A few weeks ago, a picture of bloody feet next to a pair of high heels shoes spread rapidly on social media. A waitress in Canada had been forced to work an entire week shift in high-heeled shoes. The following week, during the Cannes film Festival in France, actress Julia Roberts made a strong statement by walking barefoot on the red carpet – all to draw attention to society’s distorted concept of the “ideal woman”. As a sign of support and as part of the #highheelsatwork challenge, Emil Andersson a Swedish craftsman and comedian decided to go to work for a whole day in women’s shoes. Literally. He strapped on a pair of ‘sexy’ pink high heels and was on his way. “It was downright horrible,” he later told local media.
Emil had the audacity to make a clear point on the debate over women and men inequality when it comes to the way they dress.
“I saw the pictures of Julia Roberts and the bloody feet and it just felt very wrong. Imagine if you had to walk in heels every day at work?” he told local media.
And Emil certainly put his money where his mouth is. He found a size 43 pair of pink pumps with ten centimeter heels, and went to work. On that day, he was scheduled to install the floor in a 4th floor apartment. To emphasize his point and mimic a woman’s potential day of work, he even took the stairs to and from the apartment!
“It was really awful. Downright horrible. I almost hoped that my feet would bleed so that it would look as bad as it felt. My feet were completely bruised, red and I got ingrown toenails,” he said.
Emil decided to launch the challenge on social media: “Challenge: high heels at work”. He also posted this video (in Swedish) on his YouTube channel.
Please share if you also want to counter the skewed female ideals and preconceived notion of how men and women “should” look!
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