试题出自试卷《西安交通大学2007年秋考博英语真题》

Why would any woman in her right mind choose to walk on the balls of her feet with her heels propped up by spikes? The historical answer is that high heels reflect aristocratic tastes—specifically, the tastes of the seventeenth-century French court, which first popularized them in Europe. Not only did heels keep the wearer’s feet relatively mud free, they also created a physical elevation to match the social elevation of the stylish, exaggerated the strutting gait of the noble classes, and they suggested, by their very precariousness, that their owners could afford not to worry about falling on their faces. Indeed, as Bernard Rudofsky points out, seventeenth-century wearers of high heels, men and women, frequently had to be transported in sedan chairs because they could not manage cobblestones on foot. Some “heels” in that era were actually full-soled platforms, and to walk on these things at all, one needed the constant elbow support of two servants.
The helplessness associated with the raised-heel style encouraged the notion that heeled persons were above having to care for themselves. In view of this, it is not surprising that even today it is women, almost exclusively, who wear heels. High heels are the cobbler’s contribution to what I have called the pedestal ploy. They link physical incapacity with the notion of woman as a “higher being”—too high to get along on her own.
Women have taken to high heels, of course, because they feel, correctly, that they increase their attractiveness to men. Part of that increased attractiveness has to do with male fantasies of female fragility. As fashion iconoclast Elizabeth Hawes puts it, “The idea is that he, in his heavy shoes, should feel stronger and more capable than she on her fragile stilts. Never mind the realities.” Another part of it may be biological. In his discussion of rump display among mammals, Dale Guthrie notes that the “lines of the buttocks, thigh, calf and ankle have a native sexual stimulation, but this can be increased with high-heeled shoes; the curves are exaggerated when the heel is lifted.” Heels also exaggerate the lateral motion of buttocks. The ultimate function of high heels, therefore, may be to fuel the male belief that women are both impotent and seductive.
1. The passage is mainly about ______.
2. From historical point of view, high heels ______.
3. Women on high heels suggest that ______.
4. The most important reason for women’s preference to high heels is that ______.
5. The men’s attitudes towards women’s wearing high heels are that ______.