High heels may be uncomfortable but wearing high heels makes men more helpful to women asking for help or in obvious need of help from another person. Shoe height does not make women any more helpful to other women. This first-of-its-kind research was conducted by Nicolas Guéguen of the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France.
High heels are associated with heightened sexual interest in women that wear them on the part of men anecdotally but no research has proven the fact. The study was interested in the difference in the behavior of men toward women that wore high heels and women that wore “sensible” shoes. A sexual context could be inferred but only one of the situations involved in the observational research could be inherently considered sexual.
The research participants asked men and women to fill out a survey wearing high heels and flat shoes. The participants also recorded the response of men and women to being of assistance when they dropped a pair of gloves while wearing high heels and flat shoes. The third part of the experiment examined the speed with which men attempted to strike up a conversation in a bar with a woman wearing high heels or flat shoes.
Men were more helpful to women that wore high hells. Women were not any more helpful or any less helpful to another woman wearing high heels. Men were much more likely to approach a woman wearing high heels in a bar.
The researchers claim that the behavior on the part of men may be related to the portrayal of models in high heels in advertising. Men associate high heels with sexuality. Helpfulness is a means of approach that is not sexually apparent but is sexually motivated. Further study is proposed for the effect that high heels have on women’s movements while wearing them that could be considered provocative.
