I was walking down the street the other night in Sol. The area is very touristy, with lots of shopping options. I passed by a shoe store and this sign happened to catch my eye:
First, lets note it is in English, not Spanish. So someone is intentionally marketing towards tourists, auxiliaries, or anyone else walking Spanish streets who speaks English (and from my experience, that is a lot of people. Kudos to Europe for teaching more than one language to its students).
Second, lets look at what it says: "Because sometimes, a girl's gotta walk."
I will be honest: this pissed me off.
Sometimes? Sometimes? Seriously, what do you think "girls" do? Teleport? Fly? Yes, I would be down with both of those options, but so far I haven't mastered those skills. If you figure out how, please let me know. It would make my travel plans for the next year a lot less expensive.
And the person in this image is hardly a girl. I'm the first to admit I'm horrible about using the words "girls" and "boys" for people who are clearly full grown adults, yet in this case I interpreted the connotations as being less than empowering.
If I take a step back from my initial feminist rage, I can see what the advertiser was trying to say. That heals are not comfortable walking footwear and that Sketchers are an alternative that probably won't cause horrible blisters or rolled ankles. Maybe the intention of this advertisement was to call out the patriarchal system of beauty that decided women need to wear heals despite how clearly uncomfortable they are to wear. But if that is the intention, couldn't they have just left out the word sometimes?
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