High Heels: How Men’s Power Shoes Became Women’s Prisons When Persian cavalry riders in the 10th century wedged their feet into stirrups, they needed heels—not for fashion, but for function. The elevated shoe locked them in place, allowing them to stand and fire arrows with deadly accuracy. The high heel was born as a weapon of war. By the 1600s, European aristocratic men had co-opted the style as a status symbol. King Louis XIV of France famously wore five-inch red heels, elevating himself abov