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A podiatrist says there may be a push to ban high heels because of the danger they can pose to joints in the feet and even to your knees. While high heels have a reputation for being uncomfortable, experts are warning that those sky high stilettos may be doing long term damage. Some are even suggesting an outright a ban on high heels.
Lucy Corcoran, 25, wears her skyscraping heels every day. "I've got shoes for going out during the week, for weekends, for being professional," Lucy said.
But podiatrist Matthew Dilnot said most women did not realise just the serious problems high heels could cause, such as bunions, arthritis, toe amputations and worse.
"We're seeing epidemic proportions of women with significant problems now, because of a spate of high-heeled shoe wearing that we're seeing in fashion now," Mr Dilnot said. "You can be crippled by high heeled shoes."
It seems to make sense: the act of walking on heels is just completely unnatural, like walking around on tiptoes all day. Mr Dilnot said high heels raised the heel, putting too much load on the forefoot. In some cases, this could lead to degeneration of the joints. Ankles were the next to go, followed by knees. Mr Dilnot believes wearing high heels could join smoking as a practice some want banned.
"It has been tried before," he said. "People have asked occupational health and safety to implement banning of certain types of footwear. And I can see down the track that this is going to happen. There is absolutely no doubt that the problems this is causing is going to remedied at some stage."
But until then, despite the warnings, most women will continue to suffer for fashion.
Seems to be a global phenomenon, Syd. This from the Sunday Times.
Quote:
Pain no object
What kind of woman wears a 3in heel? Kate Spicer claims membership of an elite, powerful and excruciating sisterhood
Patrick Cox says there aren’t that many women who make a beeline for his highest heels. For anything more than 3in, the market is limited, apparently. Those women that do “are sexually active and attractive, whether 18 or 60”. He checks himself — “That sounds terrible” — but after thinking about it, he can’t find a better description.
You can tell he loves her, his heel-wearing client: not just the great twinkly show-offs, Kylie, Madonna and Elizabeth H, but more serious women such as Isabelle Huppert, Diane Sawyer, Martha Stewart and Queen Rania of Jordan. “They all rock a 90mm-plus, at times,” says Cox. Oh, yes: “High heels are the holy grail of women’s footwear. Women just live for this stuff.”
A recent survey by Harper’s Bazaar found that 25% of women choose buying shoes over paying bills, and of the 1,000 women surveyed, 50% owned more than 30 pairs. It could be that they all have stout walking boots and a rainbow of ballet flats, though I doubt it. It’s a fair bet that many of those shoes will be impossibly high, impractical and uncomfortable.
I have a few pairs of flat shoes that I wear to protect my feet from the pavement and to get me from A to B. Then I have heels, loads of them, from fierce black stilettos to barely-there mules that make my feet look indecently naked. I wear them as much as is physically practical, which is as often as I can carry flip-flops in my handbag for ease of mobility.
Nicole Kidman, in the misery of her Cruise split, had one small comfort: “At least I can wear heels.” And members of the high-heels club knew what she meant. Women love their heels for all the otherworldly potential and excitement they hold. Heels take shorts from the boy scout and hand them to the vamp; they transform heavy legs into a shapely turn; they complete an outfit. While clothes are an exhausting battle with body image, high heels only ever help — they are your own personal Photoshop. They give a woman height, authority and poise, and “can completely change the mood”, as Cox puts it. Thank God, and Manolo Blahnik, for the different and politically incorrect view of the world that killer heels offer women.
But first, a qualification: high heels are more than the natty collection of fun pumps and colourful mid-heels that Theresa May MP uses to brighten up a boring suit. To put a woman in a different light, heels need to be more than 3in. At this elevation, she is suffering, even if only a little, for the complicated returns she gets from wearing a high shoe. She’s made a choice to suffer for a change in height, posture and world-view.
The killer-heel wearer belongs to a small, rarefied club of women that love sex and glamour, are very fond of attention and are just a little, or a lot, vain and cocksure. The high heel is a look-at-me shoe. You don’t buy it because it is pretty, you buy it for its potency. Love them or hate them, Helmut Newton’s breathtaking Valkyries would have been impotent without their killer heels. They are an unequivocal, politically incorrect sexual statement.
But heels don’t necessarily objectify women. Some grown-up, serious types wear them. Condoleezza Rice chose a 3in heel to inspect the troops at Wiesbaden army airfield soon after she became Secretary of State. She looked pretty tough in her boots.
Tamara Mellon, a paid-up killer-heel wearer, agrees. Far from subjugating women, she says, heels “allow a woman to look a man in the eye”. In fact, some shoes are so high, they let you throw your arm over his shoulder in a proprietorial neck lock. Third-wave feminism indeed.
Unlike midriff-baring tops, hot pants and spray-on jeans, the heel is not purely the preserve of the sexually obvious female. One serious, beautifully dressed fortysomething woman, who works at Goldman Sachs for a healthy six-figure salary, says wearing heels taps a vein of sexual aggression in her. She loves heels in that typically female way, but she says she also hates them for bringing out the stereotypical City chick with balls. “Anyone who says heels make you vulnerable is wrong,” she says.
Likewise, a high-profile humanitarian cannot constantly engage in the politics of killing and torture. A friend of mine fell into a discussion with a glorious woman of this precise description. They both love Terry de Havilland, the grandfather of the vertiginous platformed wedge, and the maker of the shoe that even the heel veteran Kate Moss couldn’t get through Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara Ball without taking off. Even serious ladies will drop everything for their love of heels. Linda O’Keefe, in her book Shoes: A Celebration of Pumps, Sandals, Slippers and More, says: “Physically, it is impossible for a woman to cower in high heels. She is forced to take a stand, to strike a pose, because anatomically her centre of gravity has been displaced forward.”
When, in the mid-1990s, Germaine Greer claimed that the writer and critic Suzanne Moore could not really be called a feminist given her preference for “fu(k-me shoes”, I lost interest in the word feminism. Women who choose a killer heel over a sensible shoe enjoy mischief-making, political incorrectness, looking good in clothes and just a little personal torture. Are women like that not allowed to be feminists?
Why must everything in life be good, wholemeal, mid-heel and earnest if you are to be a respectable female? High heels may stand on un-PC ground, but we choose them knowingly and interpret them on our own terms by attaching them to our feet, making them an extension of us. The relationship a woman has with her heels comes from the same sickening lack of common sense displayed in a bad, but good, love affair. The pain, the suffering — the joy of living.
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"citing an indisposition due to special circumstances"
On the topic of sex crimes involving feet and shoes I somewhat macabrely collect this information. So many thanks for the headline. Foot fetishism and shoe restifism are frequently cited as the most common paraphilias (abnormal preoccupations) but are remarkably poorly researched. In the case of most serious sociopaths, which involve lust murder and violent rapes, they have co-moribund conditions and fetishism may be one. This is frequently dismissed as an aberration and less importance is given to it as a condition. I would think there is some substance to the thought that many serial sex criminals will start their career by stealing shoes or committing foot assaults.
On another topic entirely, Valerie Steele is a fashion historian and has written a brilliant and well-informed book on fetishism called predictably, Fetishism. The content is good-humoured and contains fascinating detail for anyone vaguely interested in the subject. Her introduction sets the scene as she describes her visit to an S&M club in London dressed in her street clothing and forced to tell all around that she is a researcher and not an interloper. Steele is a well-acknowledged researcher and gives citations throughout with the exception of one statement, which relates to male podiatrists in the US. Apparently self-confessed foot fetishists, they wear diapers in case of ejaculation when working with clients. Now I have met Valerie Steele and heard her present at a fashion conference as well as reading many of her books and articles and she is genuine and well respected academic. I was poised to ask her (privately) about the above but a suitable occasion did not present. You know me - I am not judgemental nor am I a sensationalist, but like yourself, I am fascinated with the phenomenon.
Steele is a well-acknowledged researcher and gives citations throughout with the exception of one statement, which relates to male podiatrists in the US. Apparently self-confessed foot fetishists, they wear diapers in case of ejaculation when working with clients.
Fascinating. Do you think that fetishisms are as prevalent in other professions or is it just podiatry that attracts these diverse characters? Certainly patients have a wide spectrum of reactions when working on the foot - some genuinely appear to gain some stimulation from the experience. I guess if we were to open our eyes (and minds) to the possibility of a stranger having a sexual fantasy about a visit to the podiatrist's surgery it wouldn't take too much imagination to cultivate such a scenario - an attractive young man or woman, the uniform, latex gloves, the intimacy of holding the foot - it's not difficult to eroticise the podiatry consultation. Substitute that little old lady with her Van Dals and Marks & Sparks for Kate Moss and her Manolo Blahniks and Agent Provocateur and 30 minutes suddenly seem an awfully long time...
I wonder how many podiatrists have been propositioned over the years or found themselves in a situation where a patient's fantasies have been exposed?
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"citing an indisposition due to special circumstances"
>I wonder how many podiatrists have been propositioned over the years or found themselves in a situation where a patient's fantasies have been exposed?
Back in the olden days (when you were a student) there was a play on BBC Radio Scotland about this very topic. Dramatised was a patient podiatrist interaction as the individuals established rapport over a period of time. Their social relationship grew between mature widow and thirty something spinster. and the dialogue contained more and more clever double entendres. The final meeting had himself in full female dress (with high heels). Needles to say the spinster podiatrist had hoped for another outcome.
I tried to contact the author but to no avail. My reason was the phrasing used by the podiatrist in the play sounded all too familiar and was either written by a pod or someone very close to a podiatrist.
Aficionados of Alan Bennett will remember the mutually rewarding relationship between Miss Fozzard and her chiropodist - Mr Dunderdale – with the latter introducing the susceptible patient to his collection of shoes, starting with the “fur-lined Gibson bootee in Bengal- bronze.” Within a few visits the relationship quickly changes to that of female domination, trampling and smothering – all conducted in a most English manner, over sherry, in rural Yorkshire. Sexual deviation in the middle classes is an altogether civilised affair!
Recently I treated an attractive young lady (30+) who had sustained an inversion sprain after she twisted her ankle wearing a pair of high heels. After a few days of rest, ice and elevation, she returned to have some strapping applied. We were enjoying a few weeks of very warm weather and at the time I thought nothing of her minimalist attire – cropped T shirt and short denim mini-skirt – until I was taping the ZO around her foot and she moved her other leg out of the way. Working at eye level and carrying on a conversation with the patient sometimes carries a distinct disadvantage, especially when, aside from the outer clothing, you inadvertently notice that the patient is au naturale. Thankfully, I had an assistant working with me that day and although she remained oblivious to the interaction, I was glad of her presence as I have little doubt, from the coy smile on her face, that the patient knew exactly what she was doing.
Not sure what gets taught in podiatry schools these days, but I wonder if an element of psycho-sexual relations should be introduced to prepare the unsuspecting, innocent student for all the carnivores out there. I could hazard a guess who would lead that lecture in Edinburgh…..
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"citing an indisposition due to special circumstances"
If women, who are intelligent adults, wish to cause unspeakable harm to their bodies in the name of vanity then why stop them.
Look at any womans mag today and look at the unspeakable horrors women expose them selves to in order to be MORE ATTRACTIVE!!!!!!!!!
Just take their money patch them up and advise higher heels next time.
Then order your Porsche 911 with the proceeds.
I do not see why only cosmetic bods should get all the money when i can offer a service that enables them to wear horrible shoes in a slight degree of discomfort and keep them happy.
High Heels breakout in Wales
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