Jewish World Review March 28, 2005 / 17 Adar II, 5765

Lori Borgman

Lori Borgman
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Consumer Reports


Shoes miss the point

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | I have only one small problem with the fashionable pointed-toe shoes I don't have pointed feet to go in them.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but my big toe comes first in the toe line-up, not in the middle. Now, if I could rearrange things so the big toe was in the middle and the smaller toes fell in line on either side, I would be in toe heaven. Or shoe heaven. Or both. In any case, I would be a regular fashionista wearing shoes with toes so long they look like crocodile snouts.

Apparently, there has been some confusion at the designer's studio as to toe anatomy. As a result, a painful fashion trend has returned and women are once again wedging square feet into shoes the shape of a cardinal's beak. We women will all but lash ourselves for the sake of fashion. When was the last time you overheard men complaining about the fit of their shoes?

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: "My feet are killing me. Another five minutes and I'm going to blast these dogs off with an RPG".

Vice President Dick Cheney: "I know what you mean, Don. Yesterday, I wore Prada wing tips that actually gave me corns."

Can you imagine Michael Jackson complaining that oh, wait, never mind.

You should probably know that the first person to popularize pointed-toe shoes was not a woman, but a man — King Henry II of England. Legend says he wore them to hide his deformed toes. Which naturally makes one ask, which came first, the chicken or the egg, the toe deformity or the shoe?

Pointy-toe shoes routinely remind me of two women: Marilyn Monroe, who usually kicked them off by the middle of the movie, and the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. Her pointy-toe shoes didn't come off. Once a house lands on your legs, your shoes are pretty well there to stay.

As a child, when I first saw the witch's long, pointed-toe shoes sticking out from the corner of the house, I determined then and there to wear saddle oxfords as long as I could. In my young mind, had the witch worn basic flat-soled shoes, she might have had a shot at escape.

Even as an adult, I've always thought that there should be an element of function before form. A woman ought to be able to expect something from pair of shoes other than an exorbitant price tag and gnarled feet. Say, something basic like the ability to stand, walk and keep a pair on for four hours at a time without grimacing in pain.

Turns out the pointed-toe shoes do have a function. In Australia, a 21-year-old woman used her pointy-toed shoes to fend off a man who attempted to assault her in a public restroom. The police inspector said, "Luckily, she had pointed-toe shoes on and she got stuck into him with the shoes."

Something is a wee bit obscured in the translation, but I think we (and her assailant) got the point.

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JWR contributor Lori Borgman is the author of , most recently, "Pass the Faith, Please" (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) and I Was a Better Mother Before I Had Kids To comment, please click here. To visit her website click here.

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© 2005, Lori Borgman