What's it with all those shoes?

How come everyone, including the people that make ads and commercials, thinks women are completely, absolutely addicted to shoes? Why not clothes (eh, okay)? Why not books?

I’ve often wondered about that. It seems a given that a woman might own a few more pairs of shoes than a man, simply because her clothes may be more varied (not me, I have some sneakers for good weather, some ankle-high leather sneakers for bad weather, and some boots for winter/snow). A woman with a more varied wardrobe than mine might need some different pairs of shoes. To go with dresses and skirts, to go with pants, for winter and summer use. Even so, in most cases that would be what? Ten pairs? Twelve? Fifteen? Even if she has some shoes that only go with one outfit (because they’re colour matched), she would also have pairs that go with a variety of outfits (black pumps, for example, go with nearly every dress - and pants as well). Even if she also has shoes with various heel heights, she could hardly fill a whole wardrobe with them, could she?

Yet marketing people and screen writers (both for the big and the small screen) seem to think that every woman is at every time hunting down new shoes. Why? What would be the use of having two hundred pairs of shoes? You’d never wear them all. There would be at least one hundred pairs that you never wear or so rarely you could just as well not have them. (The same, in my opinion, goes for clothes, but they’re not the main topic.)

The woman who will do everything for shoes has become a trope by now. I, personally, think that “Sex and the City” is to blame, since at least one of the main characters had a serious shoe addiction. It might also be to blame for the many women who think that you should always wear high heels, despite the terrible things they do to your feet and body. Not to mention how often I have seen women hobble along in those shoes and thought ‘what made you think wearing those heels was a good idea?’

Heels on women’s shoes have been a little raised for a long time (since it became a fashion item for women to wear heels, the first heeled shoes were actually worn by men). But a little raised means an inch or two, not eight, ten, or twelve inches. Personally, I don’t wear heels at all, I usually wear flat shoes, but I don’t think wearing slight heels is that bad for a person’s health.

Women’s shoes come in a lot more variety than men’s shoes and that is not a surprise. But that doesn’t mean every woman wants or ‘needs’ to own a pair each of all the shoes out there. Yet you will find a lot of commercials which only seem to rotate around the fact that women always want shoes and can never get enough of them. And that’s outright stupid and might only make young women think they have to be like that to be ‘real’ women.

Bye-bye Eva

After ages of trying to get through Eva Herman’s “Das Eva-Prinzip”, I’ve decided just cut my losses and let it be. I wanted to read the book and write some scathing posts about it in this blog and “Feminism Wow!”, but I simply can’t bend my mind enough to read it without becoming terribly aggressive. So I put the book online at amazon for whomever to grab.

It’s been about four years now since the book was first published and Ms. Herman has by now mostly disappeared from the public. Maybe she has heeded her own advice, baked a few apple pies and just keeps her mouth closed (although I pretty much doubt it will last).

So I say farewell to Ms. Herman and her book (well, I will, the moment someone buys it from me and I can send it off) and move on to better topics.

Edit: After I’d written this, but before I could post, the book actually got bought, so I can really say bye-bye now. Bye-bye Eva!

What I don't really get

Okay, it might really be ‘because I’m a woman’ this time. But what I really don’t get is splatter movies (like “Saw” 1 to 5). What is the point of them?

I was reminded of this question again a few days ago when my colleague at work (21, male) started telling us about the “Saw” movies he’s seen so far. You really should have heard him talk! The only times he’s spoken with more happiness in his voice lately have been when he’s been talking about his girlfriend or his car. He was going into detail, basically, about all the ‘great’ devices Jigsaw uses for his ‘games’. Still, I don’t get it.

I won’t deny I’ve seen some splatter movies when I was a teen (I guess everyone from my generation has). But I didn’t get the real point then, I don’t do so now. I don’t see them as ‘real’ horror movies either.

Horror movies are supposed to scare me, right? While the splattering of guts and blood and grey matter might make me puke, though, it doesn’t really scare me - especially as it always pulls me out of the story. It’s too obvious that’s a movie, after all. Psychological horror might get to me (though not very often, I’ve probably seen too many movie by now), but mere gross out with blood and intestines will not.

I’ve found in the past that most guys (especially between 15 and 25 or so) seem to see those movies as a proof of their fearlessness. Well, it might proof their strong stomach, but fearlessness? They are sitting at home (or in a movie theatre) and watching bad thing happening to other people. And they think it’s great to play such ‘games’ with those who ‘deserve’ it (but don’t we all have our dark secrets?).

But what do Jigsaw’s ‘games’ really prove? That people are able to kill others in order to survive? That some are able to overcome their moral or physical limits? That’s not new, neither of it. In extreme situations people are able to do extreme things. Some fail, others succeed and thus survive.

What is so thrilling about watching those movies? Is it the ‘how much am I able to take before I throw up’ factor? Is it really the blood and guts? (In this case, how about a trip to the closest slaughter house?) Are they as dangerous as all those who play ‘Killerspiele’? After all, they’re also getting a ‘how to do it right’ information from their movies.

I could make it easy for me and just say ‘boys’ (or maybe ‘guys’). But is it that easy? Is it just one of those ‘growing up’ rituals which men have to go through? I really don’t get it...

... and a mother, too

There’s something in German television - especially in talk shows or other discussions on screen - that is constantly grating on my nerves. The way women are presented as being, for instance, “an actress and a doctor and a mother, too”.

It’s a great achievement if a woman - or a man - manages to finish his medicine study and, in addition, the training for an actor. But you’d never hear a man being presented as “an actor and a doctor and a father, too”, even if he has children. Men might or might have not children, but usually (unless the whole talk show is about parenthood) it’s not advertised during their presentation. Women on the other hand seem to be judged this way. Okay, so she’s got a career, but she’s also got children. Depending on the tone of the show, being a mother on top of the actress and the doctor is either something good or something bad. It’s always something important.

I don’t know if it’s only Germany where this always seems to happen. It might be a problem everywhere in the world, for all I know. But it still gets on my nerves, a lot, because it’s part of a bigger problem.

In our society, men are defined through their job. That’s not exactly great, either, because even low-paid or bad-reputed jobs have to be done by someone and the job doesn’t really define the person doing it. Nevertheless, a man can simply change his job (okay, it’s not that simple, either, but if he really wants to, he can do it) and thus change his reputation. Women, on the other hand, are still mainly judged through their personal life. Does she have a relationship? Is she married? Does she have children - or is she at least planning to have some?

A career makes a man’s reputation go up and a woman’s go down. Somewhere in the back of people’s brains here in Germany a woman is still supposed to get married, have a bunch of children (but not more than three, that would not be appropriate today) and stay at home. That’s miles from reality, but prejudices often are.

Men are defined through something that can be steered a lot, although not completely. They are defined through their ability to hold on to a ‘good’ job. While it might take some luck to actually get it, it can be achieved by everyone really going for it and preparing well.

Women are defined through something that consists of a lot of luck. A woman might want to marry, but can’t find the right guy (the one she can really spent a life with, the one who’s reliable and the one who won’t leave after a one-night stand). A woman might want children, but be unable to get pregnant. And a woman might have a husband and children and still have to work, so the family can make ends meet. Nobody asks that much about the ‘why’ when a woman’s life does not follow those invisible rules. She’s not in a relationship, she’s not married, she hasn’t got children (or got some and still works), so she’s not a ‘good’ woman.

I’m not a ‘good’ woman because of all those points. I’m not in a relationship (currently), I’m not married (and never have been) and I don’t have children (and don’t plan on having any). At the same time I wonder whether modern society would survive if all women returned to that old-fashioned role. Germany currently has a female chancellor, just as a reminder.

And, just to make a last point, there’s never been a time since the days of the caveman when all women really lived such a life. There have always been woman who were working, who were not married and/or without children. Nuns, for instance.

Should I ever be invited into a talk show (maybe after my first bestseller) and someone (certainly not me) should be presented as “... and a mother, too”, I’ll immediately get up and leave the studio.

What's worse than a conservative?

A female conservative, at least if the conservative in question is Sarah Palin.

Teacher Lady put it quite well here: “She’s basically a conservative white dude with an NRA membership card who happens to have a pesky little thing called a uterus.”

I don’t think very highly of conservatives (no matter from which country) as a rule, because, in my experience, the last thing they really do is conserve something important (like environment or the few things that might stop turbo-capitalism from turning the world into a [worse than now] dystopia). In fact, the conservatives are only conserving old-fashioned “family values” that lead to trouble for everyone who’s not white, Christian, heterosexual and a pit-bull with lipstick (um, I meant the male or female version of a hockey mom, of course).

Then there’s the whole discussion about abortion. Even if, for a moment, we should agree that a fetus is a human being (and it’s not, it can’t survive outside the mother’s body, so it’s not a living entity of its own right), the question still remains whether something still unborn has more rights than someone who’s been born already. Abortion just because you don’t take (or forgot) the pill is one thing, but there’s also a lot of cases of abortion after rape or after incest. Should a woman be forced to carry out (and maybe even care for) a child that has come from such a traumatic situation?

My favourite candidate was Hillary Clinton, anyway, but if I had to chose between the candidates that will actually appear on the polls (and, being German, I don’t have to), I’d vote for Obama. He’s younger (and the older the president, the less chance there is of any innovation - just take a look at history, will you?) and has the better ideas. And I think the United States really deserve a good shock for the ultra-conservative wing.

The first time I saw Sarah Palin (when she was named as the candidate for vice-presidency), I thought “Oh my God, that can’t be a serious idea”. A man who looks like he’s going to fall over dead any minute and a woman who claims the only difference between a hockey mom (like her) and a pit-bull is lipstick are supposed to rule one of the biggest, most influential and best-armed countries of the world? Does she, by the way, know she would have to wear a muzzle in Germany, being a pit-bull and thus a dangerous canine race?

Well, conserve something important is a good thing, but I’ve yet to meet the Conservative who actually does. If I do, I might even vote for him (or her). Until then, I’ll stay clean of everybody who claims to be conservative.