Are High Heels Feminist? with Summer Brennan
Are high heels oppressive or powerful? Good or bad? Beauty or pain? What if the answer to all of those questions is…yes?
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We talk with Summer Brennan about her new book, High Heel, which explores how heels aren’t just about fashion or culture, but are really about women’s place in public life.
Summer is a journalist who writes about gender, art, and the political history of fashion. Her new book, High Heel, is part of a Bloomsbury series called “Object Lessons: Exploring the Hidden Lives of Ordinary Things.”
What does it mean if the most feminine shoe is the shoe that makes it difficult to get from one place to another? In the literal sense, does that say something about our metaphorical ability to get from one position to another position?
We chat about:
- Summer’s new book. High Heel is out now!
- Why high heels are such a divisive topic, and how Summer deals with negative feedback
- High heels and class: how what women are expected to wear ties directly to perceptions about where they stand economically
- Her own relationship with high heels — and ours (it’s complicated)
- Writing about oyster farms and environmental policy, high heels and feminism, and a thousand things in between — all at the same time
Links
- Summer’s website
- Information on all of Summer’s books
- “Sex, power, oppression: why women wear high heels” in The Guardian
- Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series
Plus
- Sara shares why liking things thought of as girly ended up feeling like a rebellion to her — and how that resulted in sneaking clear mascara as a kid.
- Katel reveals that a love of clogs runs in her family, and why she blames high heels for once fainting on the NYC subway.
- We recommend Bossed Up, a podcast that keeps it real about the challenges women face at work.
- And a big fuck yeah to…Cantrip Coffee, a new roaster in Philly whose co-owner is Robyn from Blowdryer — the band behind our theme song!
☞ And there’s always a full transcript.
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