Articles tagged with "Social Stereotypes"

I do get looks and people's expressions are often puzzled, but then they are seeing something that they are not used to seeing so that is going to take some thought to process how they feel about it. You are breaking social stereotypes and to a lot of people this will be something new and can feel threatening to them.

If you are different, and let's face it, it's not hard to be different when you're a man wearing high heeled shoes or boots, then you are going to stand out from the crowd a little and attract some attention. The vast majority of men wearing heels don't actually want any attention, we just want to live authentically and wear the clothes and shoes which we like.

The key here is confidence. When you feel good about what you are wearing before you go out, that will show through. Express yourself authentically and you will have the rock solid belief in what you are doing. Go about your business as normal and remember that you are not responsible for the version of you that is in someone else's head - that's on them.

Think about the times when you've seen something out of the ordinary when you've been out and about. Do you look longer at it? Does your face express your confusion about what you're seeing? It's not unusual to process new things in this way.

In the countless times I've worn heels in public, I have yet to have anyone make a negative comment about them, but yes I do get people looking at them. From many other men who wear heels, the comments they receive are almost always positive. In any case, I want them to look, we need them to look, we need this to be normalised for any men who want to wear heels. That needs every one of us to be wearing heels in public every day that we can.

If you're struggling for the confidence to wear higher heels more than you would normally do in public, use some of the strategies I've provided in these Q&A posts to help. Start out with Cuban/block heels and work your way up. Once higher Cuban/block heels are more commonplace, heels for men will get slimmer and taller and before long we may well see a day when men in stilettos won't seem so unusual at all.

Power of Leather blog post by Deni (@d.e.n.i_c), takes us on a brief history of the high heel, how they are loved by men and women alike.

Deni highlights a great point from The Age of Enlightenment that "Males were stereotyped as practical and rational, whereas women were seen as sentimental, making them better suited for heels than men", and adds a great quote about stereotypes...

"The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story." - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

It's certainly great to see a growing number of people blogging about men wearing heels and boots.

Original URL: https://www.powerofleather.com/post/heels-heels-heels

There are some great blogs on the web and this post from Resha caught my attention as I feel it speaks to many of us who just want to wear what we want without judgement.

"Almost everyone has an opinion on a everyone’s appearance. Some people just have the decency to keep it to themselves."

"The problem is that there isn’t an outfit that anyone can wear without being judged."

Original URL: https://studioresha.com/blogs/news/stop-judging-people-on-their-clothing-choices