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Last edited Sat May 14, 2016, 12:47 AM - Edit history (1)

Unfortunately like racism, sexism is hard to see or understand the impact of from the outside sometimes.

Even if that particular employer wasn't thinking how much more a woman walking in heels is perceived to be sexier, people have known for decades how much damage they can do long-term, especially when work daily for work vs being painful enough Friday out dancing. Just based on that alone, why require them for an office position at all?

But of course you know why it's questionable to say Fred Astaire was obviously a better dancer than Ginger Rogers -- after all, she did everything he did, except backwards and in high heels. The fact people didn't think about that sooner shows most of the time, a guy isn't looking at the shoes but the overall person, and isn't considering the impact when they see us in them. It's how privilege manifests -- the people who have it usually have no friggin' clue.

And that's not their fault. Few men have feet that fit their wives pumps, though, and as a result few have ever even tried to walk in the damn things. Let alone spent a 40-hour week wearing them on their feet. But when it was actually very appropriate to use very bad drag in a Halloween costume (it was a local online community's party and the parody was not of anyone with actual gender identity or sexual orientation differences but a very skilled, cis straight male troll who decided to use the fact 90s BBS call-back verification didn't require a voice verification to create a duplicate account impersonating a Pagan lesbian, who had at first been taken completely at his word, and stirred up tons of drama), I helped a male friend find stuff for his costume parodying the "Endora" fiasco at Goodwill, including dress shoes that fit him.

He won the costume contest, but as we were walking out he took those heels off and THREW them -- cussing about the damn things. Fortunately we were in a venue where the projectiles just landed on the lawn.