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Gender is a performance. It has been said so many times in the past that I am bored of hearing it. But why are we not over gender yet? Really and honestly, I have become bored of gender. It really doesn’t interest me anymore.

My friend Pablo likes to wear high heels. He says they are comfortable. I threw out my high heels years ago. I went to some academic lecture at University of Toronto, where the speaker argued in a very offhand and relaxed way that high heels are instruments of imprisonment. They completely take away your spontaneity because you put them on before leaving the house knowing and calculating exactly how many steps you are gonna take that night: not more and not less. You leave the house in your killer 6inch heels, prepared to walk from your house to your car, from your car to the restaurant, from the restaurant to your car, and back home. If plans change to include an impromptu 3 hour stroll through the city…which may possibly involve walking through a park (and oops! it rained earlier that day) you would not be able to do it. Wearing high heels means that your actions are pre-meditated. And so…life slips by because you literally can’t stand to walk.

I find it interesting when men adopt the symbol of femininity. The same objects that have limited our spontaneity, or that have kept us preoccupied with irrelevancies in place of the important, now represent freedom for men who are attempting to re-write the rules. Personally, I feel relieved to see a man wearing makeup or high heels because it means I now don’t have to. I especially feel relieved when said heels and makeup are worn with a very hairy moustache. It adds such a nice light touch of irony to the whole thing. And takes away much meaning from these symbols.

And so, my dear friend Pablo, I will leave the high heels to you. I am not man enough to endure the pain.

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