The Psychology of Why Women Wear Heels
Published in: https://www.sugarbrandsonlinemag.com/psychology-women-wear-heels/
We should be aware that the shoes a female wears most of the time reflect her personality. Human language starts with a shoe and radiates upon the whole body. There is an element of power and sexuality that heels provide for a woman. She feels empowered and believes in her existence. With every step of a female’s high heel echoing leaves a sign of her importance and presence. It is more about empowerment and authorization that it gives a girl. The girl has a significantly added height; raised buttocks and smaller-looking feet. This means not only her posture is improved but she is at eye level and equal to her male colleagues in the office.
There is only a group of females that are interested in heels. This group is represented to be again split into two categories. One is the extremely feminine woman who accepts the fact that high heels makes her leg look more seductive and curvaceous. Another is the quiet dominant masculine personalities that wear heels to give visual physical impression like being successful and confident.
Women who do not wear heals gives the impression that they are more down to earth but again lower heels can give different impressions depending on the style of shoe worn. For example flats suggest they are more of business and less of pleasure while kitten heels are more of a creative, playful personality. Dr. Amanda Noelle, founder of Aphrodite University, argues that women who wear flats are already self-confident and tend to be judged fairly on their intelligence without allowing their physical structure to get in the way. On the other hand, women who stick to heals try to gain personal satisfaction in order to expose their confidence through their physical appearance and thus be considered professional in their work place.
A study conducted shows how European women who wear heels all the time feel much more confident than women in Spain who rarely wear heels. Psychologist Emma Kenny concludes that “Research has suggested that a tall woman is considered more assertive, confident, richer, capable, successful, independent and even more intelligent than their shorter peers,” but other psychologists such as Jenny white raise a very important point. These studies that were conducted about women who wear heels only show a correlation between being confident and being tall but not a causal relationship. In other words there could possibly be another reason (such as being respected since they look more professional) that change the intensity of both factors but wearing heels does not cause women directly to be more confident.
Dr. Noelle argues that it does not make sense for women to wear heels all the time considering the health risks that wearing heels lead to. According to the Mayo Clinic, constant usage of heels makes the woman’s feet “slide forward, redistributing her weight, this creates unnatural pressure points and throws her body’s natural alignment out of whack.” Therefore, women should limit wearing heels only in occasions that are a form of celebration or have a formal setting for example a conference or a wedding.
Finally we might not be consciously aware of the messages that heels send across. We simply tend to choose the fashion we like according to our preferences of empowerment and sexuality without realizing so and therefore, we should be aware that our personalities are presented by the type of shoes we wear.
