Proposition: High heels are the burkhas of Western society. (RT’d and heartily agreed with by Divya.)
Definitions:
Argument: Spot the crucial differences between fashions above and below:
(Hint: Only one set of images features actual fashion, aka that which your government and family do not command you to wear.)
Anticipated Counter-Argument 1: But high heels are barbaric.
I Say: So don’t wear them. Making this choice does not lead to excommunication. Yay!
Anticipated Counter-Argument 2: But high heels are really, really barbaric and thus Bad For Women.
I Say: Let women decide what’s bad for them. Second-wave style prescriptive feminism is so passe. 
Anticipated Counter-Argument 3: But women are brainwashed/pressured into wearing high heels.
I Say: Not true. High heels are the fashion among the most privileged women in our world, who are least likely to be pressured and brainwashed into anything. They’re the polar opposite of burqas in this important way.
Anticipated Counter-Argument 4: But some women do choose to wear burqas, the same way some women choose high heels.
I Say: The overwhelming majority of women who wear burqas are forced into it, and the overwhelming majority of women who wear high heels choose to do so freely. Fringe cases should not constitute your entire case. (Please point me to these women who freely choose to wear burqas, since I have a hard time believing they exist.)
Conclusion: Saying high heels are the burqas of western society is like saying McDonald’s is the Somalian famine of western society: very wrong and rather offensive.
I started typing a really long comment here and now I've decided to make a post of it. I'm making a point of mentioning this here so you can call me out if I do my usual lazy thing of 'saving a draft' rather than publishing the bloody post
Very interesting, you make great points!
Counter-Argument 1 and 2 are not arguments at all
CA4's repudiation is absolutely not based on facts
Gimme facts and tell me a good reason why more muslim women choose to wear burqas these days than before!
CA3's assertion that high heels are the fashion among the “most” privileged women who are “less likely to be brainwashed” is a statement that has no evidence. What makes you think women who are “more privileged” are “less likely to be brainwashed” ?
My view is high-heels portend a view about women and most women believe in that view which is high-heels make you more “sexy”. I also have no facts to back this up, but there are sufficient advertisements which showcase how women look “sexy” in high heels (usually also wearing as less clothes as possible). The Devil wears prada film poster also features a very very high red heel shoe (sufficient connotation?) So did Liz Hurley in that nonsense movie where she played a devil!
Sherene: I poked you on your blog! Post it already!!
Aamba: Thanks!
Divya:
First, I think you mean hijab and not burqa. If you do in fact mean burqa I REALLY need to see who is wearing burqas out of choice.
Anyway, the C4 rebuttal is totally based on a very obvious fact, namely, waaaaay more women are forced/pressured into wearing hijabs than those who wear it out of choice. It doesn't matter that more women are freely choosing hijabs, since they're still a very fringe minority. And those who freely choose to wear hijabs are overwhelmingly western or quasi-western women (I would think of Singapore as quasi-western, for example, and also big liberal cities with western-style-values in Islamic countries e.g. Tehran), so that makes the “highheels of the west” comparison even more meaningless.
As for what privilege has to do with smaller possibility of pressure and brainwashedness, I thought it was obvious. Privilege = power. Burqas and hijabs are religious symbols. Religion tries to keep women powerless. Powerful women, therefore, are less likely to be oppressed by religion in small ways and large, including being pressured/forced to wear burqas and hijabs.
I don't understand your objection to high heels. So what if women wear them believing it will make them sexy? How is that bad? I think women taking control of their sexuality and women flaunting their sexuality after so many millennia of repression is an AWESOME thing overall. It may be taken too far sometimes but fundamentally it's great.
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So let me get this straight…
Something that covers your entire frikking FACE with the objective of making you less sexually appealing to ANY MAN who isn't your husband….
is being equated to….
Something that covers your FEET, makes walking mildly uncomfortable but the wearer more sexually appealing (please ladies, let's not argue, this is a moot point, heels are sexy, ask any straight, or even gay man!)
Women from all strata wear heels, heels of different heights, heels of different prices, colours and styles. And they do it out of choice, and guess what, noone can stop you from taking those heels off…Can a burqa clad woman take her burqa off on 50 degree afternoon in public just because it's uncomfortable? Fucking DUH.
I don't even see the point of refuting this rubbish. Well argued Nandini, but what's the point of arguing with such misogynistic BS? Rational thinking does not resonate with haters.
The post is written but it doesn't directly address the burqa issue at all, it only defends heels. Published privately right now…dare I flaunt my little-acknowledged unbridled girlyness?
as I was reading a funny thought came into my mind
so many burqa clad women wear high heels in the middle east. So what would that make them?
truth be told many of them dont really know why they wear burqa. That is all they ve seen and have been told. Many of these women wear the latest designers under their burqa/hijab, whichever. I have even seen women wearing absolutely nothing under their burqas and trust me everyone can see through the black silk.
going with Nandini's argument, if the burqa makes women 'powerless', I think high heels make women 'powerful'.It takes a certain confidence and poise to pull off very high heels. there shd be no need for comparison or arguement