There Is A Point

While at times it may feel like I am going about things in a round about way I know there is a point to everything I have been doing this past year. I have learnt many things about Sneaker Culture that I didn’t previously know about and I have also realised what my exact issues are with the culture that get me feeling so disappointed.

This culture was not made for women and has involved in such a way to keep women on the outskirts even if it doesn’t make a habit of stating that fact in an obvious way. It is a culture that doesn’t publicly announce that women are still secondary to men in the culture. It’s not sneaker culture’s fault though, it inherited these attributes from hip hop culture and rather than breaking the mould has remained the same. The only thing that has changed is how involved women are in the culture.

More and more women are popping up who love sneakers just as much as their male counterparts and most of them rather than complaining about the fact that the culture isn’t really designed for them take part anyway. They are just happy to be included, if included is the word you can call it. The brands women love keep creating sneakers that are small, pink and covered in patterns and insisting these are appropriately feminine and yet there has been no revolt.

I may not be the person to start this revolt but I know that something needs to change, I am not blind to these issues and nor should anyone else be. Ads will still be made that depict women as sexual objects used as a mere tool to sell sneakers and that is because out culture says this is okay. There is a point though when this rudimentary stereotype of women becomes insulting rather than a fact of life.

I don’t hate pink, I know that everything I may have suggested up until this point says otherwise but I don’t hate the colour. I hate the way it is used in the context of sneakers. The way it is automatically prescribed to womens sneakers just goes to show how ingrained the association of pink to feminine is in our culture. It is insulting because there is this assumption that all girls like pink shiny things and that is not true, in fact I know men who like a lot of the womens sneakers they see and they don’t come in their sizes.

The advertising agents need to stop churning out ads that play on this idea that being sexy is liberating and that wearing sneakers will make you feel this way, it’s always the same types of women in these ads anyway and they are more for the mens benefit than the womans. Women deserve the same ads that are created for men, the shoes are what we are buying so stop trying to sell us sex. The sneakers themselves are enough to sell them, there doesn’t need to be any agendas or stereotypes attached.

My point is, there doesn’t need to be a division of sexes in sneaker culture. The brands need to remove the labels and let people make their own decisions based on their own personal tastes without worrying if they will be judged for wearing a mens or womens sneaker. Brands like Vans are getting it right, inside the tongue they show sizes for both men and women rather than making shoes specifically for either gender. Women are allowed to like pink and they are allowed to like the mens designs, they shouldn’t have to worry if the sneakers they are purchasing are really meant for them. It shouldn’t matter, but it does and it needs to change.