High Heels and Fancy Women: Russian Stories with Morals

On beauty, prostitutes, good women, gender roles, consumerism and compensation – through the cultural difference of Former Soviet Union countries

• Story 1

I’ve just watched a TV show “Beauty Factory (Made in Ukraine)”, where they take “visually challenged” women and improve their lives with surgery, stylist crafts, psychology backup. Boyfriends fall on their knees to make proposals, bosses promote, children start listening to the Fairy agape… This time even the show team couldn’t hold tears at the happy end, neither could I…

Imagine a small-town small busines woman (grocery sales), working as hard as hauling boxes of goods herself; born with cartoonish nose and chin; acquired old cowboy skin, dried-out hair, half-metal teeth, and heavy gait. Still, she had a family, – faithful husband (quite youngish and good-looking!), adult son and daughter. She never thought about changing anything, till first seen by her little granddaughter, who took her for a Wicked Witch…

With a reclaimed face and restored health, in a robe maybe first in her life, she turned another woman – without exaggeration. A movie star of sophistication and serenity. Started dressing smart, grooming, making up. Her familymen, unblinded, took over the main workload (finally!). The husband jumps over his head to win more bread, brings her breakfasts into bed every day, fears to let her hand off his, and explores his newly discovered painter’s talent – and this is an expression of happiness you can’t act for publicity, jealousy or bitchipulations.

• History

Imagine living in a world of one brown-gray color. Where you have to exhaust yourself – only to be let undergo a prolonged humiliation of your human dignity (pesticided for generations) – in order to grasp a chance – to struggle with the ridiculous quality and ultimate inconvenience of a consumer product – so that to satisfy any of your survival-basic daily needs.

Not that you couldn’t be happy other than of serving the Great Country. “Excavated a pair of tights (no matter what size and color) – Delight! Intercepted sausage supplied to the shop, and your queue ended just before the sausage did – Joy! Hot water is back – Bliss!” (More quotations after Zadornov include “one sort of cheese – Cheese” and “a shelf of prodgy” pretending to be shoes.)

…This was the Soviet Union.

Imagine being ushered in the whole new world of resplendent shine, clean colors, breathing space, delicate touch, uncompromised taste, fine aromas, sensual ergonomy, boundless variety, careful harmony. Where you can belong, shining, smooth, light and vigorous. Where you are recognized a Very Important Person.

…This has been the image of Abroad Paradise. This is the New Russian Policy.

Which world is the domain of powerful, unlimited, sophisticated, ballsy, wild, sporty, solid and respected Real Men – The Winners over hard-competitive males (leave alone the “substandard” to eat dust), The Winners of deserving females (particular as they are).

…This is the New Russian media for men.

Which world is inhabited by such great Men, only waiting to fling their hearts at your feet and shower you with luxury.

…This were the first New Russian media for women.

Soon our smart womenfolk figured that it’s a hard job and costly business, risk-above-reward, to stand up to the “Glamorous Woman” level (no money and time – no best-selling looks, no best-selling looks – no sponsor, earn money yourself – no time left for the “Vogue”cover standard treadmill, and the clock does tick-a-tock).

They find it easier to cater for themselves at some decent level of comfort and maintenance, and to afford no compromise on their conscience (which means, to seek not a bail-out marriage or a clientele, but a love in mutual respect), – easier than to spend your best years crawling and clawing to find and hold that “banker”, who can be killed in the criminalized business redistribution, even before he swaps you for a newer fashionable toy, according to the Alpha Male Game Code: “Forgive me darlings, I’ve fallen in love with another harem.”

…This is the difference of Russian “career” women.

Ironically, with an increase in economy, our society becomes more patriarchal! Men win business battles, women get the option of being provided for.

So, the path of “woman as profession” is attracting many. Any price, any term, any filling. And there’s hardly something to be added to the perennial hair-splitting along the axis “marriage vs. prostitution”. Dispute here, case studies here; where is the dividing point?

In the law? But here are common-law unions and police-patroned whore-shops.

In the exclusivity and duration of partnership? But here are kept-women and adulterous spouses.

In the price and responsibilities (“honest women do exist, Monsieur, but cost too much”)? Here are world-pillaring wives of cheap husbands, and multi-zero-billing party girls packed in all the wealth of gifts (up to cars and property). Here are all-included mistresses who even mother children for their lovers, and various ways to be a wife + mother + bed dream + comfortmaker – NOT – domestic servant. Here are some cultivated hetaerae and vacuous “goodies”.

In the attitude? But here are devoted lovers and hacked-for-some-use-only marriages. Here are competent nurturing and bitter destruction, whether to casual partners or marriage mates. Here are selective seekers and first-comer brides…

and civil servants whose main grievance in life is Valentino clothes hung on Versace wings (as I learned from one our vice-mayor’s interview to the Kiev community (!) newspaper). Indeed, top recent fashion news tend to leave no room in hearts and minds for other things. With his surgical eye and linguistic sense, Zadornov calls model girls “models of a human”.

There are only two things to be sure of.

1. With all the “liberation” swinging over the Former Soviet Union, – work or play, sex or refusal, being the first to lay or to dump, denying marriage prospects or billing for the good time, – any girl’s “unleashedness” is nothing more than lack of the One Special Man She Would Really Dream to Be With For Life. Unfortunately, in the modern Russian environment, it is a desire of getting married that a woman has to be shy of, so that not to send men running.

What a task, pal, – to show that you really want to marry, and for good reasons.

2. Oh this ancient bargain. “Is she a golddigger?” vs. “Wanna pretty little horse, pay for the ride”. Sex appeal and money can’t be taken from the equation, they need to be factored out beyond the brackets as a “ceteris paribus”. Men prefer to seek exceptional inner world inside a model body – women prefer to look for their destiny within the pool of good providers. The trouble begins, if there is nothing more about each other that they are interested in. (No pity either for fat f***ers who recognize the mate’s pretence only after depletion, nor for degraded she-prisonners of the “gold cage”).

So, each one must make sure that the two have SHOWN and SEEN enough PERSONAL QUALITIES in each other to accept, to be attracted to, and unable to live without.

• Now down to Their Highnesses the Heels.

There sure are loads of interpretations why they are so mesmerizing sexy.

Click-click, click-click – keep tracing her!

Strained body, rolling hips, and replicas of their sensual curves in the footwear itself – must be a sex-minded chick!

High posture, sharp stilettos – that hidden fantasy about a Dangerous Dominatrix (can this fortress be won? what is she like when laid?)

Slim balance – a prey doe not to run far, a fragile flower to protect, a piece of art for the art’s sake!

• Story 2

Once upon a time of Soviet Perestroika there lived a girl whose greatest desire of all her puberty was to wear high heels. It should be so cool, adult, sexy and beautiful. You know, early in life we all see most importance in looking cool, adult, sexy and beautiful.

She borrowed Mom’s “parade” shoes for the rare school dancing parties, and it made them holidays, which made her semesters (quarters, if we are exact about the school schedule). Then she bought a pair of red, ribboned pumps with a fee for some poetry (literature can be a rewarding hobby for a young girl), and wore them with red, black, white dresses, and even with blue jeans. Nice and quality wear was deficite yet, and Grandfather was already losing his CPSU-owed supply sway.

She was recognized a “half-major” by her overly-parenting old folks when they handed her over to her fellow-student fiancé, and got her “full-age confirmation” from them with her first job. Guess what it meant? Years on hign heels! Chasing public transport on 8 cm. Trampling mountains on 10 cm (her business trip “conventional” shoes differing from the “parade” alternative but by the softer silhouette – and she never hesitated to undertake the excursion to the landscape). 12 cm on the boots too slim to walk in any longer than a naughty time with her man (now they sell so much stuff of the design I can’t categorize any other than “bedroom boots”). Platformed slippers and platformed sport shoes, as she felt totally wrecked if she had to dismount from the acquired anatomy. One more nuisance was sexual harassment at work.

She only listened to all the doctors when her feet started cramping.

She’s heard compliments for pace grace in that period, but far more – since gearing to flat soles. More compliments to personal traits, though – is it her who became more friendly, or the attitudes more sincere? Could also endorse the scientific observation that the Efficiency of Using Individual Intellectual Resource drops when a woman is on high heels… oops, there was no double-blind testing on male cases.)

And she started noticing curious things…

Women who “found themselves”, stand sound on their feet or study with interest; enjoy spiritual things; cater for families; have proven their worth in work (whatever vocation); treat the world with kindness… or, on the opposite, women who put a tin lid over their life. Women who suffer public transport, or drive their earned (not owed to someone’s favor) cars. These are usually flying, stepping, or dragging in “practical” shoes.

Women who feel at danger; assess themselves through others’ eyes; live on men (man) or intend to; think in terms of “hunting”, “exploiting”, or, generally, transferring responsibility for themselves; who climb pedestals of power games and complain being dragged or kicked off them; and each of those who follow the “sex-drugs-most-recent-DJ-MTV” culture, – are catching equilibrium, stabbing the ground or tottering… you got the analogy.

There’s some distinct correlation between footwear design chosen and the social standing (position?) of a woman. If her feet are packed more like for walking on clouds, be ready to carry a china-doll-babe in your arms or to extend red carpets. Manolo Blahnik is “Sex and the City”.

But it’s up to you to make judgements…

the more that every Russian woman would put on those fancy stilettoes for some deserving event, – be it with grudge or with celebration that fills her with the elevating force raising her on her toes.

Because her core mission, important and sometimes sufficient, is to ADORN your Strong Man’s life.

And she definitely needs a Strong Man’s arm to lean on.

Enjoy yourselves!

Sincerely,

© Comrade Natalia

(…remember to link this page when using some info from here ;)