Recently I read an article in Time titled “‘Tis the Season of Six-Inch Stilettos” that goes in some depth as to why women wear those Stilettos.

As the article points out,  the reasons are many:

• Women want to project an image that is both powerful and feminine.
• To be fashionable, to overcome peer pressure or to satisfy their need for  vanity.
• Long legs communicate a healthy youth and good breeding potential.
• Women enjoy sex more, if they walk in high heeled shoes. Because according to an Italian study, it conditions the pelvic muscles.

Sometimes it comes in handy as a tool to protect oneself ( Stiletto in Italian means dagger ) from sexual predators. That’s my understanding from seeing movies.


However none of these come close to what I learnt from a TV commercial (Shopping Channel) or a TV Program ( one of those makeover programs for women). I don’t remember which one. But it gave a very scientific explanation of why women wear high-heeled shoes.

I am a student of science and I always appreciate a scientific explanation.

To share my knowledge with you using an illustration, I did an exhaustive research. I was looking for images of women in high heeled shoes that would prove the point as to why they need them.
It might surprise many of you, I could not find any illustration that would do justice.

• If the shoes are good, women are not so attractive.
• If the women are good looking, shoes are ugly.
• If they are both good, the photograph is too suggestive that they pander to carnal desires. You may want to look at them, but I have some editorial standards to maintain you know?
• or they don’t strike a pose that would explain the scientific theory behind wearing those shoes.

After much sifting, this image came close to what I had in mind.

You can see  the young woman in a cocktail dress walking gracefully in her stiletto. What actually happens is that the high heeled shoes lifts her body upward and tilts it forward (resulting in her bust thrusting forward). If she lets go without counteracting it, gravity will pull her forward and she will eventually fall on her face. So to nullify this forward pulling force, she jets out her posterior as a counterbalance. This she does naturally without conscious attempt, resulting in a grace that we all appreciate.

There is a happy coincidence in this delicate balancing act, that her breasts and butt project outward making  them even more attractive. Even those women who are not so physically endowed look attractive in them.

So there you have it.  The reason behind their inexplicable obsession with possessing many pairs of high heeled shoes.

If you ask them,”Honey are you comfortable in those shoes?”  they will more likely ignore that question and counter that with “How do I look?’