In the spirit
of full disclosure, I will state up front that I do not actually wear high
heels. Having said that, I do
understand, purely from an engineering point of view, that they present some
conveyance challenges. Setting aside the
fact that high heels are not the most comfortable shoes a woman can wear and
avoiding the misogynistic aspects of their sorted history, I do understand that
high heels and metal grates in the sidewalks are fundamentally
incompatible. It is for this reason I am
empathetic to a woman walking down the sidewalk in her "Blahniks" and
can anticipate a sudden, unannounced departure from her chosen course brought
on by the presence of such a grate.
The problem arises
when a woman donning heels approaches a metal plate or other similar, flat,
non-concrete solid surface, which appear regularly on city sidewalks. Under these circumstances there would be no
reason for a woman to avoid stepping on this surface with heels or any other
shoe because it is flat, solid and presents no unusual hazards. Yet, women wearing heels routinely avoid
walking on these surfaces by means of a sudden darting to one side or the
other, without warning and without regard to others in her immediate
vicinity. This maneuver results in
fellow sidewalk travelers having to stop or otherwise change their course to
avoid crashing into the spasmodic woman or the others who have had to now react
to her sudden change of direction, or tripping over her or others she has
displaced.
Having been
on the receiving end of the high heel scramble, I politely suggest to women who
insist on wearing high heels while walking on busy public sidewalks that they
either learn to walk in pumps correctly or wear sensible shoes.
