And, as Twisty clarifies nicely, being female (or gay, or purple, or a unicorn) won’t protect you when the time comes.
I wish I had a photograph of my grandmother’s feet to share at this moment, but I wasn’t taking a lot of photos in her last years, and I’m not sure I would have thought to document her feet even if I had been shooting a lot. They were, however, a terrible testament to the power of fashion to quite literally cripple people (primarily women). Her toes were all twisted together, and constantly retained the shape of a “fashionable” pointed toe shoe even though she hadn’t worn such things for years. Not surprisingly, she had all manner of problems (rubbing, joints) and they hurt quite often.
When I see a women in pointy toed and spike heel footwear, I don’t see sexy. I see my grandmother’s crippled feet. Given that our anatomy has at best partially adapted to the challenges of walking upright (look at how many people have serious back problems at some point in their life), it seems the height of folly to compound the problem with footware that is simply a disaster waiting to happen.
I didn’t marry a Barbi doll – I married a wonderfully talented, intelligent women. The sexy part is between her ears, not at the end of her feet.
