80 Meter Race in Stiletto Heels
Sep 3rd, 2008 by admin
Would you run 80 meters wearing the shoes pictured here?
265 women did, or tried to, in the “inaugural” Stiletto Sprint in Australia, and Brittney Glone, 18, above, a 400 meter professional hurdler, won. At first I was happy to hear this was the “inaugural” race and there wasn’t a lengthy history of women running races in these heels. Afterwards I got to thinking how unbelievably discouraging it is that in 2008, 265 women show up to participate, although the prize of $5,000 and yet another pair of stilettos had to have factored in, and each participant got a “goodie bag.” Later I learned that actually, this race was only “inaugural” in Australia and that these races are held in other countries as well. In fact, this event broke all records for the number of participants! Participants were required to wear 3-inch heels, at least. According to one report:
The 18-year-old left the other competitors in her wake as many fell, suffering scratches and scrapes to knees and hands. Other sprinters had to be treated for bruises, it was reported.
There were a few messy stacks, bumps and bruises as the contestants attempted to claw their way past the competition. But blonde track athlete Brittney McGlone, 18, blitzed the field to emerge as the clear winner.
Former Australian sprinter Melinda Gainsford-Taylor inspected the athletes and ensured they were wearing the mandatory three-inch heels. “All the girls were pumped and I don’t think I’ve experienced such energy since my racing days” she told Australian media.
The stiletto sprint also raised money for charity, with Venus Embrace donating $2 for every participant — or $530 — towards breast cancer research.
What the photos and video don’t show is the pile-up that happened when a woman fell, more women fell, heels meet flesh, ow.
At least one man participated, too.
Well, it kind of puts the lie to the theory that high heels immobilize women and prevent them from fleeing when attacked! And I sure am not speaking out of any moral high ground, to be very clear. I have heels like the above in my closet right now. I haven’t worn them in a while, but I still have them and I wore them for decades off and on. In my 20s I wore them to work as a cocktail server, and I don’t recall ever even falling once while running around with heavy trays of drinks. The only time i recall falling was when I wore them in the ice and snow, which I often did when I was young. I’ve run in them a time or two, chasing a bus or a ferry. The way you do it is, the heels never touch the ground, it’s all in the toes and the balls of the feet.
More seriously, it’s gut-wrenching to me the way we, as women, happily adapt and accommodate ourselves to clothes and shoes and beauty rituals and routines that are dangerous and disfiguring to us. We comply, we go along, we make the best of things, we laugh about it, we laugh at one another, we laugh at ourselves, we go home and tend our bruises, sprains, injuries, and ultimately our arthritis, damaged knees, damaged ankles.
And what’s with the portion of profits donated to cancer research, as though the sponsors of this race care about women’s health!
Heart
I wonder if female athletes will now be expected to run in at least 3 inch high heels. After it has now been proved that women can run in high heel stilettoes. Even better, why not have women running totally naked apart from the obligatory 3 inch high heel stilleto shoes. No need to concern ourselves about the physical harm and damage running in such preposterous footwear because it was all in aid of women’s health. No need to concern ourselves how increasingly it is not what women do but what they wear which is more important.
I wonder how many women suffered sprains and other physical damage to their feet. All because increasingly women’s bodies are being commodified and exploited by corporations intent on (and they have done excellent work) turning women into commodities.
When will it ever end, going back into my grandmothers day it was said ‘every girl loved a bonnet’. What the two have in common is they are both idiotic and weakening, in some bonnets you could be raped from behind and never even see your assailant and of course you could not run far due to your long skirts.
I note the ad is for men’s razors, they can all bud while laughing at what fools we are making of ourselves. I was once told by some men that they found leg hair humanising and enjoyed seeing shaved women in stilettos because they reminded them of pigs trotters. God knows what goes on behind men’s eyes but they are not the same as our eyes.
Hope the women’s bruises clear soon and that they don’t do it again.
I’m (sadly) not surprised to read about the increasing number of women participating in these events. We really are living in a porn culture.
I have not had the experience of being able to run–or actually, even walk (!)–in heels, though, Heart. Granted I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve worn heels in my life, but I always would end up tripping, even slipping and falling, just while walking, never mind trying to go up stairs! I am *so* glad I learned how bad for the body heels are and don’t even desire to wear them anymore!
Thank you, Heart and the other commenters, for bringing this to our attention.
For me, it is these seemingly harmless or humorous events that remind me how profound are our ties to sexism and inequality. Sure, everybody publically condemns violence against women. But it is the insideous, daily ways we accomodate women’s disempowerment that slay me. Women participate in this all the time. And we teach our daughters to do so by bending to these inanities and not calling them out. My horror: when my high school female students willingly participate in mud wrestling in bikinis so as to show school spirit and raise money for charity. Yeah, right.
We must keep talking, speaking up, pointing out the need to redefine everything as we see it — from love and sex to advertising and aesthetics. In doing so, we will be told in response that we are humorless, anti-sex, strident kill-joys, and really bad for the economy! Sometimes we will be threatened or hurt, because a feminist critique threatens the whole edifice that keeps women in their place. I don’t know what else we can do but continue to speak out. But acquiescence is not an option.
Well some women may have no problem walking in heels but I can’t do it. Even sitting down while wearing them hurts my knees, I”m not sure why. I guess because of how I sit in them?
So anyway I find even low platform heels on boots crippling.
I often see women on the street in heels that are poorly constructed, their feet tipping this way and that, and the actual heel of the shoe bent and threatening to splay out on them at any moment. It’s so obvious that they’re detrimental to our health and safety that I find it almost bizarre that we don’t hear more about it. I mean, you’re almost guaranteed to require foot surgery to retain your ability to walk after a lifetime of wearing heels. My mom’s had her feet operated on twice because she wore heels her whole life. And not only that, she once broke her heel wearing the things. It’s pretty sad that they’re being celebrated and that the people behind this thing are pretending to care about women in any sense at all.
There is a high-heels race every year here in my home town, Calgary, but it’s the men that race. It’s called “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” and it is done to raise money for breast cancer. Men show up wearing all different kinds of women’s shoes - it’s actually quite amusing and all for a good cause. That kind of thing I can handle. But for women to really race in heels? I’m sorry, I think I must have missed something here…..um….WHY????