talking about high heels as a symbol of women
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01. High heels: a symbol of the female body
Whether an individual's body belongs to the individual or to society has always been a topic of discussion.
02. Separation: How high heels construct and discipline the female body
Today's high heels are unique to women. Women bloom and show their beauty in high heels.
03. The liberation of the female body contained in high heels
Although the history of high heels is a history of gender differentiation, this does not mean that the female body is only and always in a disciplinary position.
The body is technology, and the body is also a weapon.
Body research is an emerging research direction in sociology in recent years. Women's bodies are an important component of women's lives, which contain profound social implications. High heels, a symbol of the female body, symbolize and construct the female body, both in terms of the physical body and the communicative body. According to the development history of high-heeled shoes, they were generally popular among men and women in the early days, and later became exclusive items for women. High-heeled shoes fully reflect the gender distinction between men and women, as well as the discipline of women's bodies in a patriarchal society. However, women are not willing to remain in a subordinate position. Women attach high heels to their bodies. Through the expression of body technology, they run counter to the rules of patriarchal society and show a strong sense of subjectivity. Therefore, they also achieve their own physical liberation in wearing high heels.
Liberating the body is the material carrier that people rely on to survive and live. As the material basis owned by human beings, it brings all possibilities for people to act. However, in previous sociology and even the entire social science research, the "absence" of body research shows that people once focused on the exploration of the soul and ignored the existence of the body. In the field of gender, the issue of women's rights has long been an important topic of concern in academia and society, but the female body is rarely considered the focus of discussion.
Nowadays, paying attention to the body has gradually become a research trend in many fields. Paying attention to the female body is one of the orientations of sociology and feminism in the new era. High heels are one of the special cultural symbols closely related to women. The relationship between high heels and women is obvious and inseparable. Since the birth of high heels, beauty-loving aristocratic women have never stopped pursuing high heels.
The abandonment of men in the 18th century made high heels exclusive to women. With the industrialization of fashion, over the next hundreds of years, a dazzling array of high heels were placed on women's shoe cabinets in stores, accounting for almost all women's shoes. Images of women wearing high heels can also be seen everywhere in daily life. High heels are increasingly becoming an important necessity for women. Today in the 21st century, high heels have become popular all over the world. As a symbol of the female body, they have even become a part of the female body.
It can be said that the popularity of high heels is due to the praise of women, who become "more beautiful" because of high heels. However, just such a common phenomenon contains profound problems that are not easy for people to detect. High heels not only highlight the charm of women, but also quietly discipline the female body. From the perspective of body sociology, this article reviews the development history of high heels to explore the construction and discipline of high heels on women's bodies, and further explores the issue of women's body liberation.
01. High heels: a symbol of the female body
Whether an individual's body belongs to the individual or to society has always been a topic of discussion. In a patriarchal society, whether a woman's body belongs to herself or to society is an area worth thinking about. It is generally believed that women's biological attributes are more closely related to their bodies, because this is the fundamental sign that distinguishes women from men. However, the birth of social gender reveals the social construction of male and female gender by human culture. The existence of high heels is the fusion of biological and social attributes of the female body. It constructs the female body and becomes a symbol of women.
(1) The composition of the female body: physiological body and communication body
From a sociological perspective, the human body can be divided into the "biological body and the communicative body" in the most basic dimension. Among them, the physiological body is represented by the flesh that people live in, which can be "hit, beaten, crushed, and then destroyed"; the communicative body is a tool of expression in social interaction and is an important part of "the world, history, culture and politics". It exists as the communicative body of the "total economic medium". In other words, the former is people's external visible life form, a biological organism composed of physical and chemical elements, and is obtained through inheritance.
The latter mainly reflects people's social and cultural attributes, and it exists in the social interaction between people. As living beings, humans must first survive in the objective environment, but at the same time, humans are products of society and cannot do without living in groups. Therefore, every living body is inseparable from interactions with other individuals and groups in society. While paying attention to the physical body, we should also pay attention to the social body. As an objective living being and a member of society, women's body composition includes the above two parts.
The first is the "biological body". In this kind of body, differences in biological factors determine women's unique reproductive system, and the special characteristics of bones and skin also make their height, appearance, voice, sexual characteristics, etc. different from men. This kind of body is more of a focus of biology and anatomy, and belongs to the category of natural differences between people. However, in sociological research, those natural attributes that are natural differences but have social significance to a large extent are also actively included in the field of concern.
Therefore, in the social interaction activities between men and women, the second concept called "interaction body" deserves more attention. In addition to possessing some characteristics of the physical body, this kind of body is more often used in social communication activities as a mark of certain distinction. This sign can be described as a symbol from which we can discover the differences between men and women in society.
Historically, based on biological differences, people were binary divided into men and women. The resulting social gender setting and a series of communication rules accompanying social gender restricted and regulated people's social activities. It is within this framework that women's communication bodies continue to interact and connect with society.
(2) High heels have become a symbol of women’s body
Whether it is the physical body or the social body, when high heels appear in daily life, people always easily think of the female body. For the physical body, high heels visually increase women's original short height and make up for the inherent "defects" in the body.
The physiological curvature of a woman's waist will become more convex, making the lines of her buttocks appear extra straight, and her chest and back will become more three-dimensional and upward, thus giving her overall mental outlook a completely new look. Such a body is more in line with people's general aesthetics and has achieved broad consensus among men and women in society.
In fact, this aesthetic pursuit of the female body has already internalized social cognition and constructed women's communication bodies. In social interactions, high heels are a unique physical expression for women. Nowadays, this seems to be commonplace and taken for granted. However, when they first appeared in human society, high heels were not unique to women.
From being worn by both men and women to becoming a female body symbol, high heels have gone through a long process of development and change, and their symbolic meaning is also undergoing subtle changes. In the early days, in order to achieve the purpose of increasing body height, high heels were the privilege of aristocratic men and women in the upper class. Later, with the evolution of fashion and the popularity of high heels, men gave up high heels, and women gradually became the owners of high heels.
From then on, high heels seemed to "grow" on women's feet and were regarded as a typical symbol of women. The image of women constructed in people's minds, in addition to their physiological curves, is the high-heeled shoes that are connected to their bodies and worn on their feet. Today, the ubiquitous high-heeled shoes in shop windows have nothing to do with people's social status and are hardly associated with men anymore.
In the late 1950s, industrial production of high-heeled shoes fashion appeared, giving women more choices for high-heeled shoes: from sports high-heeled shoes to heelless high-heeled shoes, from high-heeled sandals to high-heeled slippers. But no matter what form it is, the high heels of the shoes have never disappeared.
More importantly, high heels are still a monopoly for women. They contain strong femininity and are an important symbol that distinguishes men and women. High heels have become the "spokesperson" for women in social life, reflecting women's gender and a series of gender-related qualities and habits. Therefore, in addition to meeting women's physiological and aesthetic needs, high heels have become more of a social and cultural symbol for women and a unique symbol of women.