User:Amocs001/sandbox

History

High heels have a complex history in relation to self expression, fetishization, and inequity in the workplace. The practice of wearing high heels has become common-place and normative within shifting networks of class, gender, and sexuality. Further, they have feature at the center of female fashion and present women in hyper-feminine and hyper-sexualized. This representation is further complicated with women's agency in their own self expression and the forced wearing of these shoes in the workplace. Victoria Robinson's study investigates the way women often choose high heel's in the work place because of their appreciation for glamorous fashion despite the pain caused by wearing them and their potential risk for podiatry damage.

High Heels in the Workplace

High heels in the workplace have become both self expression, but also a means for sexist, patriarchal control of women's bodies. Women have a precarious relationship with self presentation in the work place with androgynous suits or more feminine outfits that risk them appearing overly feminine and sexualized. Dress in the workplace is also linked to perceptions of the self and success as workplaces; heightened clothing interest cause employees to believe that their attire will have a positive impact on their workplace success. Further, sociological discourse about dress in the workplace can be contrived as "performance" in which this behavior, or sexual behavior, can fulfill carious expectations of their social roles. It is perhaps with this lens that high heels in the workplace can be best understood. If the workplace is a place in which behavior, or sexual behavior is performed, high heels feature as an object of female sexuality. These objects, mandated by dress codes, introduce stereotypical ideas of female sexuality and self fashioning in a professional environment.

Red High Heels as Fetish Objects

Historically, red shoes conveyed authority, wealth and power, linked to the status enhancing cost of red dyes. The color red is connotative of fertility, blood, death, love, magic, nobility, scarlet women, the Devil, and vulgarity. Red shoes have become symbolic of unrestrained female sexuality especially in relation to heteronormative, patriarchal expressions of desire. Jennifer Griffiths cites the film Appassionata as a film that depicts the ideal of beauty heavily associated with red symbolism for sexuality - particularly, her red high heels. These ideas are coded in the connotations of red high heels, much like the famous red bottom Louibiton high heels that are a status symbol for women. In popular culture, red high heels are further linked to sexuality, particularly heterosexual sexuality, and a desire to be seen by men. A famous image of Kristen Stewart removing a pair of red bottom Louibiton high heels on a red carpet sparked conversation about the Cannes Film Festival's mandatory rule for women to wear heels on the red carpet. A song titled Red High Heels by artist Kellie Pickelr details the song's protagonist desires uses red high heels as a way of expressing her sexuality to entice an old boyfriend and scorn an old lover.