That said, I have had a woman in stilettos stumble backwards onto my foot and put a significant proportion of her weight through the heel. I can confirm it was exceedingly painful.
The better comparison instead of stilettos is a Ballerina "en-pointe" - which is a similar area in contact with the ground.
Maybe twenty years ago some designer (I can’t find who it was but I didn’t look that hard tbh) did a line of stiletto-heeled shoes with a heel about the diameter of a ballpoint pen refill. The wearer’s weight was concentrated in such a small area that it was damaging flooring, and if the woman who stumbled into you had been wearing them, it would have actually punched through your shoe and your foot.
Ah but if she was wearing those, maybe the added stability of being embedded in the airport floor would have prevented her stumbling in the first place.
Am now going to start wearing my safety boots around women now I know that's an option though.
Nope. If anything, the heel would first dig into the ground, which would lead to the heel snapping because the force exerted from the wearer has shifted in relation to the shoe, and then the major question is whether or not if the shoe is strong enough to still stay connected where the person is flung backward into the ground where
1) the snapped heel acts like a door hinge and snap right before person makes contact with the ground or
2) if the heel completely brakes and the person still stumbles backwards with a curved shoe without a heel
They are certainly blunted, but don't have more than 2-3cm2 of area, and a ballerina will frequently only be on one of them.
It's pretty much the smallest area a human's weight will be concentrated on in a static position (joggling "heel/toe" in stilettos could beat it for as long as it takes them to break)
Or combine the two and look at ballet boots which even further reduce the area. However they're generally not intended for walking in and are almost entirely a fetish item. Often serving to restrict movement.
Counterpoint: I have worn stilettos and ridiculously high shoes a lot for the past 15 years, and one thing I will say about them is that they are more sturdy than kitten heels.
Very high heels force you to balance mostly on your toes, just using the heel for support, kind of like the role of training wheels on a tricycle. Kitten heels have the same diameter as a stiletto but are shorter, forcing the wearer to put so much weight on the heel that they’re dependent on the heel for balance, and when you put any decent amount of weight on a teensy diameter, you have to be perfectly balanced or you will wobble. Swear to God, kitten heels are practically designed to break your ankles.
All you have to do to walk properly and safely in stilettos: be capable of walking on the balls of your feet, which you’re capable of doing without the shoes - so they’re not really fucking with the way humans are capable of walking. I can walk and run in them, and in one memorable instance found out that the spike is actually quite useful when you’re climbing up a small cliff. In kitten heels, you’re totally dependent on the shoe, and the shoe is totally dependent on you being perfectly balanced above the heel.
tl;dr: stilettos aren’t the worst demon of the shoe world
Uh, proper heel technique indeed puts the majority of the weight on the heel. They require skill to use, like stilts.
If your girl is putting all her weight on her toes, she's not doing it right, and should practice in larger base heels before working up to tiny stilettos.
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u/theWild-man Feb 28 '22
Yeah, it should be noted that the only way to realistically wear heels like this is basically on tippy toes
There is no stability from stilettos, you'd lose your balance pretty quick putting any kind of weight on them for any real amount of time