Lately, a day rarely goes by without another sexual harassment accusation against a public or media figure. There will be long-lasting ramifications for the movie and television industry, the media industry, and politics.
However, there may also be some negative unintended consequences. For example, it appears that women are ditching high-heeled shoes. Business Insider reports: “As powerful men in industries from the restaurant world to tech are hit with sexual assault and harassment allegations, women are ditching heels — both for safety and as a way to reclaim control.”
The article cites a New York Times article discussing the rejection of high heels in favor of Crocs and Allbirds sneakers.
“The Times discusses many factors behind the trend — but a through line seems to be how women are treated in 2017,” Business Insider posits. “First, there are questions of safety. High heels are often painful creations that are typically more difficult to walk in than the average flat, making it difficult to escape dangerous situations.”
Renee Engeln, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, agrees. “You only need to spend a few minutes on the internet these days to see that, yes, there are quite a lot of times when, unfortunately, it would help to be able to run,” she told the Times.
She’s not wrong, of course.
However, it’s also curious that women being proactive about their safety is now politically correct.
Once upon a time, women attending college were warned of the risks of walking across campus alone late at night. But then it became forbidden to say such things. We were told that teaching women to protect themselves was “victim blaming,” and that the only acceptable approach was to teach evil rapists not to be evil.
Yet evil men keep doing these things. Shocking, I know.
Now, women are eschewing impractical footwear in the name of safety. Even the feminists are coming to understand that relying on others to ensure your safety — particularly the others who are the actual problem — is dumb.
To be sure, there are plenty of other reasons to give up high-heeled shoes. They may make you look great, but that’s all they’re good for. They’re uncomfortable, difficult to walk in, and often cause physiological problems.
Which makes the idea of giving them up for safety stand out even more. After all, they have always been uncomfortable.
Maybe the next thing that will become politically correct will be encouraging all women to get concealed carry permits and start carrying a firearm for their protection. Maybe all those supposedly misogynist ideas spewed by those supposedly misogynist conservatives were actually pro-woman after all.
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