Battle of The Barefoot: A Stand Against High-Heels
Most women have fallen victim to an antiquated dress code at some point. Growing up in an Orthodox Jewish community, my experience with this mainly concerned the length of my skirt. According to the “halachot”—or rabbinic laws—pertaining to modesty, a girl’s skirt must cover her knees by Orthodox standards. If a girl showed up to school in an “immodest” skirt, she’d be asked to change into a black (or worse, navy blue) maxi skirt to wear for the rest of the day. If you think that’s harsh, recall the “no flats” incident at the annual Cannes Film Festival in 2015. When a group of women wearing flats showed up to a screening of “Carol”, they weren’t handed backup pairs of high-heels. They were turned away completely.
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At the time, Festival director Thierry Fremaux insisted that high-heels were not mandatory for women on the red carpet. The official Cannes handbook doesn’t mandate high-heels for women in the same way that the Talmud does with knee-length skirts, but that doesn’t make it any less enforced. It was an unspoken rule acknowledged by all women. Since the incident, however, some women have chosen to acknowledge it a little differently.
In 2016, Julia Roberts walked the red carpet barefoot in support of the women who were turned away for wearing flats the previous year. Kristen Stewart followed suit in 2018, arriving at the red carpet in red bottoms only to kick them off moments after. Through the years, going barefoot has taken on even deeper meanings. This year, Cate Blanchett stood barefoot in a velvet Giorgio Armani jumpsuit as she presented the Breakthrough Artist award to Iranian-French actress Zahra Amir Ebrahimi. Before handing her the award, Blanchett told the audience, “I am going to take my heels off, in honor of the women of Iran.” There’s almost no comparison between the red carpets of Cannes and the streets of Iran, where appearing in public without a hijab is a punishable offense for women. Nonetheless, her statement is just as salient.
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Heels are not only a requirement at prestigious events like Cannes. Across the globe, women are forced to wear heels in office spaces and even at restaurants. This has led to countless cases of discrimination against women in workplaces and settings alike. For instance, Nicola Thorp was fired for refusing to wear heels on her first day at a London office in 2016. She was dressed professionally in a suit and formal shoes, but her manager’s idea of women’s work attire necessitated some version of the torturing heel.
Women should have the freedom to wear whatever footwear they like. If you feel empowered by the click-clack of a pair of six-inch stilettos, then you have every right to embrace the high-heel in your own life. Most women, however, don’t enjoy wearing heels on a daily basis. Even those who do will admit that they can only bear them for a number of hours before the pain starts to kick in. So why do we allow rules and expectations to control our choice of footwear?
Photo Courtesy of Richard Vogel/AP Photo
High-heels were invented as early as 3500 BCE for noblemen as an assertion of authority, distinguishing them from lower class citizens. As upper-class women integrated high-heels into their wardrobes, men slowly abandoned the footwear because of how its immobilizing effects stood in the way of their imperialist efforts. By the 19th century, high-heels were completely feminized and Christian Dior invented the stilettos, which raised the shoe above three inches. Talk about the height of female oppression.
Today, the barefoot brigade is more than a stand against uncomfortable footwear. It’s just one battle in the larger fight for women’s rights everywhere. After all, only by regaining bodily autonomy can women effectively quicken their pace in the race for equality.
Article by Meyme Nakash, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Alexa Dyer, Graphic Designer, PhotoBook Magazine
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