The Chronikler

Stilettos: career boosters for the down at heel?

By Zandra Culliford

Just because I want to wear high heels to work, that doesn’t make me a brainless bimbo.

21 September 2009

The biggest news from last week’s Trades Union Congress in Liverpool struck a chord with the nation’s workers. Well, half of them at least.

A call for fair and transparent pay, perhaps? Or maybe support for affordable, convenient childcare? Nope. The hot topic of conversation amongst the unionistas was high heels in the workplace, with a motion tabled describing them as demeaning to women and demanding that no one be forced to wear them.

Aside from the issue of whether the role of trade unions should be to discuss what we put on our feet, this does beg the question of why we wear high heels in the first place.

To simply make us taller? If that’s the case, then why was Nicole Kidman so thrilled to dig her heels out after her divorce from Tom Cruise given that lack of stature clearly wasn’t the problem?

To attract the opposite sex, then? According to my male colleagues, the sound of heels on floor is more of an irritant than an aphrodisiac. Truth is, some of us just like wearing them. Whether the choice is for aesthetic, power or height reasons, there’s just something irresistible about the perfect pair.

Of course, high heels in the workplace aren’t just an issue for women. Comedian Eddie Izzard became known for his stand up in stilettos and the French President Nicolas Sarkozy would be, if not lost, then certainly shorter without his stacked heels.

Historically, the high heel is thought to have been developed for men and for a practical purpose – to prevent feet slipping out of stirrups when riding. Kings and queens alike then popularised the style for fashion purposes. Over time, though, they became almost exclusively the preserve of women and branded a tool of male oppression.

Some feminists have argued that women are held back and objectified when they choose to cripple themselves in a pair of wedges, stilettos or kitten heels. The transfer of this debate into the workplace is one that goes further than footwear.

The fact is that women have a wider variety of sartorial choices in general each morning before they head off to work. Even in offices where suits and ties aren’t required, men are likely to stick to the traditional trousers-shirt/t-shirt combo, teamed with a pair of unexciting, and almost invariably, flat shoes. Short of turning up topless, they’re unlikely to be accused of being sexually provocative, whatever they wear.

For women, a slightly low-cut blouse or skirt above the knee, on the other hand, can lead to disapproving (or worse, lecherous) looks and aspersions cast on a woman’s character.

Some have called for a work ‘uniform’ for women to become the norm, to make them as bland-looking as their male colleagues. Personally, I don’t think that such a move would make any difference. Women can, and do, customise their uniforms at the first possible opportunity.

When I was at school, it was amazing how many combinations of our conservative, ‘appropriate’ uniform could be seen in the halls. Prim, knee-length skirts were hitched up to crotch height, shirt buttons mysteriously came undone, and interpretations of ‘mid-height’ heels were liberal, to say the least.

But as grown-ups should we know better? Are we demeaned by putting on a pair of heels to go to the office? It is less than a hundred years since women were given the right to do most jobs, let alone to make choices about what to wear when we get there. Are we therefore undermining our right to employment equality by turning up in a pair of stilettos?

As far as I’m concerned, my right to wear six-inch heels is based on the same grounds as my right not to have to cover up in a burqa or to walk the streets without fear of being raped. I can do this because I believe that men are intelligent enough to realise that, just because they can see my ankles, I don’t necessarily want to sleep with them. Just as wearing high heels doesn’t make me a brainless bimbo.

With women’s continuing lack of complete equality in the workplace still a sticking point, is the answer to force women into Crocs? Of course not.

The height of my shoe has no more bearing on my ability to do my job than does the colour of my skin or my sexual preferences. By tabling motions on this issue, the Trades Union Congress does nothing more than reinforce stereotypes and draw attention to irrelevant differences between the sexes. If it wants true workplace equality in the shoe stakes, however, perhaps the answer, instead of getting women out of heels, is to get more men into them…

This article is published with the author's permission. © Zandra Culliford. All rights reserved.

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Covering heads and veiling poverty

Gihan Abou Zeid

In Egypt, Hijabless women are becoming a shrinking and marginalised minority who have to keep their bare heads down.

3 September 2009

Arabic version

After dressing hurriedly, I asked my daughter if my clothes were appropriate for a public occasion in a poor Cairo neighbourhood. Smiling patiently, she told me: “You look great. Now you have to leave immediately.”

As I pushed open the door of the lift on my way out of the building, I ran into my teenage neighbour who is a year, or even a few months, younger than my daughter. “Hello, Ramadan Karim,” I said to him, smiling.

He did not answer, and mumbled to himself as if he’d seen something sinful: “A’ouz billah (I seek refuge in God).” Among the 30 or so women who live in our building, only two do not cover their heads or veil their faces, my daughter and I.

Women who bare their heads have become a minority in Egypt as a wave calling on women to cover up has swept through the country. Egypt’s streets are now teeming with colourful headdresses but the black ones are casting a longer shadow.

A superficial reading of the hijab phenomenon would reveal a rise in religiosity. A deeper analysis would uncover a wide range of economic, political and social dimensions which differ from one class to the next.

The hijab has lifted a burden off the shoulders of the poorest families, where it is used not only to cover the head but also to conceal, or at least disguise, poverty. The traditional dress, the galabiya or jilbab, is available in the market for reasonable prices. In addition, thanks to its bagginess and diplomacy in dealing with the female form, the dress can be shared by the women of the family and complemented with inexpensive scarves in a broad range of colours.

The headscarf also saves on hair care, not only in terms of money but also in terms of the time spared by women who barely have the luxury to sleep between the multiple jobs and functions they must perform.

In poorer areas, the hijab also affords its wearer a certain measure of respect as a “pious woman”. This is appreciated by the local men and reassures the women. By dressing in this way, a woman is sending out a concise and elegant message that she is adhering to the commandments of her faith.

But the prevalence of the headdress in all the poorer areas and in most middle class households raises the question of whether the hijab still carries the same religious significance.

In one of Cairo’s major hotels, I met Iman, a bright young woman who served drinks there. In accordance with the norms of the tourism sector, she was wearing a short skirt and tight clothes. But as the clock struck midnight, she underwent a major transformation. Before me stood the same woman but with her hair covered and her body concealed in a far more modest dress.

Iman informed me that she was on her way home. She told me that she didn’t want to lead a two-faced existence and that she was not happy with her false appearance at work or in the neighbourhood where she lives.

But Iman, who grew up in one of Cairo’s working class districts, knows very well that she could lose a lot if she rebelled against the local mores and refused to cover her head. In order to protect herself and her family, she wears the hijab.

Meanwhile, at the hotel, she needs to safeguard her livelihood, and so removes her headscarf. And between baring and hiding their hair, women’s identities are taken away from them, until they lose them with time, and become unable to answer the simple question: why do you cover your hair?

The hijab no longer carries the same religious significance it previously possessed. In fact, it now resembles a kind of new national dress, invented against a religious backdrop. Different rival groups compete in investing in it. Some Islamic groups see in its increasing acceptance a silent vote of confidence in their social success. Domestic fashion houses see in the spread of the hijab an appreciation of their talent for designing an endless assortment of headdresses. For their part, Egyptian families are proud of their conservative daughters.

Therefore, this unofficial national dress which expresses “conformity” carries no religious significance. Today, the pious have to go a step further to stand out in not standing out by donning a baggy black over-garment which completely conceals both the hair and the body. This attire is an extreme expression of conformity with the commandments of religion.

Women who have reached this stage do not recognise the piety of their sisters who merely cover their hair and find those who go around bare-headed so alarming that they pray for their salvation.

In this dress hierarchy, the weakest are the women who bare their hair because of their shrinking ranks. Moreover, their resistance to the hijab prompts others to exert peer pressure on them, reinforcing their sense of isolation. In fact, the status of women who do not cover up has grown to resemble the ostracisation experienced by minorities.

So my silence in the face of a teenager's disapproval can be seen as the kind of prudence exercised by small minorities throughout the ages. I’m just keeping my bare head down!

Translated from the Arabic by Khaled Diab. © Gihan Abou Zeid. All rights reserved.

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In the name of equality

By Khaled Diab

Society is becoming more equal but our surnames – borrowed from fathers and husbands – lag behind. Is there a fairer system?

November 2008

According to Arabic naming practices, my name reveals a fair bit about my family history. In fact, a casual observer can trace my ancestry back three generations – not to mention the n^th generation in which the original Diab lived. However, this only applies to my male ancestors. My name keeps a discreet silence when it comes to my female forebears.

In Europe, middle names are generally chosen and, so, often reveal little about intermediate ancestors (unless they are the names of grandparents). Nevertheless, names here still carry the patriarchal seal of the male founder of the family.

It is still common practice, at least in Anglo-Saxon society, for women to adopt their husbands’ surnames. And a wife’s identity can be so subsumed by her husband’s that she takes on his full name, especially in official correspondences or more traditional ceremonies.

Luckily for my wife and I, given our belief in equality, this is not the practice either in Belgium or Egypt, where a woman keeps her maiden name. I don’t know if this is a sign of greater equality in this particular aspect, an accident of history, or simply reflects a different patriarchal emphasis, i.e. that of a woman’s father rather than her husband.

Nevertheless, children still take on their father’s name. Of course, the practice may have originated partly for practical reasons – my wife speculates that it may have started off as a simple acknowledgement of paternity, a way for a man to say to society that I recognise this child as mine, too, and the way for a woman to ensure that he does his share of the caring.

Nevertheless, I find this inherently unfair to the mother. Because I am a Diab, that means I am labelled and pigeon-holed in society’s consciousness as belonging to my father’s family but not my mother’s.

Where is the mother acknowledged in all this? Barack Obama illustrates this conundrum well. Although his father had little role in raising him, the president elect bears his name – whereas his mother and her family get little acknowledgment, in his name, for their far greater role.

Personally, I have previously toyed with the idea of taking on my mother’s surname, Khattab, at least informally, in order to acknowledge the greater role she has played in my upbringing and my closer affinity to her family.

Intriguingly, there is a tribe in Indonesia in which, contrary to most of humanity, children’s family names follow the matriarchal line. In fact, with a population of up to 7 million, the Minangkabau are the largest group of people to use a matronymic naming system. And it is not only names that are passed down along the mother’s line – property, too, is matrilineal. Men’s role is to handle affairs of state and religion.

It will probably surprise many to learn that the Minangkabau are ardent Muslims. However, they have striven to preserve their native matriarchal culture and strike a balance between it and Islam’s more patriarchal worldview. And this women-friendly society, which reveres the importance of learning, has not done at all badly for itself, over-represented as it is in Indonesia’s professional classes and top government offices. Unsurprisingly, the country’s first female minister was a Minang.

That said, replacing patronymic names with matronymic ones is still not an ideal solution, since they replace one inequality with another. My wife and I have mused over how children could be named in a way that would be fair to both parents. There’s the option of merging family names.

But, here in Belgium, that’s no longer possible – apparently it creates confusion regarding people’s identity – while, in Egypt, the bureaucracy is so rigid as to rule out such flexibility. Besides, given their profusion among the aristocracy, double-barrelled names carry a certain pomposity that can be lived without.

Another option is to give alternate children alternate surnames. The drawbacks are that you need to have at least two kids and, ideally, an even number of sprogs. It would also prove confusing to outsiders, particularly the authorities, in terms of ascertaining parent-child and child-child relations – which could actually be rather entertaining.

It seems there is no easy way to make naming practices egalitarian (i.e. both patronymic and matronymic) without each of us being given a name as along as the Channel Tunnel. But is showing lineage really that important, at least when we become adults? Perhaps the only truly fair solution is to let everyone invent or choose their own surname when they come of age. That way, we’ll be celebrating the individual and sending out a message that family is a private affair.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 16 November 2008. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

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Introducing equanomics

By Khaled Diab

Governments need to rethink their economy policies to make them more equitable and responsive to citizens’ needs.

January 2009

Reading the business pages is like wading through a nuclear wasteland littered with ‘toxic assets’. Gordon Brown is now working to limit the damage from this radioactive debt with a multi-billion pound safety net for the financial system. This, along with the hundreds of billions the government has already pledged, not to mention the tens of billion it has already spent, has sparked warnings of possible bankruptcy for the UK.

Since it rippled out from the subprime scandal in the United States, the global financial crisis has seen taxpayers exposed to mind-boggling liabilities, potentially counting in the trillions. While the financial sector sends the wider economy into a recessionary tailspin, what have the architects of the disaster been up to?

Rather than face paying the price for the ruin they have visited on others, top executives have been giving each other golden handshakes before donning their diamond-encrusted parachutes and leaping out of the blazing wrecks they have left for governments to keep airborne with both engines burning.

But even in the United States, it seems that people have lost patients with the executive caviar train. Last week, the Senate said it would not approve any more bailout money without strict limits being imposed on executive pay.

The brewing outrage is hardly surprising when you consider that, as millions face the prospect of the dole and losing their homes, top managers are sitting pretty and laughing. Take the Merril Lynch executive who got $25 million for three months work or, on this side of the Atlantic, the €4 million payoff received by the former chief financial officer of Belgian-Dutch Fortis Bank, which benefited from a government bailout to the tune of €11.2 billion.

Even George W Bush, a leading cheerleader of neo-liberal economics who has probably done more than any other president to fatten the bottom line of corporate America, has been making ominous threats. “Anyone engaging in illegal financial transactions will be caught and persecuted,” he recently said. Appalled as I am by the exuberant excesses at the top, as a strong believer in human rights, I cannot tolerate talk of persecution.

What needs to be done is not only to limit executive pay in banks receiving government bailouts but across the board. We need a general cap on earnings, which would be high enough to provide an incentive for people to perform and strive but low enough to prevent major economic injustice.

But that, in itself, is not enough. We need to rethink our approach to the economy and herald in a new age of what I call equanomics, where the success of an economy is judged by how well it improves citizens’ well-being, narrows the gap between them, and truly provides them with equal opportunities.

At present, there is too much of a tendency to regard the economy as somehow existing outside of society. But this false separation has led policy-makers in many countries to put the interests of the market ahead of the interests of the people. Equanomics would remove the false barriers between the economy, markets and society, and social indicators – such as quality of life, education and health – would count as much as macro- and microeconomic indicators.

In addition to maximum and minimum limits on income, under equanomics, salaries would be determined not only according to a job’s market value but also its social worth through, say, an impartial index which draws on the views of experts and the general public to assess the social value of different jobs. Of course, this might mean that top executives will be taxed extra to raise the pay of nurses.

Some will argue that only free markets can create the wealth needed to improve people’s lives and that communism only succeeded in impoverishing societies in its quest for equality. I am not advocating the imposition of a communist dystopia, but the sort of enlightened blend of socialism and capitalism that served Europe well in the post-war years and has helped Scandinavia to have its cake and allow the majority of citizens to eat it.

Besides, free market capitalism has failed dismally to create the utopia it promised. Despite the laudable talk of equal opportunities, economic disparity robs millions of the opportunity to shine and succeed. For example, an upper-class boy in the UK is 30 times more likely to land a top job than a boy from the unskilled working class. Contrast this with the countries with the highest social mobility, such as the Nordic countries and Canada, which also happen to be the countries with the lowest inequality. This means that there can be no equal opportunity without greater economic equality.

The free market, as we currently know it, is actually not an ‘invisible hand’ that dispenses impartial economic justice. The big players, from oligarchs to dominant or pseudo-monopolistic corporations, have a massive distortionary effect on the efficient functioning of the market.

This is reflected in the rapidly rising levels of global income and wealth inequality, which has led the UN to sound the alarm on the possibility of widespread social unrest, not only in developing countries, but also in the United States, Britain, Spain and Greece (which was recently plagued by riots).

In the UK, since income disparity rose at unprecedented rates in the 1980s, those Thatcherite levels of economic inequality have been perpetuated, with the super rich racing even further ahead, the middle classes getting a modest piece of the action, and the lowest income groups being left behind to eat everyone else’s dust.

Of course, given the fact that multinationals are of a size to rival small, prosperous nation states and the financial markets can punish governments for stepping out of line, the need for coordinated intergovernmental action has become all the more urgent. In this regard, governments can harness the power of the EU and other regional blocs, and even reinvent the World Trade Organisation, to make globalisation fairer and more equitable.

The current crisis risks deepening the wealth gap, as millions in the middle and lower income brackets face the prospect of imminent unemployment and pay cuts, while government funds are exhausted underwriting the welfare of the wealthy. We need governments to put equanomic principles at the heart of their policy if we are to avoid widespread social conflict and enhance socio-economic justice.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 19 January 2009. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

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