Thursday, August 31, 2006

Our Right to Shoes

The other day, when Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler were on KQED's Forum to promote Bitchfest, their anthology of 10 years of Bitch magazine, a woman called in. The second-wave feminist was bemoaning the backlash of back-breaking shoes. I thought we'd won this war, she said. But now women are running around in ridiculous shoes again. I think she may even have thrown in Sex and the City as Exhibit A of the bad-for-you-shoes.

Then I talked to my mom a few days ago. Actually, she called me from the streets of Manhattan to tell me about a shoe sale I was missing. A good one. She was trying on a pair of shoes that were just perfect. Buying them, and wearing them out the door. She called back to tell me they were very comfortable. At four inches, she told me, the shoes felt so comfortable it was like walking in slippers.

My mom, I might add, also of the second wave. She marched. She attended hootenannies. She even, in high school, protested the no-sandals dress code by wearing boots in the summer. Don't think feminism isn't without a sense of humor.

I guess one woman's battleground is another woman's suit of armor. It is, after all, a right we've won. Our right to shoes.

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