Hmm. Cinderella's stepsisters cut off their toes in the name of beauty and winning the prince . . . as I remember, it didn't really do that much for them in the long run.

I have never been able to figure out why women haven't risen up en masse to overthrow the tyranny of those shoes.

I don't know of anything that uncomfortable that men wear just to look good. The closest I come is a necktie, and that's only bothersome when I put it on.

Some women claim to wear makeup just for themselves. Fine. I don't buy it completely, but I'll give you the benefit of my doubts.

But those shoes? Come on, ladies. If you're not willing to get rid of them for yourselves, do it for me. I cringe every time I see a woman in those things. It's just not right.

Free your feet, and the rest will follow.

This is not even a shoe issue, this is a MENTAL HEALTH issue!!! Whaaaaaaat??? I am just shocked, although I know I probably shouldn't be. I have a huge collection of high heeled shoes, literally, and even need to get extra storage space to keep my "beauties" out of the way. But I would NEVER EVER consider surgery to alter my feet for a pair of shoes. That's totally nuts. This is Sex and the City gone to Mars and returned sans brains. I really hate to attack people and prefer to respect others' opinions and choices even if I don't agree with them, but this is just a form of self-mutilation as far as I'm concerned. What health issues will this woman face when she gets older? I mean both physically and mentally. Just makes me sit here and shake my head in disbelief. j

And, oh, one more thing - there is such a thing as comfortable high heels. Yes, they may be bad for your back, but not all of them are torture chambers. If carefully chosen, a pair of heels can be a great addition to one's wardrobe. As long as they are not worn 24/7 and share the feet with, let's say, sneakers - well, you are good to go :)

This is not good. I am a bodyworker (Rolfer) and I have seen some awful things that happen when women wear high heels on regular basis. The whole back of legs shortens and tightens the gluteal muscles to an extreme. That influences the subtle balance inside of the pelvis as well. On top of that, any surgery on feet will most likely have a crippling effect on the arches as well as a sense of balance. Then, it is hard to 'stand on one's own feet'.

But I guess women are still encouraged to be helpless and vulnerable (if someone wants to rape us, we won't run too far!).

Am I the only person who thinks "Manolo Blahniks" sounds like a stupid name? Blah-nicks? Why would you pay hundreds of dollars for shoes with a stupid name? Scratch that. Why would you pay hundreds of dollars for a pair of shoes? My most expensive shoes are my hiking boots, but they didn't even come to $100.

Anyways, if your shoes are too short for your feet, shouldn't you buy longer shoes? At the prices those things cost you should be able to demand shoes that fit. But nothing about fashion makes sense. *sigh*

This isn't anything new. I remember hearing about cosmetic foot surgery a few years ago. I still have the same reaction. Why? It just seems so utterly pointless. I, too, have a love for cute shoes. I also have very short and wide feet. It is very difficult to fashionable shoes that fit comfortably. I learned pretty early on that I was not meant to wear pointy toed shoes or anything with a thin heel. I find that a couple of inches of chunky heel works pretty well. Why shoe manufacturers insist women's feet are about an inch and a half wide I will never understand. It also doesn't make any sense to me to alter our feet to fit the shoe. Seems like the shoes should be designed to fit the feet. Form follows function and all that.

Damnit, anna beat me to the Cinderella comment.
I've found that Naturalizer makes comfortable heels, although sometimes they look a little matronly. I'll stick with my Docs when I'm not at a job interview.

"But I guess women are still encouraged to be helpless and vulnerable (if someone wants to rape us, we won't run too far!)"

Okay, I had to say something. I actually own the shoes pictured. I adore them. They bring me joy, and the reality of expensive shoes is that they are far more comfortable than cheap heels. I really don't like the implication that I am helpless and vulnerable and could be a victim of rape because I own, wear and enjoy them. I've spent my life calling myself a feminist and who knew a pair of pretty shoes could exclude me from that?

"It's just not right?" I'm not a feminist because I love my Manolos? Please. I thought we were past that. I thought we could wear what we wanted. Saying that we shouldn't wear heels because we can't run away from rapists is similiar to saying we shouldn't drink because it makes us rape victims. Stop blaming the pretty shoes.

I've never understood the need to wear high heels in the first place. I've never worn them, but from what I've heard from women they're extremely uncomfortable and expensive.

Is this particular scenario really any different? This just takes that same extravagance one step further.

I don't think the issue is whether women choose to wear heels, but rather than some women are surigically modifying their bodies to better fit the demands of fashion. That is pretty fucked up, no matter how you look at it.

I...don't get it. Does the woman getting the surgery know that shoes come in, y'know, multiple sizes? Are her toes going to be square and of uniform length after the surgery and look like matches lined up in a matchbook?

Also, yeah, heels totally kill your back and legs and feet, but it's all about moderation. I'm only 5'1" and I love the boost I get from heels, but no way would I walk to work in them. That's what flip flops are for. Oh, and if anyone's looking for fashionable but comfortable heels, give Clarks shoes a try. They make a really cute line called Indigo, and while their heels don't go much higher than 2 or 3 inches, they are still the most comfortable heels I've ever worn. Not as "fashion"-y as Manolos, of course, but still very cute.

My issue with Manolo's hasn't been the heels (If a woman wants to wear something like them, they have a right to, as long as they know the risks), it's the issue of consumption. For me, the idea of shoes that cost $800+ has represented the ultimate in decadence & American overconsumption.
I find shoes that are comfortable, though very overpriced in my opinion, at Macy's & Nine West. That's where I go when I need "professional" shoes. One of my problems is that I haven't been able to find comfortable shoes in synthetic materials. I hate wearing leather, but leather doesn't seem to give me blisters.

I also have an issue with the idea that women who wear high heels are vain or stupid or not feminist. I'm extremely feminist, and I never wore high heels before starting work at a big firm. The first few days my feet KILLED me. I walk to the office in my sandals, but now I can't wait to get my heels on. (I keep my heels in my office.) Just as wearing a suit makes me feel and act professional, wearing heels puts me up to eye-level (or near it) with the big players in the office, and I have an advantage. I appreciate all the medical implications of heels, so I limit the amount of time each day that I wear them, I stretch my calf muscles each and every night, and I insure that I don't walk too far in heels. Feminism is this amazing idea that women can actually think for themselves and come up with their own solutions. I support the idea that women can think, even if I don't especially like their choices.

And yes, the more expensive the heels, the more comfortable they typically are. It takes a while to get used to them, but my $300 heels are far better balanced than any $20 pair.

MissMay12:

"Saying that we shouldn't wear heels because we can't run away from rapists is similiar to saying we shouldn't drink because it makes us rape victims. Stop blaming the pretty shoes."

I am sorry if I offended you. I definitely didn't mean that high heels will make anyone a victim of rape. What I meant was that historically, like in the neanderthal age, if anyone had things on their feet with a long nail on them, they wouldn't get very far, like from a hungry tiger!

There is a component of vulnerability when wearing high-heels because we just can't run very far and fast in them. In some ways, they remind me of binding feet in China and how helpless those women were, not being able to walk.

I am trying to understand why humans started making high heel shoes to begin with. I just read up on high heel shoe history on wiki. It originates with men's shoes for horse riding (it grips the stirrup better and the foot doesn't slide out). Makes sense to me. It picked up in the 17th and 18th century among both men and women, of course only among fashionable aristocrats. Then their popularity declined again and they resurfaced at the end of 19th century, exclusively among women.

I think fashion is a powerful thing in our culture. It never surprises me how even kitchen design changes every decade (I am remodeling one right now). I think it is a matter of advertising and when enough people will buy the product, it will become "in".

I'll throw in one more thing. It is remarkable that people, who have the most healthy feet, grew up and continue walking mostly bare-footed. The more the foot is adaptable to the ground surface, the healthier it is because all the little bones (26!) in the foot can move.

I really hate stepping on anyone's toes (short or long)!

I read that another reason for high shoes was that there was often gross stuff on the ground, back when people would tip their chamberpots out of the window in the mornings.

A few years back, square-toed high heels were in fashion, and I snapped up a few pairs of those.

I like heels, in spite of the many points against them. But surgery is another thing altogether--as others have mentioned this women will actually be hobbled while recovering and may not ever recover the same sense of balance or strength with a piece of her toe missing.

I have all kinds of problems with my feet (unrelated to heel wearing) and I would have surgery to make my balance better, but this is far beyond the line of what is arguably a medical necessity.

MissMay12 -- Those shoes are smokin'. Can I borrow them? I wear a 7N. Kthx!

I think Katha Pollitt wrote about this in her most recent book. I remember because Ana Marie Cox, in a weirdly snide review, basically called KP a killjoy for not digging cosmetic toe amputation.

I personally adore heels. I'm five-eight, which is usually 'tall enough' for anything, but when I can be five-eleven or six foot, I love it. That being said...I have size nine-and-a-half feet, and the idea of cutting off part of a toe so I can wear different shoes is RIDICULOUS.

Oh god, this was like a nightmare for me. Aside from the obvious yuckiness of having parts of one's feet cut off to fit into shoes, I have a SERIOUS problem with my feet. I can hardly stand the thought of someone touching them, let alone cutting parts off.

Eeeewwwww. I'm now totally creeped out.

We are well on our way to returning to "foot-binding" as the aesthetic ideal - But more importantly, this money being spent on pseudo-surgery is staying in the pockets of the well-to-do, rather than being donated to help educate the women and girls of this world.

Oh, -ick.- I can't imagine hating something about my body so much as to change it with surgery. Especially something like this, where it's unlikely anyone else in the world would notice the difference. I mean, really. I have funny-looking toes, and mine tend to poke out the same way it sounds like this woman's do. I don't slice off a bit of my toe, I buy a shoe that looks right on me. Because there is nothing actually wrong with my body. It's human one, and humans sometimes have funny toes. Having enough anxiety to change it just seems -really extreme.-

Okay, first of all, can we please not have the "heels are anti-feminist" conversation again? If you don't like them, fine. Nobody's going to make you wear them.

Secondly, on the surgical question... I don't get it. There are five billion types of shoes out there, many of which can be purchased to look equally cute on your feet and actually fit your toes. Even pointy shoes or whatever. The idea of surgically altering your feet for a pair of shoes is scary.

I have strange-looking pinky toes. They have these little "humps" on the side that stick out strangly and aren't really what you'd call cute. But I'm not considering having them altered! My toes are my toes. They grew that way, and that's all there is to it.

skilled-junkie: Thanks for the apology, and I'm sorry I jumped on you for that. You're right in a number of ways. I'm just very sensitive about my Manolos, as you can likely tell.

As someone who is the "token lesbo-feminist" in a lot of aspects of my life, I got a lot of flack for wearing and owning them, and admittedly, until I did, I was the kind of person who swore off heels for many of the reasons listed here.

I think the fact that I love those shoes so much is part of the reason "toe surgery" horrifies me so much. Damn if I don't love my feet and have a shoe "problem," and the last thing I want to do is put a knife to them.

The ridiculous part about this story is that if you're shopping at Manolo and dropping $700 on a pair of shoes, you might as well get them custom fitted 'cause in that realm of shoe buying, they're more than happy to hide your wonky toe.

So whats so wrong with plastic surgery? I'll put aside the decadent spending issue (because that applies to a lot of different parts of our culture), but other than that, its a risk taken to make the person happier with themselves.

I would agree that it is terrible that society imposes "the perfect image" on all of us, but I don't think plastic surgery will change that, its been around forever. In fact, plastic surgery (if cheap and safe enough) would serve to rid us of that menace, as a fad cannot survive if it is easily obtainable by all.

There are health risks to plastic surgery, but if the patient accepts them, that is their choice. Plastic surgery is just a logical extreme of any body modification, such as body piercing or tattoos. People should be able to express themselves and look however they like.

I think it's funny when a man comes on to tell women that plastic surgery is a-okay as long as it makes the person "happy" when in fact the person, usually a woman, is unhappy because they're not living up to the standards of beauty set up by society and men don't have nearly the amount of pressure to look a certain way with the aid of plastic surgery.

There was something on this on 20/20 last year I think, about women who were going as far as to get sections of their actual toes removed in order to fit these shoes and of course the plastic surgeons were going "Well, if it makes them happy" when they could have just gone ahead and said "Well, as long as I'm making money".

This isn't JUST "body modification" this is something, as skilled-junkie pointed out, that will CRIPPLE YOU. Wearing high heels for years on end will end up being bad for you anyway let alone removing bones and parts.

I think its funny when anyone attacks my arguments due to my gender, especially someone who otherwise fights for equal rights. Ad hominem attacks are fallacious, at least attack the argument.

I will agree that I have a different societal viewpoint than women, being male. But the argument still stands, and my thoughts are the same. I never agree with someone being forced to change themselves because of societal demands. Is it not possible that someone having this procedure done is doing it because they want to? This is body modification, and even if it may cripple you, if the patient understands that it is their risk to take.

Although I'm sure all of these are good arguments, I think we're missing the actual complaint here. I'm willing to bet that our surgery-selector has a second toe that is longer than her big toe. So she's shortening her second toe so the end of her foot reflects the simple arc found in most shoes, even the pointy-toed. It's not a matter of wearing the wrong size shoe. In fact, if she bought heels that accommodated a longer second toe, her foot would STILL suffer because the shoe would be sightly too big for the rest of her foot, leading to her foot sliding down and getting squashed into the toe of the shoe.

I'm not arguing for lopping off a part of your toe, but I AM speaking from experience. I come from a long line of monkey-toes. If I wear peep-toes, it does look like they are the wrong size or something, because that second toe wants to peep out a little more than the rest. Of course, I DON'T wear such shoes, at least not in heels. My feet are a size 10, and feets like these were meant to be mostly parallel to the earth to carry all of the rest of me in balance.

Dorion, that's what I figured it was too, but if I recall correctly from high school biology, it's actually the dominant gene, which leads me to believe it probably provides better balance.

I think it's a case of shoes not being made to reflect a woman's foot. Why can't we absorb that these are accessories? They're supposed to make US look hot, not the other way around.

"it's actually the dominant gene, which leads me to believe it probably provides better balance."

I don't know about this instance, but I've been told that bad eyesight is a dominant gene, and because humans have pretty much undermined survival of the fittest, it will only grow more prevelant

Actually, Bryan, I was going to go into a bunch of stuff about curling up toes to walk on ice, but I didn't want my post to be too long and go off on weird tangents. We don't know what the risks to motility are with this surgery, or the long term effects on balance.

No one is saying that the surgery should be banned. We're just discussing our concerns and lamenting that there's enough women out there who hate their feet that it exists.

A valid lament, prairielily.

Completely agreed, prairielily. Accessories. And interestingly, after being teased more than once about my longer toe (and honestly not being bothered by the teasing), I eventually asked my podiatrist how common that is. He said off the top of his head probably half his clients were so configured.

I still think it's a pretty goofy thing to do, shorten a toe for cosmetic reasons. Feet keep coming up -- why are people so FREAKISH about their feet anyway??

Why would anybody trust a doctor who's willing to amputate a portion of somebody's healthy toe? It just seems to fuck a bit too closely to the whole 'do no harm' vow (granted not every doctor has to take that vow anymore).

But with this elective sx, there just seems to be too big of a chance of serious (and lifelong) complications later on. And while I would like to think that ppl would be smart enough to throughly research any elective sx they may choose to get... many don't bc we're told that we should be able to trust what the doctor says is safe. And if the only person they're asking for information about the procedure is the plastic surgeon... how trustworthy is that?

Way too many of them seem willing (like this doctor) to do anything to you for money. When these ppl got their MDs they vowed to accept the responsiblity as well as the privilages, and instead they're ignoring their responsibility not to set their patients up for a lifetime of medical complications and pain. I hate to point out the obvious, but toes are functional parts of the human anatomy. If you've done the work to get the MD behind your name (and a lot of these ppl go further and pass boards and whatnot), shouldn't you know that it's not good to go cutting healthy body parts off of people?

The only person I know who's had surgery on her foot is my grandmother, who wears a size 11, and had surgery on one big toe last year during surgery on her ankle because the toe was at almost a 45 degree angle in towards her other toes. She was kind of walking on it. One of my toes is similarly bent, but not as drastic, and the biggest reason for that is my grandmother's shoe size. She could never find size 11 heels when she was working, so she would squeeze her feet into smaller shoes and her toe ended up bent almost completely sideways. As a size 6 1/2, I don't have the same shoe handicap, and love my heels.

Still, I agree with other posters, if you're going so far to spend $700 on a pair of shoes, spend $700 on a pair of shoes that fit your damn feet, not thousands on surgery for the feet. If I had that money to drop on shoes, I'd be buying one 6 and one 6 1/2, since my left foot is half a size bigger than my right.

Who needs footbinding when you've got Plastic surgeons and Manolos huh? Bizarre.

This is scary, next there will be the Barbie inspired surgery to modify women's fit so they always conform to heels.

I love heels in moderation but this is going too far!

One of my problems is that I haven't been able to find comfortable shoes in synthetic materials. I hate wearing leather, but leather doesn't seem to give me blisters.

I have a pair of wonderful heels from Ann Taylor - almost certain that they are entirely synthetic. (They're almost 3 years old, so they were certainly worth the money.)

Bryan,

I'm accident prone, so there's been times when cosmetic surgery has been a possibility in my life (scarring or reconstruction). Thankfully, I haven't needed it (somehow escaped unscathed), but I couldn't imagine doing anything that would impair my bodily function years down the road. Our issue isn't plastic surgery per se (of course, there are feminist issues there), but with the idea that women are actually harming their bodies in the process.

I can't help but wonder who took the Hippocratic Oath and does this stuff: "First, do no harm." (Or, classically, "I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.")

"Still, I agree with other posters, if you're going so far to spend $700 on a pair of shoes, spend $700 on a pair of shoes that fit your damn feet, not thousands on surgery for the feet. If I had that money to drop on shoes, I'd be buying one 6 and one 6 1/2, since my left foot is half a size bigger than my right."

For that matter, how much does it cost to have shoes custom-made or altered?

Bryan, while you are right, no one should attack your comment or argument because of your gender, I think their is a point to be made there. My cousin had huge breast implants the minute she turned 18. She went from an A-cup to a double D. She says that it was just for her, but I wonder if she would have wanted bigger breasts if men loved small breasts as much as they supposedly adore big ones.

If the male-dominated (though I am not saying that makes men enemies or bad or anything like that, and interestingly I've found that individual men tend to like women cushier than their model counterparts, and seem to just enjoy breasts, regardless of size) culture pushed chubbier women with small breasts and shorter statures with big feet as the ideal, if we wouldn't be having toe-lengthening surgeries, and more breast reduction rather than augmentation, and protein-powder instead of dieting shakes.

I wonder this especially, because in my cousin's words (responding to my question of why she had the surgery done) "I decided when I was twelve, that if I didn't grow up to be a C-cup, I'd *fix* it."

kissmypineapple, I feel a little bad for your cousin. I'm an A cup and I could never imagine have an augmentation that drastic or at all really. Do I feel a little sad when a dress is a little roomy in the chest or when I see my (hypothetical) boyfriend looking at girls with bigger breasts? A little. But I feel better knowing that in 20 years I won't need to pay $10,000 to pick my boobs back up, that I'll never have back or shoulder problems from my chest, and that I can run up a flight of stairs without undergarments that rival a corset. I've never had problems getting attention when I wanted it, and if all a guy can say is "you'd be hot if you had bigger boobs" than I wouldn't want to be with him anyway. I hope she's happy.

My sister's had some minor plastic surgery (ears pinned back, poor child looked like Dumbo) and I understand that it's a wonderful thing for some people, but this plastic surgery seems particularly problematic. It's one thing to alter a nose that you've hated all your life so you feel better about your apperance overall, it's another to start screwing around with something you need to function on a daily basis, like feet.