Pretty Lady's Position on High Heels

Teetering and unstable, darlings, is always counterproductive. Even if it were not for an ancient injury, which makes high heels an exceedingly unwise option for Pretty Lady, she would largely eschew them by virtue of the fact that she lives in New York. If one lives in New York and has not the resources to take cabs everywhere one goes, even one block, the wearing of high heels is an indicator of either madness or masochism. Pretty Lady wears Furry Boots in winter, and Fetching Sandals or Funky Walkers in summer.

This does not mean that she does not enjoy the wondrously Dominant feeling of towering over the masses, on the rare occasions when she finds and dons a pair of heels which are both comfortable and appropriate to the occasion. Indeed, during one distressing bout with plantar fasciitis, a certain pair of high-heeled boots was instrumental to both her physical and emotional recovery from her hobbled state.

Thus, Pretty Lady is sorry to say that she must take her Nemesis to task once again, upon issues both trivial and grand, incisively as these issues are couched.

Look, claiming to love your high heels because they appeal to you in some comprehensively objective, lofty aesthetic sense, separated by a million brilliant intellectual miles from the culture of femininity that spawned’em, is a cop out....Women whose continued existence depends on capitulation to the feminine directive will get no argument from me. I often use “survival skill” as a synonym for femininity. The structure of patriarchy, which places anyone with a vagina in a continuum of femininity whether they like it or not, is such that the daily opportunities for self-deception and self-betrayal are mucho, relentless, and — with a frequency that depends on class, skin color, and proximity to domineering male godbags, drunks, and pervs — often unavoidable.

Pretty Lady says, hmph.

Once upon a time, when she was young and foolish, Pretty Lady met the Frenchman, in a café, for a trial coffee (as per the Rules.) Her initial impression of him was that he would do. (Lest this sound like an underwhelming recommendation, let it be known that Pretty Lady's impression of 99.8% of males she has encountered in this lifetime is that they Won't Do, for her at any rate. She is not judging these gentlemen in any way; she is simply persnickety.)

She almost fled, however, when he näively announced that he was looking for a 'feminine' woman.

If Pretty Lady had been just a wee bit younger, she would have leapt down his throat. "What do you mean by that?" she would have declared, aggressively. "Do you mean that you want a woman who is passive, agreeable, namby-pamby, and helpless? You think you're such hot shit? You want someone with no brain and no opinions, who will defer to your dominant masculinity in everything? Up yours, asshole!"

Thus might have spoken the Young Pretty Lady. And she would have missed out on a quite staggeringly enormous amount of fun.

Thankfully, the slightly older Pretty Lady decided to chalk his conversational faux pas up to cultural differences, and suspend judgment until she got to know him better. Also, he called later that week and invited her skiing, all expenses paid.

Gradually, as she chatted with the Frenchman on ski lifts, and in top-flight restaurants, and over bottles of exquisite claret in the penthouse overlooking downtown San Francisco, she came to understand what he meant by 'feminine.' He meant 'feminine.' Graceful, courteous, kind, nurturing, unflappable, engaging, adventurous, versatile, easygoing, expressive, charming, and lovely, in other words. The notion of passivity, stupidity or helpless dependency as attached to these characteristics had never even occurred to him.

In fact, as time went by, it became clear that although the Frenchman may have initially been attracted by Pretty Lady's prettiness (though even this is in doubt. He confessed, years later, that he couldn't make out the photograph terribly well on his monitor), what kept him around, and what nearly drove him to distraction when Pretty Lady decided, regretfully, that he wouldn't quite do after all, were her characteristics of (she blushes to admit) brilliance, creativity, initiative, confidence, independence, and leadership.

For example, when she performed a spontaneous solo thrash-belly-breakdance at a club in San Francisco, he chortlingly embraced her in a state of high excitement, declaring, "I was very proud to be your man this evening." When she cheerfully discussed art, politics, economics and religion at his friend's bungalow in Nice, he stated, "You outshone those other pathetic little women by an order of magnitude." When she picked up and moved to another country, in order to think things through, he threw a few tantrums, then decided that this was a splendid idea, and invited her motorcycling around the world.

It is most important to understand that if Pretty Lady had succumbed to psychological passivity, helplessness, or dependency at any point, this relationship would have been toast much sooner, and not in a good way. Pretty Lady's rock-solid internal confidence and self-esteem were what carried the day. Her proof of this was when the Frenchman came to her, hat in hand, bearing the physiological signs of extreme distress, and declared, "You know when you said that you are an extraordinary person, completely unique, and that if I don't love you exactly the way you are, then somebody else will? WELL, IT'S TRUE."

So there.

You see, my dearest most misguided Twisty, 'femininity' is neither a negative, nor a characteristic defined solely by its opposite. It is also only incidentally and superficially associated with aesthetics. True femininity is a positive force of grace and power which may well be inborn, but which must also be nurtured with all the powers of discipline and intellect at one's disposal, in order to make us capable of moving mountains and healing the world. Mere brute aggression quails and capitulates at the slightest whisper of mature feminine nature.

Also, indulging one's genuine aesthetic attractions for the shiny, the lacy and the hyperbolically flowery can be an almost indecent amount of fun. ;-)