SALON

Wednesday, Jan 2, 2013 8:00 PM UTC

Can evolution explain high heels?

New research offers an unexpected explanation for their allure -- one that has nothing to do with increased height

By

Topics: Pacific Standard, High Heels, Femininity, Gender Roles, women, Sex,

Can evolution explain high heels?
This piece originally appeared on Pacific Standard.

Pacific Standard Fashions in dress come and go, but a peculiar one has stayed in style for many generations, and shows no sign of fading away. It’s the high-heeled shoe, which first became a fashion statement in 16th-century France, and has been a part of the modern woman’s wardrobe since the mid-19thcentury.

Ask a woman why she endures the awkwardness and discomfort, and she’ll probably respond, “They make me look, and feel, more attractive.” Newly published research suggests this perception is accurate, but perhaps not for the reason you’d expect.

It’s not the artificially increased height that turns heads. Rather, it’s how such footwear changes the mechanics of a woman’s gait.

“High heels may exaggerate the sex-specific aspects of the female walk,” a University of Portsmouth research team led by psychologist Paul Morris reports in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. While noting that preference in footwear is based in part on culture norms, they argue the enduring popularity of high-heeled shoes suggest their fundamental appeal stems from a deeper impulse.

To test whether walking in high heels increases one’s femininity and attractiveness, Morris and his colleagues conducted two experiments using a point-light display. Participants (15 men and 15 women) viewed dotted outlines of 12 women as they walked for a total of four minutes apiece—two minutes in high-heeled shoes, and two minutes wearing flats.

They were then asked to rate how attractive they found the figures.

“For all walkers, the attractiveness score was higher in the heels condition than in the flat condition,” the researchers report. Both males and females judged the women wearing high heels to be more attractive than those who wore flat shoes.

In the second experiment, 120 participants (82 women and 38 men) watched the same dotted-outline footage and were asked to judge whether each of the models was male or female. (As noted earlier, all were, in fact, women.) While wearing flats, 28 percent of the women were incorrectly classified as men; among those wearing heels, that number went down to 17 percent.

Why? The researchers report that, while wearing high-heeled shoes, the women “walked in a fashion more characteristic of female gait.” Specifically, “walkers in high heels took smaller, more frequent steps,” and this reduction in the length of their stride was accompanied by “increased rotation and tilt of the hips.”

In other words, they argue, high heels exaggerate the differences in the ways men and women walk, making the wearer appear more feminine. This stimulates “sexual arousal in males,” as well as increased attentiveness on the part of women who are scoping out potential competitors for male attention.

This can happen on either a conscious or an unconscious level, but this evidence suggests the dynamic is real, and transcends fashion fads.

Morris and his colleagues conclude that a woman walking in high heels is a “supernormal stimulus” — that is, an enhanced version of a stimulus found in nature. Previous research has suggested junk food can be seen the same way, in that it stimulates our natural craving for sugar, salt and fats by offering them in exaggerated concentrations.

So to sum up: High heels have a lot in common with Ho Hos. We may view them with ambivalence or concern, but in spite of ourselves, we feel the primal pull they exert. And we’re not likely to break our addiction any time soon.

More Tom Jacobs.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 86 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Pacific Standard is a bimonthly print and daily online magazine that highlights the best thinking in the social sciences, technology, health, and policy, and grounds those ideas in real stories—entertaining, accessible, urgent. We are of the West, but not strictly about the West.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Would we give up burgers to stop climate change? New study suggests if we reduce our intake of animal products by 25%, we can halt climate change
730 points731 points | 327 comments
vote
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away. He used it to find the guy who, without his consent, made him his drug mule.
251 points252 points | 23 comments
vote
“This could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann”
146 points147 points | 65 comments
vote
Poll: 3 in 10 voters say “armed revolution might be necessary” - 29% say they believe they'll have to act "in order to protect our liberties" in the next few years
47 points48 points | 16 comments
vote
"New evidence reveals big banks still illegally foreclosing on thousands of homes – and weak settlement allows it."
29 points30 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations