For generations they have signified femininity and glamour - but a pair of high heels was once an essential accessory for men.

Beautiful, provocative, sexy - high heels may be all these things and more, but even their most ardent fans wouldn't claim they were practical.

They're no good for hiking or driving. They get stuck in things. Women in heels are advised to stay off the grass - and also ice, cobbled streets and posh floors.

And high heels don't tend to be very comfortable. It is almost as though they just weren't designed for walking in.

Originally, they weren't.

"If it becomes a signifier of actual power, then men will be as willing to wear it as women."

Biology Dr Helen Fischer, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University, says that heels force women into a "natural courting pose" found amongst mammals, with an arched back and protruding buttocks

arched back

protruding buttocks

Patriarchy Not only do heels transform the way women's bodies look to please men, they cause them pain and prevent them from running away - radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys says they are one way in which women are forced to "compensate for the lack of power that men may be having"

For many years now, whenever I have been in a conversation with a woman who appears to be opening up to me/getting 'real', and the conversation would be in an area related to this topic, I would ask them why women wear high heels. Invariably, I would always get an answer that I consider to be bullshit and misdirection. "Makes us taller" and similar crap.