High-heeled footwear

       During this summer vacation, I read a book named “50 shoes that can change the world”. High-heeled footwear (often abbreviated as high heels or simply heels) is footwear that raises the heel of the wearer's foot significantly higher than the toes and often can be worn without socks. When both the heel and the toes are raised equal amounts, as in a platform shoe, it is technically not considered to be a high heel; however, there are also high-heeled platform shoes. High heels tend to give the aesthetic illusion of longer, more slender and more toned legs. High heels come in a wide variety of styles, and the heels are found in many different shapes, including stiletto, pump (court shoe), block, tapered, blade, and wedge. 

      According to high-fashion shoe websites like Jimmy Choo and Gucci, a "low heel" is considered less than 2.5 inches (6centimeters), while heels between 2.5 and 3.5 inches (8.5 cm) are considered "mid heels", and anything over that is considered a "high heel".

      Although high heels are now almost exclusively worn by girls and women, there are shoe designs worn by both genders that have elevated heels, including cowboy boots and cuban heels. In previous ages, men also wore high heels. 

      The history of the high-heeled shoe, or a shoe whose heel is higher than the toe, is a matter of contentious and heated discussion. Shoes in general have typically served as markers of gender, class, race, and ethnicity—and both the foot and the shoe have been imbued with powerful phallic and fertility symbols as evidenced in the contemporary practice of tying shoes to a newlywed couple's car. No other shoe, however, has gestured toward leisure, sexuality, and sophistication as much as the high-heeled shoe. Fraught with contradiction, heels paradoxically inhibit movement in order to increase it, at least in appearance. Standing in heels, a woman presents herself already half-walking while at the same time reducing the length of her step, fostering the illusion of speed while suggesting an imminent fall. The higher and more unstable the heel, the more clearly these contradictions are expressed (Kunzle, 2004)[where?]. Doctors and scholars alike have argued about the physical and cultural effects, both positive and negative, that heels have had not only on women, but on society as a whole.