In today’s society, few things can rival the pure beauty of high heels and the benefits they bring for girls who wear them regularly. While everybody knows how a good pair of high heels can elevate an outfit, but their benefits don’t stop there. From structural improvements in the foot to a gradual reduction in ankle mobility and- if a girl is determined- an eventual permanently elevated heel.
To have a true understanding of the feminine improvements high-heels cause, lets go through each change, one by one, and talk about how these changes look on the outside, what’s happening on the inside, and what girls will feel because of all this.
Bunions
Starting it off strong we have bunions (aka Hallux Valgus). This is one of the many signs of womanhood, and one of my personal favorites. These complex structural changes transform the shape, mechanics, and daily experience of so many girls in a truly profound way. Not only are bunions highly visible to others, but you can feel them inside your feet.
On the outside of a girls body, bunions will present a striking change to the shape of her foot, with her feet getting progressively wider towards her toes before sharply turning inwards after the base of her big toe. In moderate cases the bump on the inside of her big toe joint will measure noticeably wider than the natural contour of her foot, but this bump will become more and more prominent as she continues to wear high heels.
For a lucky few the bunion itself will develop a bursa- a small pocket of fluid over the joint. This pocket will become inflamed from time to time causing her bunion bump to swell even more dramatically and will become exquisitely tender to the touch.
There’s more happening than meets the eye though. Just beneath the surface of her skin the true cause of the bunion is revealed: Her bones are permanently re-alligning. While the top bone in her toe begins to angle further and further inwards, the larger bone beneath it is pressed outwards, causing the visible bump on the edge of her foot.
Over time the static stabilizers of the big toe become more flexible, allowing the big toe to angle further inwards. The joint capsule tends to take longer before eventually it too is flexible enough to allow the big toe to continue angling further in.
Finally once the stabilizers and joint capsule are flexible enough to allow a significant internal angle to form, we reach our final hurdle, the very tendons and muscles we would otherwise use to control the toe manually, but fortunately for all my girls out there, the structural changes we’ve already experienced mean the tendon responsible for contracting the toe no longer runs right down the middle but instead crosses that toe at an oblique angle.
This new angle means any time that tendon contracts it’s pulling the big toe further towards the center of the foot and is assisting is on our journey. The muscle who is usually responsible for pulling the toe out towards the edge of the foot has also weakened over time meaning it becomes progressively less able to be in the way.
The nerves and blood vessels in girls feet are also dramatically affected by the bunions. The nerve that runs next to the bunion bump is pressed between the bone and the swolen tissue which often leads to nerve irritation. On top of that, the nerves running between the toes become compressed between the toes and will cover themselves in a protective layer which will alter the sensory experience.
As the bunion continues to progress so too do the sensations that come along with it. At the bump itself, most girls describe a deep, aching throb that intensifies with pressure. When tight shoes press into the bump, this deep throb transforms into a stabbing acute pain. Many girls also describe a burning sensation over the bump and occasionally this can be accompanied by pins-and-needles.
Most girls also find that as their bunion develops they have progressively less range of motion in their big toe, and often will be nearly unable to move it first thing in the morning. This helps them to shift to a more attractive and feminine gate in which they roll along the outer edge of their feet before planting their weight fully on the foot. This makes swinging your hips much easier.
All of this together only covers ONE of our five adaptations today, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. That altered gait pattern will lead to changes in the knees and sometimes even the lower back. Additionally, as the big toe angles inwards, it begins to help the others along, contributing to our next adaptaton, hammertoes.
Hammer Toes and Claw Toes
Over time, girls will also develop hammertoes or their close cousin claw toes. This benefit can be easily identified by the elevation of the middle joint in a toe. Over time the middle joint will become further and further elevated above the other joints and, in some girls, will develop a hard shiny callous or corn.
This increased angle gives a girls foot a sharper- more angular appearance, helping to break up the flat, masculine lines of the dorsal edge of the foot.
This primarily comes from pressure on the tips of the toe stemming from the tight toe boxes of girls shoes. While mostly visual, a girl may also feel these changes in reduced mobility of this joint, and the callous / corn on top of her toe may also grow to become painful as time goes on.
While these changes are visually obvious, under the surface there are additional structural changes taking place. The joint capsules of effected middle joints undergo stretching at the top when the collagen fibers making up the joint capsule are stretched, increasing their normal elasticity. This not only allows these joints to contract beyond their normal limits, but decreases the elastic forces that counteract this altered position. Conversely, the bottom of these same joints contracts over time, actively resisting extension.
Now, for a bit of a more practical example, lets talk through what a girls experience with hammertoes might look like. Many girls describe a dull ache even when barefoot which can serve as a constant reminder of their new, more feminine feet. Small, constant reminders like these are one of the great benefits of being a girl, your body is constantly reminding you of the ways you are displaying your femininity. When these girls wear shoes, they often say the dull ache intensifies into a sharper pain. This is often described as growing even stronger with each step leading to a rhythmic stabbing pain as they walk.
Beyond simply the mechanical pain, many girls also experience pins-and-needles, burning, or numbness in the affected toes. This comes from nerves being pinched, or damaged by the feminine toe shape. Over time girls will also notice these toes becoming progressively stiffer and stiffer as though the toe is becoming “locked” in it’s new curled shape. That’s because- It is! As the hammertoes advance, they become rigid, and once they’re fully rigid, there’s no going back.
While hammertoes do both enhance the aesthetics of a girls foot, and bring numerous beautiful sensations to the girl herself, there is one more benefit of hammertoes we haven’t discussed yet: the benefits to the gate. Hammertoes help contribute to a shortened stride length due to a decreased range of motion in these toes. Additionally they contribute to a lateral weight shift – rolling off the outer edge of the foot- both of which mean a girl will have a slower, more elegant, more feminine walk.
Pump Bump
For our last visible change, lets talk about pump-bump. Pump-bumps can be identified by their bump on the back of the heel, where the achilles tendon meets the heel bone, but as the bump advances it can also fill in the dip on either side of the achilles tendon.
This bump is not simply tissue, but bone, as the heel bone grows outwards to better accommodate feminine footwear like pump-style high heels. over time girls will see this bump grow in size, and many girls describe a sharp, stabbing pain in the back of the heel when first stepping out of bed “as though stepping onto broken glass.
While These are the primary changes that can be observed externally, there are two additional changes I’d like to go over. The first benefit only really adds new sensations to the girl who experiences it, and that is:
Metatarsalgia
Metatarsalgia is caused by the increased stress heels provide to the balls of the feet. When a girl wears high heels, the majority of her weight is concentrated on the balls of her feet. This can cause the plantar plate (large muscle running across the balls of the feet) to tear and rupture, it can cause the fatty pads under the balls of the feet to thin and atrophy, and it can cause the nerves to thicken.
This leads to many girls describing a sensation of “walking on pebbles” with a sharp, localized pain right at the balls of the foot. Most girls will describe this sensation as lessoning to a dull burning or aching pain when they are not actively standing or walking, but this too can serve as a powerful reminder of the progress they’ve made.
