If you look back a few posts you may recall I mentioned something about a speech on going barefoot, well that was just given on Tuesday.
I'm in a public speaking class at college and was told to write a persuasive speech on anything I wanted and thus I chose to persuade people why they should remove their shoes more often (sorry guys but I think telling everyone to burn their shoes and go barefoot everywhere would be a bit too much for many).
As I doubt anyone here wants to red a 4 page outline the basics of what I went over were the following:
1. I talked about the natural gate of a human being thrown off by shoes (There is a wonderful article on that subject here).
Mostly I explained the heel-strike, push off, and stance phases and how shoes interrupt each of them. There is also a wonderful picture explaining this in The Barefoot Book which I did use to help me illustrate the point.
2. Foot arches- I showed a short clip to explain to my audience how the arch expanses and collapses, explained the main jobs of the arch (shock absorber, spring, weight distribution, and uneven terrain accommodation), and explained how shoes force the arch into a position where it is unable to do any of those job.
3. Some physical deformities caused by shoes and how shoes cause them: Hallux valgus, hammertoe, bunions, and knee arthritis.
4. Fungal infections and how shoes are a nice dark, damp, and warm environment for bacteria to grow in.
5. Broke down some of the myths including the fact there is no rule with the Health Department, or the Department of Agriculture (and thank you Society for Barefoot Living for having both letters for my state for me to print out as mine still have no made it). That bare feet are no more dirty than the bottom of a shoe (and likely less so as we wash our feet more often),that glass is not on ever street corner and that it doesn't much effect a seasoned barefooter, and that germs are everywhere not only on the ground (we don't wear gloves all day, why shoes?).
... And that was my 11 minute speech in a nut shell. However Thursday (the class following this speech) brought about some interesting things:
Firstly there were questions, quite a few surprisingly. People asked what I do in the winter, if I go into public restrooms still, about confrontations I've had, and what troubles I had with it in general.It was actually a pretty nice question and answer session with no one saying anything negative, though a few people laughed when I said I do indeed keep the health department letter in my purse.
There were also comments that eased my paranoia. Despite having been going to class ever day barefoot for months now... The vast majority of the class never noticed! Even the teacher who I had previously thought had noticed claimed never to have seen it, and that I did have many people in the class lean over and down to look (considering I've given all my speeches barefoot as well this surprised me- Of all the times I would think standing in the front of a room would give you away).
The most interesting thing though was finding that there apparently is another student that goes barefoot! I have no idea who, why, or if our paths will cross but it's nice knowing there's someone else so close by going barefoot. I hope to run across him at some point and have the guts to go up and speak with him.
Despite having been going to class ever day barefoot for months now... The vast majority of the class never noticed!
ReplyDeleteIndeed, most people don't notice or don't care. It's the vocal minority that causes all the trouble.
Next time, give them some history. How many young people know that going barefoot was in style in colleges 40 years ago? And that right before that, most colleges had dress codes, including that women needed to wear skirts when going to class. The extreme youth rebellion of that time against dress codes and other social norms forced colleges, and other schools, to either relax them or eliminate them entirely.
ReplyDeleteA sentence from an article from NY times, Sept 9 1970, you have to purchase the article online to get all of it:
Sep 9, 1970 - "Most girls get up, comb their hair, put on jeans, a T shirt and sneakers or go out in bare feet to classes.
From "Parents, Take Heart Not All the College Costs Are Going Up"
This, in Kearney State College:
Clothing for co-eds in Kearney again changed dramatically in the 1960's.... Clothes became tighter, skirts shorter, and fabrics more colorful. As students at Kearney were confronted with more choices in clothing styles than ever before, the administration at the college for the first time laid out a dress code in the student handbook. These rules governing student fashions were so complex that the handbook was needed for frequent reference. A 1963 dress regulation explained the rules to bewildered students. For classes and labs, students were to be dressed in "traditional clothes" - dresses or skirts for women, slacks for men. After class and lab, students were free to wear "casual clothes - slacks for both men and women. In the dining halls, however, students were expected to wear "traditional clothes," like what they wore to classes. The same attire was expected in the library. "Dress up" clothes were necessary on Sundays, as well as Wednesday evenings. After 6:00 p.m. and on Saturdays, students were allowed to wear regular "street clothes," though women were expressly forbidden to "wear hair curlers outside their living units." To make matters more confusing for students, while in the co-ed reception rooms, "short shorts, cut-offs and walking shorts" were "not acceptable, at any time."
...in the late 1960's women at Kearney State College were finally allowed to wear pants to class.
The rules and regulations governing student dress so meticulously laid out in the Student Handbooks of the 1960's went by the wayside in the 1970's. Pages of instruction on when to wear "casual" or "formal" clothes were replaced by informational sections on emergency pregnancy counseling, venereal disease clinics, and drug abuse hotlines. Students at the Kearney campus were in the midst of a tumultuous time. Changes in American society including the Civil Rights and Feminists movements, Vietnam, and the expanding drug culture made students question traditional norms, including the way they dressed. The traditional rules of fashion were thrown out the window. In fact, according to a 1972 issue of The Antelope, in reference to fashion on campus in the 1970's, "anything goes." Cut-off shorts and T-shirts, "some faded, some tie-dyed," were the comfortable standard for men and women. So were bare feet. The Antelope advised students to "start now to develop tough soles to resist the agony of paved streets and sharp rocks." The only rule regarding fashion in the 1970's was individuality. According to one Kearney State College student, "no one is scorned or ridiculed for what they put on as long as it is an interpretation of his own thing." Over the next two decades, though trends in clothing constantly changed, students at the Kearney campus continued to dress how they pleased, with little interference from the administrators at the institution.
And from June 9, 1971,
ReplyDeletehttp://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xR8fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=F5wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7355,2034923&dq=barefoot&hl=en
"Patched up barefoot look in style in US"
Not a lot of background can be done on a speech that is required to be less than 10 minutes long and specifically on persuading people to take their shoes off.
ReplyDeleteI did not feel that a background of barefooting was important in what I was attempting to do, nor did I really have time to get into it.