutes, as I was generally only able to stay upright for brief periods. How I made it to 30 without a broken neck or at least ankle is possibly the eighth wonder of the world.I know some women who love heels. Some who wear them on casual days, for no special reason at all. Some who claim that being taller makes them feel stronger, more empowered, and that they feel like a duck when they walk in flat shoes. I am not one of those women. For me, high heels are just fancy foot binding with a three-figure price tag and they render me so immobile that I can barely be bothered to get up off my seat to go to the loo, meaning that I may one day require a catheter whenever I wear heels, which would probably take some of the sexiness away from my Louboutins.
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