The Secret Politics of High Heels

Explicit content warning

11/17/23 • 26 min

1 Listener

In Retrospect with Susie Banikarim and Jessica Bennett

A recent Republican debate stirred up an age-old discussion about high heels: Who is allowed to wear them, how high they can be, and what they can tell us about gender politics in 2023. In this episode, Jess & Susie unravel the long history of high-heeled shoes (originally designed for men!) and how they’ve been used as a political insult and weapon.

FOR MORE:

Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Those Stilettos (Jessica Bennett, The New York Times)
Penis Politics, a podcast from The Waves (Slate)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

FOR MORE:

Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Those Stilettos (Jessica Bennett, The New York Times)
Penis Politics, a podcast from The Waves (Slate)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Previous Episode

We Regret To Inform You

Mistakes? We’ve made a few. In the spirit of IN RETROSPECT, Susie and Jess share some of their professional regrets—from Susie’s season working on the reality show “Wife Swap” to a sexual harassment story Jess still thinks about.

FOR MORE:

Heidi Mae’s TikTok about appearing on "Wife Swap"

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next Episode

The Marriage Myth (Pt 1): When Newsweek Struck Panic in Single Women Everywhere

It was a 1986 cover story with a claim that spread like wildfire: A single woman over 40 was “more likely to be killed by a terrorist” than to get married. Jess and Susie unravel the origin of that salacious report — later retracted — and dissect how such a line went from reporter’s notebook to reference point in films such as “Sleepless in Seattle” and “When Harry Met Sally.” Plus: How that Newsweek story inspired Susan Faludi to write her blockbuster feminist classic, Backlash.

Guests:

E. Jean Carroll, journalist, longtime Elle advice columnist and author of “What Do We Need Men For?”
Susan Douglas, professor of media studies at the University of Michigan and author of “Enlightened Sexism”

FOR MORE:

Single, Female, and Desperate No More (NY Times, 2006)
Revisiting Newsweek’s ‘More Likely To Be Killed By a Terrorist’ Story (The Atlantic, 2016)
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi (1991)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Retrospect with Susie Banikarim and Jessica Bennett - The Secret Politics of High Heels

Transcript

Speaker 100:00:04.440

It is taking the most feminized object of all objects, the heel, and a spike stiletto heel at that, and it is masculinizing it to show that she is tough by making it a weapon. I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Seusie Bannacaram. And this is in retrospect, where each week we revisit a cultural moment that shaped us and that we just can't stop thinking about. Most of the time we talk about the past, but sometimes the past and present collide. That happen