High Heels Required For Female Soldiers? Here’s Why Women Still Wear Uncomfortable Shoes

The Ukraine Ministry of Defense faced sharp criticism this week for its requirement that female soldiers march in high heels in an August parade. The dress code was deemed sexist and harmful to the health of the soldiers. The ministry now says it will still require heels, but will give female soldiers “more comfortable” and safer heels that will have lacing to hold the shoes in place.  The controversy surrounding these Ukranian soldiers and their footwear raises questions about why so many women still choose to wear uncomfortable and potentially dangerous heels.

History Of High Heels

The first high-heeled shoes were worn in the 15^th century in Venice. Some say they were worn by aristocratic women as a status symbol, while others say they kept feet dry in flooded areas. In the 16^th century, heels caught on in France after Caterina de’ Medici sported a pair for her wedding to Henry II in 1533.  And it wasn’t just women wearing them; Louis XIV wore them to make up for his modest height. Early on, only the upper classes donned high-heeled shoes, but by the Victorian era, women of all classes wore high heels to keep their dresses from dragging on the ground.

In 2021, most women who don high heels aren’t wearing long dresses. In addition, the medical community now has a greater understanding of the health risks including often irreversible biomechanical effects of high-heeled shoewear. So what’s the draw of these uncomfortable and potentially dangerous shoes?  Studies have repeatedly shown that women in high heels are perceived as more attractive than women in flat shoes by both men and women. Several theories suggest why this is true.

Why Women In High Heels Are Perceived As Attractive

Researchers completed biomechanical analyses and found that high heels give women a more feminine gait. The raised heel makes the women’s stride shorter and increases the rotation and tilt of the women’s hips. It is this exaggeration of femininity that may make high-heeled women more desirable to men, the researchers suggest.

Another study suggests that male humans have an evolved preference for women with a particular lumbar curvature, and wearing high heels mimics this optimal lumbar curvature.  Apparently, our newly biped female ancestors had issues with pregnancy if their center of mass was not moved back over their hips. The muscular fatigue and pain that these women likely experienced during pregnancy would have impacted the nutrition of both their unborn fetus and their other offspring. According to the theory, this made women without a certain lumbar curvature evolutionarily less attractive as potential mates. As a result, a preference has evolved for women with a particular lumbar curvature.

Researchers claim that this evolved lumbar curvature preference is why we think high heels are attractive in women today. Indeed, their study found that high-heels increased women’s attractiveness only when wearing heels altered the women’s lumbar curvature to be closer to an evolutionarily optimal angle. 

Still another set of researchers suggest that “high heels seem to be a form of sexual signaling by females.” These researchers showed a photo of either an attractive or unattractive man to study participants. They then asked the participants if they were to go on a date with the man in the photo, which shoes they would prefer.  Preferences for high heels were much greater when the women were imagining a date with the attractive man. These researchers also suggest that shorter women use high heels to visually elongate their leg length in order to increase their physical attractiveness.

Regardless of which of these theories as to why women wear high heels is most accurate, they all suggest women are wearing high heels to be perceived as more sexually appealing.  Returning to the issue of the Ukrainian female soldiers, forcing them to wear heels is akin to demanding these women make themselves more sexually attractive for the male spectators at the parade.  At least they will be offered “more comfortable” high heels.