Men strap on high heels for a good cause,
Hundreds of men take to the streets in support of women
There I was, trying on high heels at a shoe store at Toronto Eaton Centre when a couple of old friends walked in. I hastened to explain: The goal was footwear for my Walk a Mile in Her Shoes, an event that encourages men to walk in heels to raise money for a noble cause.
“It’s just a mile I have to walk,” I said. “That’s 1.6 kilometres. Not too far.” “That’s a long way to go in pumps,” replied my friend Charlie. How would he know? (He was right, of course.)
The White Ribbon Campaign organizes Toronto’s event. Like partner organizations around the world, it’s dedicated to eradicating violence against women.
Over five previous years, Walk a Mile events in Toronto have raised $500,000. This year, organizers announced a $135,000 haul raised by about 700 participants before the first heel struck downtown sidewalks.
The concept comes from the adage that says you can’t really understand another person’s perspective until you’ve walked a mile in her shoes. Whereas women are welcome to do the walk, men are particularly encouraged to go for a stroll. Wearing women’s shoes is not just a symbolic gesture.
It cleverly forces us to confront the pains that women are especially prone to — male violence, of course, but over the course of a painful mile with pinched feet, men may realize there are all sorts of hardships that women have to contend with and we generally don’t. Three-inch stilettos — like the ones I unwisely chose — are the pointy tip of that iceberg.
Solidarity with women is a key motivator for many of the men who take part in Walk a Mile. As a custom eyelash artist Paddy Williams said as he clomped along, it makes sense to contribute to a cause that helps women.
“All my clients are women,” he said. Not only that, but “I have a couple close friends . . . who have been in abusive relationships.”
A man strutting around in floral shoes gets a lot of attention, especially when the heels co-ordinate nicely with a flowery tie (if I do say so myself).
As the participants prepped at Yonge-Dundas Square, women stopped me to admire the shoes, giggle and take photos for social media. But mirth quickly gave way to concern. They warned me that I was in for a lot of pain if I didn’t tread carefully. When the walk commenced, the shoes were pinchy and painful indeed, but worse was the fact that they made me lag. Literature prepared for the walk promised that we men would “swagger in stilettos” — but swagger is precisely what I couldn’t do. I paced along the half-closed off streets with tentative little steps, swaying like a baby giraffe or apprentice stilt walker. Eventually, I wound up at the back of the pack, behind even a small boy in pink kitten heels. So I did what any woman would do in that situation. I took off my heels and walked down the street in bare feet.
As I strolled along with heels in hands like a pooped late-night par- tier, half a dozen women must have shouted encouragement from the sidewalks. They knew my pain. “It’s OK, dear, we’ve all been there,” hollered one smartly dressed woman on Bay Street.