Gender, Sexuality & Identity

''Men were deemed rational and educatable; women were irrational, sentimental, and uneducatable. Dress became an expression of these two different modes of gender-specific behavior. Men began to wear more dour clothing. They gave up makeup and highly ornamented clothing and heels. Those accoutrements became signifiers of femininity—especially the high heel, since it’s an irrational form of footwear…it became associated with femininity, and then was eventually linked to female desirability.''

- Elizabeth Semmelhack, Sex, Power & High Heels