according to my aunt who lives and works in Manhattan, women switched immediately to flat shoes. She said for months you couldn't even find heels in store displays. Everyone was worried about being able to run, climb, or get out in a pinch. She said it was a sobering reminder of practicality, but on a purely shopping level kind of nice to have such a range of attractive flats for all occasions.

How quickly we forget that walking is a kind of handy skill to have.

they'll keep marketing it.

And as long as women and girls keep using fashion as a barometer of value, we'll never rule the world.

The men will keep standing back, alternately enjoying the sight of us (as in ogling) and the sight of us (catfighting each other over dumbass issues of fashion).

Let's see. I'm on 6" heels, I have to not just show my belly button but now a patch of fur, too, as well as the crack in the back...and lots of cleavage. Gosh, why won't anyone take me seriously?

Really. Who is holding a gun to your head and making you buy this shit?

I am 81 years old and for several years now I have thought the shoes incredibly ugly. And besides that women should see themselves walking in them. And how can women be taken seriously when they fall cowlike for such fashions? The half-shoes that cost so much money.

Women are really foolish to buy these shoes. Even the top models don't wear these shoes outside of a photo shoot or walking down the runway. A couple of years ago, CBS televised the Victoria's Secrets fashion show and very in-shape, thin models were wincing in pain backstage, hobbling to the curtain, worried about whether or not they could make it down the runway and back because their stilettos were so uncomfortable. If top models can't wear these shoes for more than a few minutes without appearing to be crippled by them, I think it tells us these items are never actually meant to be worn, just purchased.

High heels are simply the politically correct, mild, Western version of foot binding. Like many 'fashions', it's done for appearance and pleasing men, while it hobbles or is painful/ungainly for the woman.

We torture ourselves for 'beauty' just as surely as any 'less civilized' society does.

It's interesting how with all the attention on every little health risk in life, the media never talks about the permanent damage high heels do to your feet and legs, or the unhealthy discomfort and restrictiveness of many fashions for women.

Women are like lemmings, willingly following whatever expensive, torturous trend is the latest.

If you have real style, you don't follow trends...you make them.

In advance, let me say that I know that America's Next Top Model is not deep. But whatever, I watch it anyway. A few weeks ago the contestants were forced to walk down a runway in front of the judges, wearing shoes like those in the article. Friends, it was the most painful thing I've seen on tv in a long time - more hair-raising than the worst cow-sphincter-filled-with-live-hissing-cockroaches-eating challenge on Fear Factor.

One by one, the poor contestants hobbled down the runway, most of them teetering dangerously, and more than one of them falling off those platform heels onto their ankles. One ended up on crutches after crawling out of the room in shame.

While those death trap stilletos may be the rage, I'm thankful that there have also been a lot of flats and comfortable shoes on the market recently. Because I don't care how cute your stilletos are, there's nothing sexy about an ankle cast.

He said he likes heels. I told him that if he likes them, he was welcome to wear them. The subject never came up again.

I am seriously thinking of investing in companies that make (a) podiatry equipment and (b) hearing aids. Between stiletto heels and Ipods, I should make a killing, no?

More seriously, these shoes are ridiculous! Always have been, always will be. I *might* wear them for a lover, but only if I don't actually have to walk anywhere, and only if s/he has a serious shoe fetish... I am short, but the highest heels I ever wear are 2 inches (and then usually on books, so they are nice chunky heels, not stilettos...) I usually wear flats; there are so many nice comfy choices out there!

Luckily, I have the perfect excuse to wear whatever shoes I want to: I am diabetic, so I need to keep my feet healthy. But why should I or anyone else need an excuse to stay comfortable and healthy?

Children. in an earlier, wilder, and more sensible generation, nobody pretended that shoes like this were for made for walking.

We called them "knock me down and fuck me shoes." The only position they're even remotely tolerable in is the horizontal one. Any attempt at weight-bearing use is not only miserable; it's actually outside design parameters and recommended functional limits. Even Carrie Bradshaw fell flat on her face wearing them. The rest of us have no chance at all, and should not pretend for a moment that we do.

And while I'm at it:

When will fashion get off this interminable kick of trying to get every woman, regardless of age, weight, shape, inclination, or occupation, to dress like a low-class hooker? Who is buying this shit? Oh, yeah, right: it's the women I see at the mall. Who are, by the way, walking proof that this is one trend that needs to be OVER -- preferably two years ago.

I have had my lifetime quota of chubby belly buttons peeking out under too-small tank tops and pooching out over too-tight hip-huggers. I do not ever want to see another newsboy cap with hoop earrings. I am appalled by handbags that are the sartorial equivalent of a chopped-and-airbrushed '64 Nova with superfleck glitter paint, rhinestones, and charms hanging from the rearview mirror -- and actually big enough to park such a beast in. I do not want my jackets to have more hardware than Home Depot; and even more unreasonably, I want them cut large enough to actually button up when it gets cold.

I think bling is tacky, real women look hot in well-designed shoes under 2", and frosted or metallic anything makes women over 25 look like they're 60.

And I want knock-me-down-and-fuck-me shoes to go straight back to the bedroom, where they belong. Right this minute, please, before the whole current crop of fashion victims goes even farther down the road to hookerdom by spending most of their time on their backs in the streets because they're wearing shoes designed to keep them there.

Wake up, people. The 90s are over. We've got some work to do -- wars to end, an ecosystem to save, a political system in tatters. Most of us can do this work (and look damn good) in low heels, a smart pair of trousers, and a great top. But we cannot save the world, or make much in the way of useful contributions at all, in six-inch heels, hip-huggers, and clothes that make us look like we came to fuck.

Which may, of course, be the point.