Women’s feet are supposed to be small and narrow, but what is constituted as ‘small’, varies from culture to culture and time to time. This is not just a tacit rule, the prevalence of small women’s feet is evident in the general lack of shoe sizes over 41 (9 ½ USA, 7 UK) in mainstream shoe industry and stores. When something as natural as the shoe size variety is being ignored – and not producing bigger shoe sizes is a capital consumer negligence – then big feet are being Othered or to put it differently, the society (and shoe industry in particular) is being sizeist.
Sizeism is a discrimination against a person on the basis of her/his/their body size (fat, thin, small or tall), but it also includes a less common prejudice against a person’s length and width of feet. This prejudice is far more problematic for women, whose feet size is larger than number 41. They fall out of the category to be ‘beautiful’ because western society’s notions of women’s beauty are intertwined with their feminine physicality. Beautiful = feminine.
