There was a time when I had to actively seek out television shows featuring strong women. They were out there, sure, but they were few and far between. Even those that existed were often filled with the faux-feminist trope of people saying, “but you can’t do that! You are a girl”, and then having the girl do that thing, telling us over and over again that society doesn’t expect very much from women. These days, however, it is a far more regular occurrence to see the screen filled with bad-ass ladies. Even better, the "but you're a girl" nonsense has been replaced by a general acceptance; it’s no longer a question that a woman can be a CEO, a villain, or a superhero.
The CW’s Supergirl is one such show. Not only are the women on it a realistic mix of smart, aggressive, awkward, and flawed, but so are the men, and the dynamics between them are filled with cooperation and respect (except in cases where it’s a part of the story line to mess with those dynamics). There are many ways in which the show is extremely empowering, but there is one that particularly sticks out to me: The shoes.
Now, Supergirl of course wears her iconic red boots, and the other crime-fighting women sport footwear appropriate to the task at hand. But when Supergirl is living as Kara Danvers, stylish millennial career woman, she too wears sensible shoes!
This is not a focal point of the show. Never once has it been mentioned, and a lot of people might not even notice it. For me, though, it’s a flashing neon sign of empowerment. It is always a sore spot for me that whenever a woman on TV is supposed to look professional and respectable, she is basically always put in heels - the higher the heel, the more important the woman. This matters because, even though art is supposed to imitate life, it’s often the other way around; what we see on television has a huge influence over how we perceive the world around us. So it is constantly being drilled into us that for a women to be taken seriously as a professional, she must suffer the pain and agony of high heels (not to mention possessing a superhuman equilibrium).
I do my best to rebel against this expectation on my own, but it’s difficult. When I go into a business meeting wearing my flats, or god-forbid, my lace-up dress shoes, I feel self-conscious, like I might as well have shown up in ripped jeans and a hoodie. I tell myself that I’m doing my small part to normalize sensible shoes in the workplace, but since no one is particularly interested in my politically motivated fashion decisions, I don't actually get to defend my choices out loud.
So from the front lines of the footwear battlefield, this is my love letter to whoever is responsible for wardrobe on Supergirl. One of the great powers of television, for good or ill, is the ability to normalize things for viewers. The more we see something on TV, the less surprised we are to see it in real life, whether it's the products we use, the music we listen to, or the clothes that we wear. So when I see Kara Danvers heading off to work in in her sensible shoes, it makes me feel like I have an ally in this war on mutilated feet.
