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From: zubbie@ihlpa.UUCP (Jeanette Zobjeck)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Body Image, High Heels and All...
Message-ID: <242@ihlpa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-May-85 20:59:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpa.242
Posted: Mon May 20 20:59:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 22-May-85 01:06:07 EDT
References: <1764@decwrl.UUCP> <26300001@uo-vax3.UUCP> <25782@lanl.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 69

> > Ah, yes, and having forced the wearer into high heels in which there is
> > NO way to walk quietly without literally tiptoe-ing, society applies
> > the double bind as usual from inside the woman's mind--she must also be
> > quiet, because ladies don't stomp or call attention to themselves.
> > Arrrgh!
> 
> WHOA!!!!!
> 
> WHO has forced "the wearer" into high heels?
> 
> Are we to believe that normal market forces don't work when it comes
> to women's shoes?
> 
> I have been following this discussion because I have my *own* low
> opinion of the shoe designer's mentality but I have noticed several
> postings that implied (or said outright) that the atrocities that are
> sold as women's shoes are the result of a *male conspiracy*.  I think
> that such an assertion is ludicrous.
> 
> If women *truly* didn't want to wear such shoes they wouldn't buy
> them and if they didn't buy them the vendors would begin selling
> something that they *would* buy.
> 
> As to the suggestion that women buy them because they have been
> conditioned to do so, think a moment about *who* conditioned them.
> Who teaches little girls to dress and what to wear?  I think that you
> will find that, for the most part, the way women dress is influenced
> by what they were taught (explicitly and implicitly) by their mothers.
> 
> A question for those of you who believe that high heeled shoes are the
> result of a "male conspiracy":  How do you suggest that it was
> implemented?
> 
> 
> Charlie Sorsby
> ...!{cmcl2,ihnp4,...}!lanl!crs
> crs@lanl.arpa

*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
Until recently (historicaly) the dominant force of the women's fashion
industry have all been men. Perhaps in the last 15 to 20 years women
designers have been moving up as a force in this industry but I
think if you look at what/where fashion ideas spring you will note that
almost in every case either the designer was a man or a man or men had
the final decision in the finished product. 
	Yes, even I feel the biases which I learned from my mother,
women did learn what to where and how from there mothers and so on
back as far as you care to go and so in less enlightened times the
thoughts of men about what was "right" for women worked their way 
into society. Today we, as women, are moving farther awayu from those
pressures to fit into what we were taught by our mothers but
we arent there yet and men still controll the industries which 
influence the thinking of society about women.
	The market place can only produce pressures as strong as the
majority can make them and at this point women have not begun to bring
those pressures to bear , I feel, primarily because of education.
It takes a bit of doing to wake up to the  WHY of what we do as individuals
and today , unfortunately, there are still not enough educated women
available to make the market place do what we, as a powere group, want
it to do.

Jeanette L. Zobjeck
ihnp4!ihlp1!zubbie

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