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shiningarmorindark-blog · 6 years ago

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There has been lot of difference present between design and structure of men and women’s feet but the question is whether these differences can be of availability of well-fitting, functional, and comfortable footwear for both women and men or not and it is not limited to any country which is largely being ignored.

Scientific concept behind design

Each design in our body according to science, has been designed to suit our sex/gender and to play different roles in reproduction process. Women’s feet is not just a smaller part of men’s design of feet there exists some differences in arch shape, arch length, big toe bones, ball of foot. A study conducted in USA of feet measurements of 300 men and 500 women in US army revealed that Women have wiser forefoot than men but shorter arch length and shorter toe bones as compared to men. It also revealed that men’s toes are thicker and women’s have thicker ankles than men. They have longer and wider feet than female and these studies simply signifies that women’s feet is just a scaled-down version of men’s feet. Not only this, major classification of gender by this structure and 85% classification of gender from this design were correct. The average men’s feet size is 10 according to UK and average women’s feet size is six. Other scientists who are not able to reach for a perfect reason behind these differences says that it is body which is made by god and it came naturally.

Survey supporting to scientific facts

Measurements of right feet of 51 females were taken aged between 20-59 years and 39 males aged between 22-71 years by methods of manual measurements, optical scans and the results show that men’s feet are longer in length (181.5 mm) and wider while that of women were shorter in length (165 mm). There were also great differences in arch length, toe size etc. which was observed as said above.

Gender biased?

Existence of gender is not limited to any arguments on feminism but it also exists in even small structure of human body like feet. Exact logic behind this design is impossible to look for as it is not human made design so how can a human judge on design which is not human made? Therefore it is useless to define what should be the ideal size of feet of men and women resulting in a serious gender bias approach giving a totally baseless mentality to society in form of range of sizes of feet telling the society to assume any person unusual or completely new on seeing feet of men with smaller size and women with bigger size of feet and see them as if they have committed any serious crime. It deals with major inequality between genders without any logical sense. It is also a matter of giving complete freedom to judge people even on their size of feet being completely insensitive towards their feelings and specially in country like India, a place where judging a person even in burkha(Where whole body is covered) is not new and seems interesting for people, how people can resist by not judge on size of feet?

Advantages

• More variety of shoes

• Predefined

• Cost effective

• Defined range of sizes

• Less cost of research and analysis

• Less wastage of shoes being unused

Disadvantages

• Strong assumption

• Strongly gender biased

• Useless high demands-high prices

• Low availability of shoes

• Low options of market for getting shoes

• Loopholes of shopping sites on internet

• Low options getting of personal choice

Design socially interpreted

It is assumed due to scientific feet structure present in both men and women that men would be compulsorily in possession of wider and long feet while women will naturally have small feet size therefore it is forcefully unavoidable for a both genders to face problems for the availability of perfect comfort shoe in the market at the time if buying. To my surprise, they are also bounded to hear different comments from shopkeeper of shoes that “How size of this small/big feet size can be available here?” or “Sorry, you will have to fit in the size available otherwise product of your size is very difficult to find for you”. A very unusual and weird feeling of feeling shame or strange about one’s foot size is created due to single taboo created by society in form of mere assumption of even feet size of men and women. People often address them with the size as “odd” or “Unusual” size. Often men or women faces society putting questions on their gender and passing vulghur comments like “Such a small size of feet, are you really men?” and this argument totally seems illogical to some but it do prevail in harsh society patterns. Therefore, it is assumed by society and even shoemakers that men with smaller foot size and women with bigger foot size will have to suffer from problems to find even comfortable shoe size to fulfill a very basic requirement.

Demand of the scenario

Now, the question arises is either size of women’s feet is getting longer or shoe’s size is getting smaller? Whether it is right of women as well of men to wear comfortable shoes or not? Whether men with feet of smaller size and women with feet of bigger size will be successful to get availability of shoe of their size in market?

Purpose of design

Various surveys have been taken and results are derived in order to define and fit a pre assumed mindset of people so that the average size of feet of men and women are predefined to shoemakers and retailers and various variety of shoes in form of various products is made available to people with that predefined size and shape.

Validity of above purpose

Defining various predefined sizes were successful to the extend of availability of various varieties of shoes to those women with small and narrower size of feet and men with large and wider size of feet but what about those who is not setting in the predefined size? The purpose of defining sizes were to benefit people on large but it is not benefitting society at large because people having sizes other than this suffer from low availability of shoe products of their size resulting to spend or rather to say waste their time and resources for basic requirement at time of buying shoes.

This low availability of shoe product makes rare of product to be available in the market and if it does make available in rare of rarest shops than it may have higher prices due to its low availability and high demand adding more to the price which will be higher usually due to because of extra small/big feet which not all classes of people e.g. poor can afford resulting in lowing validity of purpose of benefiting people at large more and more.

Prevailing design in market

The world is digitalized and it can prove very beneficial for both men and women with bit smaller or larger size respectively as an option to get their pair of shoes online saving their time and resources too rather than going out to find a suitable pair for themselves but this design is not only seen in physical market but also in shopping sites at internet. For e.g. if we take amazon, flip kart as examples, they offer wide range of products which are customizable as per order than also if we go to their footwear session, it is clearly displayed a particular range of sizes which is available and it does not sell products to those who have bigger or smaller size. This defined range also forces customer with no other options left to increase on their temper levels as if it is any sin to have a slightly bigger size being a women or slightly smaller size being a man. A naked example of difference in size charts at amazon can be seen in pictures.

In size charts, we can see that women’s size starts from 3 and don’t have shoes of feet size more than 8 while men’s feet size chart starts from 6 and don’t have shoes/sandals for feet size for less than 6.

Counterpart

Men having smaller and narrow size of feet Women having long and wider size of feet

Above pictures are naked proof sited by me to tell people that yes, their unusual sizes do exist, there is a possibility of men having smaller and narrow feet and women having long and broader leg. There is a need now to count on these sizes and make them feel proud instead to letting them burden themselves with harsh comments of society. It is a high time to tell all the brands of shoemakers to make all sizes of shoes available for both the genders equally.

Not limited to feet

Humans have no limit in creating stereotypes and therefore this discrimination does not limit to size of feet but also prevails in difference between size of leg, hairs, hands, resulting in low availability of products and choices resulting into unnecessary waste of mental and physical strength of people.

Conclusion

There is a strong discrimination prevailing in the society which is a misconception without any concrete logic behind it and this mentality will continue to prevail until we stop to analyze logics behind anything which is not man-made and establishing wrong mentality in society and be very conscious on message we are passing on to society because once a message will be fitted in people’s mindset than it will again take same amount of years to change that mentality equal to years that has been gone to build this mentality.

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