Prime Minister Theresa May Pressured to Ditch Her Heels to ‘Set an Example’ for Women

Can women in power truly command respect if they are wearing high heels? Not according to a group of trade union leaders in the U.K., who are calling upon British Prime Minister Theresa May to ditch her signature kitten heels for flats so she can “set an example” by wearing “sensible shoes.”

The call for flats came out of a conference of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which represents union workers to the government, being held in Brighton, England. The conference is backing a new law that would ban policies that force women to wear heels in the workplace — a reaction to a much publicized incident in May, in which 27-year-old London receptionist Nicola Thorp was sent home for not wearing high heels at the office.

The TUC leaders are calling for May’s support on the effort, and for her to take a symbolic step — down and out of her much-talked-about kitten heels.

“Our new Prime Minister may be well known for her leopard-print kitten heels, her leather boots, and her Jimmy Choos, but if she really wants to advance the cause for women in the workplace there are two things she can do,” union leader Penny Robinson said, after removing her own high heels. “The first is to make a point of wearing pumps, flats, and comfortable shoes for Cabinet, for PMQs [Prime Minister’s Questions], and for meeting all those EU leaders. Let the media see that you can be the most powerful woman in the country … without needing to wear designer shoes to meet men’s expectations.”

Robinson added, “For once, set an example we can actually be proud of.”

But so far the request has fallen, well, flat — at least on Twitter:

Fern Riddell, historian and author of The Victorian Guide to Sex, inspired a lively dialogue as she continued posting about the controversy, adding, “Having a PM in leopard-print heels is great, and it doesn’t have any impact on her ability to be or be seen as a powerful woman,” and “If Penny Robinson, GMB delegate, wants to ‘further the cause of women,’ perhaps NOT attacking women for what they wear is a place to start.”

This is far from the first time there’s been such scrutiny of the footwear — not to mention clothing, hair, and anything else having to do with style or beauty — of a woman in a position of leadership. To wit: Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits, Madeleine Albright’s jewelry, Angela Merkel’s brightly colored jackets, and Christine Lagarde’s tailored suits.

And while Clinton, for the most part, has opted for sensible flats (particularly on the grueling campaign trail), many of the leaders, as well as their supporters, have noted that it should be the individual’s choice, and no one else’s.

At Tina Brown’s Women in the World summit, for example, May said during a stage interview: “I’m a woman; I like clothes. One of the challenges for women in politics, in business, in all areas of working life, is to be ourselves, and to say you can be clever and like clothes.”

A recent Atlantic story concurred. “Women leaders in business as well as in politics experiment with sleek dresses and chic stilettos, and their choices are rarely treated, in the media, as compromises to their power,” the writer noted. “Clinton’s pantsuits, for all they have accomplished for her candidacy, have called to mind [Margaret] Thatcher’s own sartorial motto: ‘Never flashy, just appropriate.’ It will be a good day, though, when being ‘flashy’ and being ‘appropriate’ will not be assumed — in fashion as in anything else a woman might do — to contradict each other.”

Something tells us that May, despite pressure from TUC, will continue to champion that belief.

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