High-heeled shoe
[4] Wearing high heels is associated with greater risk of falls,[5] musculoskeletal pain,[6] development of foot deformities,[6][7] and varicose veins.
[8] Starting in the 10th century, the Persian cavalry wore galesh, a kind of boot with heels, to ensure their feet stayed in the stirrups.
[3] In 12th-century India, a statue from the Ramappa Temple depicts an Indian woman's feet clad in raised shoes called paduka.
[1][failed verification] During the Medieval period in Europe, both men and women wore wooden pattens under or around their shoes to raise themselves out of the dirty and excrement-filled streets.
A 17th-century law in Massachusetts announced that women would be subjected to the same treatment as witches if they lured men into marriage via the use of high-heeled shoes.
[9] Men wore them to imply their upper-class status; only someone who did not have to work could afford, both financially and practically, to wear such extravagant shoes.
[10] The design of the high French heels from the late 1600s to around the 1720s placed the wearer's body weight on the ball of the foot and was decorated with lace or braided fabric.
[20] Due to the post-war increase in international communication, especially through photography and films, the Western fashion of women's high heels began to spread globally.
[19] In the early post-war period, brown and white pumps with cutouts or ankle straps combined with an open toe were some of the most fashionable women's heels.
[20] For many women in the West, high-heeled shoes began to symbolize professionalism, whereas leather and rubber thick-heeled boots for men came to be associated with militarism and masculinity.
The era surrounding World War II saw the popularization of pin-up girl posters, the women in which were almost always pictured wearing high heels.
In the minds of many men at war, and later, in American society at large, this led to an increase in the strength of the relationship between high heels and female sexuality.
Paul Morris, a psychology researcher at the University of Portsmouth, argues that high heels accentuate "sex-specific aspects of female gait," artificially increasing a woman's femininity.
Some researchers argue that high heels have become part of the female workplace uniform and operate in a much larger and complex set of display rules.
This changed position places more pressure and tension on the lower lumbar spine, which may explain why some of the women complained of severe back pain at a higher heel length.
In a 2012 study, Kai-Yu Ho, Mark Blanchette, and Christopher Powers investigated the impact of heel height on knee stress during walking.
[31] The study consisted of eleven participants wearing tracking and reflective markers as they walked across a 10-meter force-plated walkway in low, medium, and high heels.
In a 2012 study, researchers examined the risk long-time high heel wearers would have in regards to calf Muscle fascicle length and strain.
The data showed that wearing heels shortened the size of the medial gastrocnemius (MG) muscle bundles in the calf significantly as well as increasing stiffness in the Achilles tendon.
The experimental group also demonstrated a more significant strain on the muscle fascicles while walking in heels because of the flexed position the foot is forced into.
Additionally, they concluded that the long-term usage of high heels could increase the risk of injuries such as strain, discomfort, and muscle fatigue.
[6][7] In 2016, scientists from the Department of Physical Therapy at Sahmyook University in Korea conducted a study to examine increased heel height and gait velocity on balance control.
In a 2016 study from Sahmyook University in Korea, researchers investigated the effects of high heels on the activation of muscles in the cervical and lumbar portions of the spine.
[8] Other research supports the claim that wearing high heels can lead to numerous long-term effects, including accidental trauma to multiple areas of the body.
[37] In the UK in 2016 temporary receptionist Nicola Thorp was sent home without pay after she refused to follow the dress code of the firm Portico.
Thorp launched an online petition calling for the UK government to "make it illegal for a company to require women to wear high heels at work".
[42] In April 2017 the Canadian province of British Columbia amended workplace legislation to prevent employers from requiring women to wear high heels at work.
[10] Thus, since some women report that high heels are often painful to walk in,[1] and commonly result in negative side effects to joints and veins after prolonged use,[8] many have argued that it is unreasonable of men to support such a cultural norm.
These included high heels,[51] which were among items the protestors called "instruments of female torture"[52] and accouterments of what they perceived to be enforced femininity.
[citation needed] The heels can have a significant impact on the posture of a dancer by tilting the pelvis and making the buttocks more prominent, forcing the abdomen in and pushing the breasts out.
