She hadn't been expecting the request, and as any fashion-conscious person knows, the shoes make the outfit sometimes. The idea for the episode came to Bicks after being asked to take off her shoes at a party in Manhattan. While having children and getting married are certainly milestones worth celebrating (if you want to do those things), some people, like Carrie's friend Kyra, seem to think they're the only milestones that matter. It's about what we, as a society, deem celebratory. Of course, it's not just a financial issue. "The amount of money that we as single women had to spend to celebrate people getting married was insane, you know? You have to go to these destination weddings and buy gifts, and no one's doing that for the single woman," she told Insider in a recent interview. The shift would be unintentional, perhaps even unconscious, but it's still not fair. I love my friends, but I guarantee that most of them would be too busy to attend my "I got a new job!" party - especially if it included a link to a gift registry filled with my dream wardrobe.īut if I don't attend their engagement parties, bachelorette parties, weddings, bridal showers, baby showers, or kids' birthday parties, eventually I'm just not going to be in their lives at all. The unspoken "rules" of society also still say after 18 years that it's ridiculous of me to celebrate non-romance related accomplishments with a list of gifts, too. But just like Carrie, a writer living in New York City, I've felt the subtle shame that comes with having "so much time" on my hands (as Kyra says to Carrie) that I can worry about "silly" things like planning a birthday night out on Broadway while my friends are busy scraping off the peanut butter mask their kid has decided to paint on his or her face. Right now, I can only dream of owning a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Society dictates that we shower married and child-bearing people with gifts, but single, childless people would be considered weird for doing the same It's nearly two decades later, but we've barely made much progress at all. Her "registry," demanding respect for herself and her shoes, reminds me that I matter as a single, childless woman, and so do my milestones.īut the fact that this realization seemed so groundbreaking at the time it aired, and still does now, exposes a bigger problem with the way society treats single women. Watching the episode again this year, I still feel a surge of pride in Carrie and empowered by the fact that I'm not a mother and might not ever want to be one. When Carrie made a fake wedding registry for her beloved shoes to replace the pair that went missing at a "baby welcoming party" as a way to insist on a replacement from Kyra, a friend who had shamed Carrie for not being married or having kids, she asserted for all single women that our life choices matter too. On August 17, 2003, Carrie Bradshaw took "one giant step for single-womankind" when she demanded a new pair of expensive heels from a judgmental friend.īut in the iconic "Sex and the City" episode "A Woman's Right to Shoes," which aired 18 years ago today, Carrie's Manolo Blahniks had a deeper value beyond their astronomical price-tag.
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