Rule: flatter shoes can be as chic as towering torture chambers
January 27, 2012
The loathsome Maggie Alderson (Australian-based author of chick-lit, prior editor of several fashion magazines and a self-proclaimed feminist) has written a misogynistic and grotesque column where she polices exaggerated-feminine fashion styles, is whorephobic and transphobic, and reduces Dita Von Teese’s worth as a human being to the type of shoes she occasionally wears.
Several of my friends and I posted comments critiquing her and in an act of prejudice, she is moderating them - while allowing comments that praise her and engage in similar woman-hating rhetoric - to go through.
SO.
I’m reposting mine and my friends’ comments here. I encourage you ALL to go and add your critiques, and reblog this post with them included. There’s a twitter hashtag going - #maggiealderson - where I urge everyone to expose her prejudice.
This kind of woman-hating crap being passed off as feminism is insulting to everyone.
THE COMMENTS:
There is so much in this article that I find incredibly offensive but I wanted to start by addressing a major fallacy that I constantly see perpetuated everywhere. Flat shoes are just as bad for your feet, and often WORSE than heels. About 6 years ago, I suffered from plantar fasciitus every couple of months. It’s an incredibly painful inflammation of the soft fleshy outer part of your foot which makes it very difficult to walk. Surprise, surprise, it was caused by wearing ballet flats on a daily basis, particularly wearing them on hard surfaces like concrete and bitumen (which comprises most walking surfaces!). After my 3rd visit to my Dr with it in as many months, he laid down the law to me and said absolutely no ballet flats, and advised me to wear nothing less than a 1.5 inch heel.
It’s an incredible struggle these days to find a cute pair of decently priced shoes that isn’t a ballet flat or a stiletto heel! I have no doubt that this is in part due to this stupid belief that flat shoes are more comfortable and better for you. I feel the same way about heels as I do about corsets; if they’re fitted well, they’re incredibly comfortable to wear on a daily basis. Two things that get an incredibly bad rap as being uncomfortable, but really aren’t. I have a small selection of cute heels, between 2 and 3 inches, which I have no trouble wearing on a daily basis (including dance classes!). The few times in the last couple years that I’ve tried wearing ballet flats (with the vain hope that perhaps their design has changed enough to be comfortable), I’ve barely managed an hour or two before my feet were in agony. Obviously, not everyone is going to have as bad a reaction to flats as I do, but there is definitely evidence out there that shows how damaging flat shoes are. If we just had access to shoes with small heels (that aren’t orthopaedic specialist shoes), perhaps this fallacy wouldn’t be so wide-spread.
Now that that’s out of the way, lets get to the more offensive parts of this article. I’m a proud feminist and devotee of vintage fashion. I feel the most comfortable and the best about myself when I’m wearing my winged eyeliner, my red lippie, a cute outfit with heels, and my hair curled in the manner of the 40’s and 50’s. I never leave the house without first applying sunscreen, blush and mascara, at an absolute minimum. How DARE you insult, belittle and demean MY choices, especially from behind the shield of ‘feminism’. Last time I checked, feminism was all about CHOICE. Giving women the space to be able to choose how they want to live their life, without limitations due to gender. How is dressing in a manner that makes you feel good about yourself ‘anti-feminist’? These looks are hardly deserving of your judgement of them as ‘repressive’. As someone who has been dressing in such a manner WAY before it was ‘in’, I copped plenty of abuse from the fashionista set for daring to step outside what was considered fashionable. I can’t tell you how absolutely freeing and EMPOWERING it was to be a very pale girl (flying against the tanned trend) wearing these beautiful girly dresses combined with my full face of make-up, and absolutely NOT give a damn about what other people thought of me or the judgments people like you were making about how I dressed. And for the record, my look is NOT high maintenance, nor does it take me especially long to look as perfectly put together as Dita. It is something I do FOR MYSELF, because it makes me feel good, not because I feel pressured by outside forces, or because I’m worried a picture will end up on Facebook, or because I’m trying to hook a man. So it’s certainly not repressive in that respect either.
Following that train of thought, burlesque is also incredibly empowering, and hardly anti-feminist; I think you’re confusing your own moral reservations and judgements with feminist ideals. To reduce this wonderful art form, one that celebrates femininity and the female form, to such simplistic terms as ‘objectification of women’ is disrespectful to the women of burlesque, past, present and future. I really think you should educate yourself about the history of burlesque, as it has such a rich past that is full of strong women making political statements, taking back the ownership of their bodies and their sexuality. Regardless of your own moral aversions to striptease (and yes, burlesque IS stripping and anyone who says otherwise is in denial), these women are an incredible inspiration, and embody feminist ideals. Dita Von Teese is an incredibly intelligent woman, who many look up to, for far more than her impeccable style. She’s a savvy business woman, an incredibly creative artist, a woman who promotes positive body image and self love, who dares women to be different, step outside the mould, reclaim their sexuality and do things that make them feel good. Hardly anti-feminist!
The very act of policing women’s bodies, passing your own judgement on other people’s choices of fashion, make-up and footwear, THAT is anti-feminist. It only serves to promote the very misogyny that we’ve been fighting against for so long. You have absolutely no right to put your own value judgements on other people, deciding why it is they’re choosing to dress in a certain manner. Unless, of course, you’ve specifically spoken to said people, and determined that they’re just mindless sheep, forced into these choices by those evil outside forces, conspiring against feminism! As a self proclaimed feminist, you really ought to know better.
(abimused)
Wow, Maggie. I hate those towering heels too. I’m in awe of anyone who can walk in them. I’m sure if I tried my hip and back would be out for days.
However, I think it’s actually possible to write an article praising flat shoes without transphobic and whorephobic comments slung in to hold the readers’ attention. Is your writing not good enough to hold our attention without those cheap shots? That’s just lazy and hateful writing.
You have a platform for speaking out provided to you via the media. How about trying to be a little smarter and cleverer with it. Now THAT would be Old School Feminism.
(MYS)
Dear Maggie,
Whorephobia and transphobia are neither chic, stylish nor clever.
Just ignorant, classist, and further marginalising to people who are already thought of by mainstream society as less-than human.
What makes you think that trans people and sex workers don’t read your blog?
(SA)
Maggie, I also prefer flats over heels. But there’s no need to go hating on every other demographic of woman who isn’t you. Next time, try writing an article that isn’t so steeped in discrimination and elitism. Geez.
(KellyMyDear)
How hopelessly retrograde to sneeringly slut-shame and deny agency to women in stripping under the guise of “feminism”. As a feminist, a sex worker and an occasional burlesque performer, I resent the implication I am nothing more than an object or that my work - whether in burlesque or sex work - encourages objectification- with no further complexity, narrative or dynamic.
As if it isn’t enough that sex workers have to deal with those in the burlesque industry denying that burlesque is strip tease with sneering whorephobic classism, now so-called “feminists” deride burlesque by calling it a “fancy name” for strip tease. With sneering whorephobic classism.
Both sides demonstrate hopeless ignorance of not only the history of burlesque - it was the FIRST form of striptease and stripping has always been inherent to it - but the agency, self-determination and awareness of strippers and other sex workers.
This is patently ANTI-feminist, as one of the guiding rules of feminism is the recognition of a woman’s autonomy and capacity to choose her path - even if you, Maggie, don’t like it.
Furthermore, you police women’s bodies and images with snide remarks about “too much makeup”, or big hair, or styles of dress - exactly who ARE you, if you believe in women’s rights, to deny womens’ ability and right to express themselves visually in whatever means they see fit? Why would you presume that women are so stupid they’re merely “taken in” and “manipulated” by advertising and marketing? Has it ever occurred to you some women LOVE looking like “drag queens”? That for some women the artifice of exaggerated femininity is fun - is enjoyable - is a very conscious and deliberate ownership of a constructed image? Or is your own insecurity in the face of such brazen self-determination so threatened you can only conceptualise it as helplessness? Not very feminist. At all.
Finally, you round it all off with a grotesque example of transphobia with your reference to “trannie hookers”. “Trannie” is a highly perjorative term, associated with violence and murder against trans women, and is not a term to use casually or flippantly - unless you want to imply you hate trans women and have no empathy or consideration for the particular discrimination they face - which is VERY closely connected to misogyny, is actually an aspect of misogyny.
And as someone whose worked the street - extremely high heels aren’t suitable. But way to perpetuate an ignorant stereotype!
This kind of misogyny, whorephobia, transphobia and prejudice dressed up as “feminism” doesn’t serve anyone, Maggie. And YOU should know better.
If you wanted to express YOUR personal preference for flat shoes, I’m sure you could’ve done it without insulting a whole bunch of other women (inculding trans women - who are also women, Maggie).
Seriously, Dita has “won you over” by wearing flat shoes and carrying the same bag? If only you could read any number of intelligent and insightful things this woman has said that go far beyond the regular wearing of flat shoes - surprise, surprise, Dita is an independent woman who has her own strong opinions, a variety of life experience that have informed her decisions, sexual, financial, business and social autonomy and - GASP - is able to choose her footwear - and openly admits to adoring towering stilettos, all by her own widdle self! But, no, instead all you need to do is reduce Dita to the clothes she wears and she becomes worthwhile to you? How strangely like the sexist standards you proclaim to be against!
Frankly, I’d rather be dressed by any one of Sydney’s esteemed drag queens than wear anything dubbed “stylish” by you.
(Starlet)
What’s the problem, Maggie? I know for a fact you’ve received more than one slamming critique for this woman-hating post, yet the only ones you’re approving are the bum-crawly ones? Afraid of criticism? Surely someone who’s been in the media biz as long as you have can cop a little dressing-down.
That you can approve Jasmine’s brown-nosing without regard for how incredibly classist and anti-feminist and woman-hating it is just indicative of what’s really motivating you here: hate and prejudice. To allow something as classist as “And don’t even get me started on the striptease and pole-dancing crazes – sorry, but if it were really about fitness/athleticism/art, you would be doing gymnastics, ballet or aerial” to go through just because that commenter is kissing your butt is gross. Because it’s not as if pole-dancing is perhaps made to seem more accessible than ballet, gymnastics and aerial (speaking as someone who has studied all four arts)? Or perhaps women just want to do something that makes them feel sexy? Oh but we should laugh and ridicule them right, cos women shouldn’t feel sexy – that just makes them hopeless victims of the patriarchy? And sexy woman are disgusting sluts, right?
Are you lot seriously so intimidated and threatened by this sort of woman that you would pass your little bitch-fest off as fashion critique?
That’s pathetic.
(Starlet)
