Shoo!

Years ago, and well into my seventh month of pregnancy in New York City, it occurred to me one day that, as I would be unable to run from a fast predator, I was lucky not to run into an urban panther. These weekly blogs will consider women's lives from the perspective of one who is now older.

Have you tried to buy a pair of women’s shoes lately? It’s scarier than a slasher movie. Heels five inches tall with a two-inch platform sole. Wedges that lift feet four inches off the ground. Those are the dangerous ones. Then there are the simply stupid ones -- sandals with leather ankle covers like spats attached, short boots with open toes. It’s as if people who’ve never walked on feet are designing footwear.

In “Mrs. Doubtfire,” the man dressing as a woman walks home from his first day and curses “the misogynistic bastard who invented heels.” We all know that high heeled shoes add height and make legs look longer; what we forget is the damage high heels do to the alignment of the pelvis and the cascade of troubles that follow down hip, knee, ankle, arch, toes.

Aside from horsemen, for whom a higher heel provides stability in the stirrup, men haven’t consistently worn high-heeled shoes. Men of gentility wore heels like women’s -- not very high and situated under the arch -- in the late 16th century and on and off through royal courts. But high heels stopped being the fashion for men for some hundreds of years now, while during the same period becoming more extreme for women.

I remember learning to walk in my first pair of heels (black patent leather, kitten heel) and falling on a slippery floor at work (amber-colored suede platform heels). I took off time from high heels when I was pregnant and running after toddlers, but dressing nicely always included shoes with some heel height. Like many women, I am susceptible to the allure of high heels. Why is that?

Part of the reason is being in fashion, and part was that for many years you couldn’t find an attractive pair of flat or near-flat shoes. That has fortunately changed, but as there is finally some choice in low shoes that are pretty, now there’s a marked increase in the outrageous -- and dangerous -- heights of fashionable shoes being shown. There can’t be that many foot fetishists around, can there?

A shoe should cover the foot, keeping it warm and protected from injury, support the arch, provide traction to avoid slipping and falling. There have been advances in all other garments for ease of wear, comfort, durability, design -- why not women’s shoes?

I’m equally alarmed at the opposite trend -- flip flops. No arch support, unprotected feet vulnerable to any impact, and open to dirt, stubbed toes, and objects penetrating the sole. And they have no style, which is fine for an item designed for walking on the beach or to the shower -- which they are.

Flip flop sandals and four-inch heels, both remind us that women have not yet become comfortable in our own skins to insist that fashion not expose our bodies to damage, to harm.

From the ridiculous to the ridiculous, with no sublime in sight.

Fashion victims

Years ago, and well into my seventh month of pregnancy in New York City, it occurred to me one day that, as I would be unable to run from a fast predator, I was lucky not to run into an urban panther. These weekly blogs will consider women's lives from the perspective of one who is now older.

Some years ago, I saw an exhibit on the corset. It was fascinating and awful. An early style was a wooden board, six inches wide and rounded at the top, worn from under the breasts to the pubic bone by women and girls, quite young. Styles progressed to stays and whalebone (a genuine breakthrough in comfort), curves became wildly emphasized, bodies became deformed. It remained the style for women for hundreds of years. 

Upstairs in the same museum, I came upon a painting done in 1890 by Julius Leblanc Stewart, On the Yacht “Namaouna.” There are five figures in the foreground, two men and three women, and the women all seem to be posed seductively. One is standing and holding onto a brass rail behind her; two are sitting in chairs, both are leaning into the back -- one has her arms raised to hold the top of the chair, the other is tilted to one side coquettishly.

At first glance, the postures seem very come-hitherish. But with my mind still filled with the garments that squeezed lungs and squashed intestines, I saw these women’s postures for what they were: attempts to somehow escape their confinement, to find some comfortable position. They had hour-glass figures and tiny waists; they were pale and languid; they could not breathe.

With their restrictive undergarments and draped with long skirts and tight bodices, one assumes a woman so dressed could not run or even raise an arm, and certainly needed help getting out of her outfit. Her clothing impeded her, provided no defenses (except perhaps for a well-aimed hatpin), and actually rendered her close to helpless. But if a woman wanted success and marriage, she had no choice but to corset herself.

The ideal size of a bound foot in China was three inches. It, too, became essential for attractiveness and marriageability. Started on girls by the age of five, binding broke the toes, deformed the foot, hampered movement for life. Infections were common, flesh became necrotic. Foot-binding in China lasted for one thousand years.

Are we insane?

Bona dea

Years ago, and well into my seventh month of pregnancy in New York City, it occurred to me one day that, as I would be unable to run from a fast predator, I was lucky not to run into an urban panther. These weekly blogs will consider women's lives from the perspective of one who is now older.

I enjoy spending time with my three-year-old grandson. His play is rather truck-intensive, with some dragons and dinosaurs thrown in. He loves books and reading, but trucks are his first, second, and third love.

This got me to thinking about how my children played when they were three. My son was a dinosaur aficionado and fascinated with trains. My daughter enjoyed adornment; she wore a little pink tutu skirt over her clothes every day for months. I was beginning to get worried, as mothers do, until we met a little boy in the supermarket who wore, in true Viking fashion, a metal colander on his head. I stopped worrying about the tutu.

Someone gave my girl a tall bride doll, one that had been in the family for a while and its white dress was a bit tattered. My mother made a sapphire blue velvet dress for the doll; my daughter nearly swooned with happiness.

I was watching her dressing up this doll. She put ribbon bows on the dress, a flower garland and a veil on the doll’s head, flowers in each hand. And I realized that the result looked very like the shrines of Mary statutes in my grammar school, similarly decorated during the month of May. With positively no external information to sway her, my three-year-old was performing a ritual; the impulse, apparently, and the method, certainly, were much the same as common adult religious practices.

Where did that come from? Was my girl expressing an inherent link with the goddess? Great Mother, Queen of Heaven, Goddess of the Universe -- can knowledge of her be hard-wired in us, demonstrated by little ones too young to have it burned, beaten, or mocked out of them?

As I get older, the concept of the divine for me has no personality, is rather a great force, energy, unifying all. But when I need a face there, the divine face is always a goddess, and has been so for decades. But I’ve kept this sub rosa; it’s still not completely safe. Study most any culture’s stories, and a male pantheon has been superimposed upon an older goddess religion and even the memory of that erased, or consigned to “myth” and “fertility rites.” The violence of the new religions tried to wipe the goddess from the earth.

Suppressing women’s religious rites made suppressing and subjugating women all the easier. Blaming Eve for the loss of paradise has allowed -- no, justified -- male dominance and oppression of women. In her book When God Was a Woman, Merlin Stone asks, “What had life been like for women who lived in a society that venerated a wise and valiant female Creator?”

Can you imagine?

Ladies and gentlemen

Years ago, and well into my seventh month of pregnancy in New York City, it occurred to me one day that, as I would be unable to run from a fast predator, I was lucky not to run into an urban panther. These weekly blogs will consider women's lives from the perspective of one who is now older.

Is anyone else bothered by the title “First Lady,” which seems out-of-date and inadequate at best, classist and archaic at worst? We need a better title, something like “the woman-whose-support-was-instrumental-in-her-husband’s-getting-to-be-President.” I guess that would be awkward on the stationery.

Some First Ladies were clear that they worked closely with their husbands. Florence Harding said, “I put him in the White House. He does well when he listens to me and poorly when he does not.” Several First Ladies found the position unpleasant, even odious; Margaret Taylor prayed for her husband to lose the election. But, like it or not, they sacrificed their preferences and performed this very difficult duty, which they had not sought.

Lots of people probably know that Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution when that group refused Constitution Hall as a concert venue for black contralto Marian Anderson, and that she helped arrange another site for the singer -- the Lincoln Memorial. Eleanor Roosevelt set an example as a woman who was not dominated by her husband, who had strong convictions about social justice, who was not afraid to express her mind

Another First Lady, Mamie Eisenhower, was mostly known for her aplomb as a hostess and her taste in pretty dresses. One could hardly call Mamie a rebel, yet when she and her husband revived the tradition of the White House Easter egg roll, she invited black children to participate in the formerly segregated event. In that one deed, this conventional woman, who did not even try to hide her distaste for the young Kennedys following her and Ike’s tenure, still set a model and wielded important influence for the public good.

Michelle Obama promotes community and families. Ladybird Johnson saved native wildflowers. Laura Bush fostered support for education and libraries. Rosalynn Carter aided senior citizens in need. A great deal of what is best in our society has been brought to our attention, and often secured, by the interest of the First Lady, usually quite quietly and without fanfare. And not once has a First Lady’s project been called a war on anything. 

There will be a woman President someday. But what about her husband? Will he be asked if he can make a pie? Will his wearing knickers constitute a major fashion faux pas? Will we be expecting of the First Gent anything different from what we now expect of the First Lady?

This will be interesting to watch, don’t you think?