High-heeled shoes and evolution theory.

Andre

Morris, P.H, J. White, E. R. Morrison, K. Fisher, 2013; High heels as supernormal stimuli: How wearing high heels affects judgements of female attractiveness, Evolution & Human Behavior, PII: S1090-5138(12)00122-5 doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.11.006

BobG

What we need is a peer reviewed article comparing the length of the 2nd finger to the 4th finger for high heel wearers to high heel non-wearers. That should provide some insight into the motivation to wear high heels.

While we have peer reviewed articles for high heels and peer reviewed articles for what the 2D/4D ratio means, no one has addressed how 2D/4D ratio affects the tendency to wear high heels.

D H

Social scientists study all kinds of weird stuff. High heels? Open toed shoes? Falsies? They're all fair game in the weird world of the social sciences.


High heels aid in attracting a good mate.
E.O. Smith (1999). High Heels and evolution: natural selection, sexual selection, and high heels. Psychology, Evolution, and Gender, 1 (3), 245-277.

While it is unlikely that there is a gene for wearing high heels, the tendency to wear high heels under certain social conditions may be a manifestation of a larger pattern of behavior associated with mate attraction.

High heels help women get help from men.
M.B.Harris and G.Bails (1973). Altruism and sex roles. Psychological Reports, 32, 1002.

It appears that the likelihood of an altruistic response is indeed affected by sex-role stereotypes. Women wearing feminine attire [ruffled blouse, high heels, and curly hair] are more likely to be helped, particularly if they make a feminine request for help ["My shopping cart is stuck. Can you help me?"]

Related: Falsies also help women get help from men.
N.Guéguen (2007). Bust size and hitchhiking: a field study. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 105 (3), 1294-1298.

To test the effect of a woman's bust size on the rate of help offered, 1200 male and female French motorists were tested in a hitchhiking situation. A 20-yr.-old female confederate wore a bra which permitted variation in the size of cup to vary her breast size. She stood by the side of a road frequented by hitchhikers and held out her thumb to catch a ride. Increasing the bra-size of the female-hitchhiker was significantly associated with an increase in number of male drivers, but not female drivers, who stopped to offer a ride.

Or maybe women wear high heels because foot fetishes are safe sex?
A.J.Giannini et al. (1998). Sexualization of the female foot as a response to sexually transmitted epidemics: a preliminary study. Psychological Reports, 83 (2), 491-498.

The authors reviewed historical literature and hypothesized a relationship between epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases and foot fetishism. They tested this hypothesis by quantifying foot-fetish depictions in the mass-circulation pornographic literature during a 30-yr. interval. An exponential increase was noted during the period of the current AIDS epidemic. The authors offer reasons for this possible relationship.

zoobyshoe

Hehe. That paper's incendiary. I'm going to be checking out people's finger lengths from now on.

Evo

For some reason, I never think about "social sciences". Thanks DH!

jim hardy

Given title of this thread i'm surprised nobdy pounced on these from Ibix's link:

That sounds taboo to me.

But taboos are great producers of revenue.
I'm not that old. My memory spans roughly Bettie Page to Dita Von Teese.


I would observe we Americans have in recent decades perfected the art(?) of exaggeration.
Here's a sweet picture of ( i think) Lady Gaga in high heels:

courtesy these folks: http://popcrush.com/lady-gaga-crazie...cture-perfect/

You know, they just don't make nostalgia like they used to.

Drakkith

I counter that exaggeration with my simple style Jimmy. I call it "Pants? Not at home."

lisab

Not being male, I don't understand the attraction. But hey, whatever decreases μ for you.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOfMO2R7u44

Astronuc

Being male, I don't understand the attraction.

That video is hideous.

http://omg.yahoo.com/photos/what-wer...013-slideshow/
The high healed shoes in the first image are just plain absurd.
Need I say more.

Evo

Not only are the shoes ugly, they're not the right size and her feet are REALLY ugly.

Drakkith

You know, I read somewhere, perhaps on this very forum, that Women don't dress up for Men, they dress up for other Women.

jim hardy

Au contraire, they're quite practical.
She could kill a cockroach in a corner.

Evo

And afterward, she can pick her teeth.

Gad

... Is it made for a horror/zombie movie?

Astronuc

He's a lumberjack, and he's OK; he wears "high heels, suspenders, and a bra"

WannabeNewton

Oh god I remember when I first saw this Monty Python masterpiece I couldn't stop laughing until my stomach got knotted up and it started hurting. We need a Monty Python subforum!

NemoReally

Hence proving there is no idea that somebody, somewhere cannot extend beyond the bounds of rationality, practicality or stupidity.

Actually, I did. Apart from, as did you, noting that there is bound to have been the odd social "scientist" writing papers on such things, I wondered if somebody in the fashion industry had thought of seeing if science could provide an improved ROI. There's a lot of money involved and trimming a few euros off the budget by targeting design appeal parameters could be worth it.

Just to add to the other sources, I give you ....
Fashion Theory - "A fine addition to academic institutions with cultural studies programs; essential for those with special collections in fashion and costume.": http://www.bergpublishers.com/bergjo...4/default.aspx

http://www.bergpublishers.com/BergJo...0/Default.aspx

Catwalk: The Journal of Fashion, Beauty, and Style, part of the Global Interdisciplinary Research Studies series, is an externally peer reviewed inter- and trans-disciplinary journal, published twice a year (with an optional 'special edition' some years). Catwalk publishes articles focused on the historical, social, cultural, psychological, political, business, media, technology, performance, representational, and artistic dimensions of fashion, beauty, and style. Our starting point is that fashion, beauty, and style lie at the very heart of persons, their sense of identity and individual expressiveness, and that all three influence the communities and world in which they live. Core themes explored by the journal include: the dressed and undressed body; adulated, marginal, and deviant bodies; beauty standards; fashion and style trends; and performance and self-fashioning through dress and body modification. Other topics Catwalk examines include the fashion-beauty-style industrial consumer complex; the social construction of glamour and icons; and the influence of race, ethnicity, nation, class, age, sexuality on discourses about, representations of, and the identity construction of fashion-beauty-style. We are interested in the roles of fashion, beauty, and style in the formation of identities, subcultures, communities, cities, and nations; and their influence in art, pop culture, celebrity culture, film, multi-media internet games, and the blogosphere. :http://www.interdisciplinarypress.ne...mart&Itemid=28

I believe such a style has been popular throughout the ages for winkle-picking as well

I did a quick straw poll amongst the wives in my household. 100 % of them answered that women dress up for both.

I also did a quick survey amongst the wives and 12-year old daughters in my household. Both of them agreed that "subservient" is not a word that they would associate with the wearing of high heels. In fact, my daughter positively grinned with delight as she put on a pair of quite low heels and looked me in the eye (yes, she's quite tall for her age and she likes her ballet points for the same reason).