The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to examine why some women choose to wear high heels in their work environment, even though the shoes are uncomfortable according to some. The study also questions why women think other women choose to wear high heels, why they wear heels themselves and how the shoes effect the impression of the women by their surroundings. The methods used during the study were qualitative interviews of five women and literature studies. The material collected from the interviews were processed and analyzed from a feministic and a discourse perspective with a focus on communication through clothing and societies power systems between groups and norms. The study shows that the impression of the woman changes, depending on whether she wears high heels or not. The overall opinion among the interview respondents is that they like the impression the high heels give, but still choose not to use them due to different reasons. The majority of the respondents participating in the study express that they think it can be beneficial to use high heels and that there is a clear connection between societies’ power systems and the shoes. In the respondents’ work environments, the norm says that the women in the higher positions are those who primarily use high heels and that the staff lower down in the hierarchy prefer not to use high heels as it might annoy their bosses. Women who choose to wear high heels reflect both power and good self-esteem. With a higher heel the woman will appear as she has same height as her male colleague, which might give her the same authority and respect as the males.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-477506 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Söderström, Helene |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Konstvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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