Something About Women's Business Dress That Pisses Me Off

I'm not the kind of guy to complain about women trying to conform to men's expectations. Whether the aesthetic that women in the business world are expected to conform to is asserted onto them by men or by other women is flat out irrelevant - what's relevant is that high heels are fucking stupid. And I have a feeling that women are just as guilty as men are in subjecting young women to that foot-binding instrument.

I've believed for actually a few years that high heels are vain, but my stay at my current school has really driven me up the wall about high heels. There was a moot court competition here a couple weeks ago, and I stood there and watched a moot court team from another school walk towards our law school, and the clup-clup-clup of all the girls' heels drowned out the car engines on the nearby street.

I recently had the privilege of acting out the defendant for my apartment mate's moot court class, and now I hate high heels even more. The student pretending to be the prosecuting attorney was wearing high heels, and when she was setting up for her closing arguments she wiggled accross the courtroom to get a marker. It wasn't walking, it was wiggling. The altitude of her heels actually impeded her locomotion. Her cocounsel was wearing heels too, but fortunately she didn't have to wiggle accross the courtroom to grab a marker.

I don't know what there is about high heels that makes girls think they have to wear them if they want to look formal. High heels don't look formal. They look ridiculous. What we think right now of the court fashion of baroque men is exactly what we will think of high heels when female vanity is finally directed in more wholesome pursuits. Young women can look just as classy and just as pretty when they wear 1-inch heels, or - God forbid! - flats. Women wiggle less when their heels are closer to the ground, and I dare say less wiggling is more courtroom-appropriate than more wiggling.

There is no benefit to wearing something that strains your ankles and blisters your toes. I don't know of any men's clothing item that hurts to wear. If there were one, I don't think men would feel that obliged to wear it. And I say it's about time women no longer felt obliged to wear high heels.