The women kicking off their high heels at work
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For years women working in certain jobs, such as banking or retail, have had to wear high heels as part of the company’s dress code. But now women around the world are fighting for the right to choose their own shoes at work.
Elizabeth Semmelhack, the director and senior curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in the Canadian city of Toronto tells us the history of the high heel and its journey from the battlefield to the boardroom.
Ally Murphy, a former flight attendant, describes the pain caused to cabin crew who are made to wear high heels at work.
Nicola Thorp, who led a campaign in the UK to make it illegal for companies to force workers to wear high heels, says many companies are now changing their shoe policies because they don’t want the bad publicity.
Change is slower in Japan, however, where supporters of the #KuToo movement continue to campaign against mandatory high heels at work. The BBC’s Singapore correspondent, Mariko Oi, who is from Japan, tells us how corporate dress and expectations are still firmly embedded into Japanese culture.
Then we travel to the Indian capital, Delhi, to find out if the pandemic has changed companies’ attitudes to workwear there.
Presenter/producer: Jo Critcher
Music courtesy of Dorian Electra: "The Dark History of High Heels"
(Image: woman suffering from foot pain; Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi heels, oh high, you're self a profession, but why? |
| 0:06.4 | Hi, I'm Joe Critcher. |
| 0:08.0 | Welcome to Business Daily on the BBC. |
| 0:11.5 | I'm on my way to work and I'm wearing high heels. |
| 0:15.0 | I don't have to wear them, but I sometimes choose to wear them. |
| 0:18.9 | I'm lucky because the BBC doesn't have a dress code for most of its |
| 0:22.6 | employees. But many other women around the world don't have that choice at work. |
| 0:28.2 | She said, I'm sorry, all women who work here on reception have to wear heels. They said, |
| 0:34.5 | you have to go home if you're not going to wear the heels. Today, we're going to be looking at how the high heel became part of women's corporate dress |
| 0:42.0 | and the ongoing fight by women to choose what shoes they wear at work. |
| 0:47.3 | This is Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:49.4 | For years, women working in certain sectors such as |
| 0:59.2 | banking or retail have had to wear high heels as part of the company's dress code. |
| 1:05.0 | I wanted to find out, though, exactly how high heels became such an integral part of |
| 1:10.6 | women's workwear. |
| 1:12.2 | So I tracked down Elizabeth Semmelhack, the director and senior curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto in Canada. |
| 1:20.0 | I've been able to trace them back as far as 10th century Persia. |
| 1:24.0 | I think they were definitely invented someplace in Central Asia in relationship to the |
| 1:30.2 | invention of the stirrup. So what they did was they allowed the rider to really secure their |
| 1:36.6 | foot into the stirrup, handle heavier weaponry, and it did seem to transform warfare throughout this area. |
| 1:46.1 | And so it seems to be men that were at first, although eventually women in Western Asia did as well. |
| 1:53.0 | And then it eventually becomes of interest to Europeans around the turn of the 17th century, |
... |
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