There’s a story (from about a year and a half ago) that’s making the rounds: Going shoeless at work could make you less stressed and more productive. It’s a nice story, if a bit short.
But I have a reputation as a curmudgeon to uphold.
What’s bugging me is the picture they used to illustrate the story. And it’s not the picture, it’s the caption.
No one said it would be pretty
What? Why would they?
Does anybody every look at a pictures of hands and say that?
No one said it would be pretty
People looking at that picture generally think “working hands”. It’s admirable.
If a pair of feet were that dirty, we’d hear comments about how disgusting they were.
No one said it would be pretty
Nobody would even say that about older hands. We see them every day, and they are just a fact of life. Yet these people have no qualms about saying it about feet.
But seeing bare feet is somewhat rare.
I take that back. Actually, it’s not that rare to see a lot of foot skin. Somehow people’s reactions are only triggered when it is the sole that is bare. Then you get all sorts of comments about ugly feet, even if you’ve been seeing similar feet in sandals or flip-flops all day long.
Genetically, hands and feet are quite similar. They actually look quite similar, if you think about it. They are constructed similarly; they age similarly; they even have knobs and protrusions similarly (to some extent). Yet, in our culture, they are treated so differently.
I suspect that is because the normal expectation is that feet will be covered (to some extent at least) and hands never (unless they really, really need it, for cold or physical protection). But when a normal expectation is violated — look out!
But there is really no good logical reason for it.
Ahcuah 
Except for the subtitle everything about the article is ok. They actually found a pair of average feet for the picture (at Getty Images) – not “model feet”, not overly athletic, old, young, ugly or beautiful.
I’m looking at these feet without any particular emotion, just as I’d be looking at hands, but I guess those with a phobia would have much stronger feelings. (Not sure about those with a fetish, their feelings often apply to very specific kinds of feet, and usually only of their preferred gender.)
>There’s a growing movement of adopting a barefoot lifestyle, people who hardly ever don boots or shoes.
That guys must be nuts 🙂
Sandals may be universally acceptable footwear for females, but not for males. Even with the rising popularity of sandals for men in Europe since the 1990s, it’s not hard to find someone (m/f) voicing a strong opinion against, just because “male feet are ugly” or the like.
I guess these feet-o-phobes have a difficult time visiting a beach or swimming pool, so they need recovery time everywhere else.
It is the strange double standard that lets women usually get away more easily if they want to go barefoot because podophobes hate male feet more.
If more men, both celebrities and ordinary people, take good care of their feet and show them, we may gradually change this perception that “male feet are ugly”.
The thing is, male feet are in some sense and on average “rougher” and not as “pretty” as female feet. But that’s true for male hands, and males faces and . . .
But people don’t say that male hands or male faces are particularly gross or disgusting.