cruelty-free shoes?

I was googling images of "winkle-pickers" just now because someone mentioned her "purple winkle-pickers" in a thread on I Blame the Patriarchy that was sort of about shoes, but not really. Turns out winkle-pickers look like the boot you see here. Twisty's post is actually about alien shoes that would change the world and then rocks would inherit the earth, and maybe a few bacteria, so I really figured a conversation about winkle-pickers might in fact count as thread-hijacking. Thanks to google, I didn't need to pester the winkle-pickers' owner. (it's a fine turn of phrase, isn't it? Winkle Pickers. I want to say it out loud, as much as possible. I vow, yes vow, I will find a way to work it into conversation at some time in the next seven days).

So I'm pleased to have found a picture, curiosity sated, but then I realize something: I've landed in fetish-boot territory. Even better, in VEGAN FETISH SHOE territory. Who knew you could buy vegan fetish boots? This would make more sense if shoes that look like this:


.... were not being advertised as "cruelty free." (I know, it's not a boot, but it's on the same page as the boots, and no, I won't be linking to the website, so find it yourself).

You know, just because a shoe isn't made from dead animals, doesn't mean it's not cruel. Because that, my internet friends, is a cruel shoe. It hurts my eyes, my aesthetics, my fashion sensibility, and my feminist sensibility. Those are shoes about submission, designed to keep a woman from walking, running, or even standing upright. So how does your tool of the patriarchy, your submissive fetishist, collate her own "willing" submission with her opposition to the dominance & torture of wee animals? How does that work? Because I don't get it.