One ordinary evening, I was outside the university, having a beer with some friends. I was rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet, looking at Alice’s tall red boots. They were glossy, with a thick heel and an unmistakable sound. You can hear Alice coming from metres away, just from the click of her heels.

I turned to Maria and said, ‘This year, I want to unlock boots.’

‘Oh yes, me too… and skirts as well!’

Maria now walks around the city in boots and a miniskirt as if they were jeans and trainers. Stunning. I think about it every time I feel overdressed (unjustifiably, of course).

But I did unlock boots! I have a pair of brown leather boots, and when I walk, they make a loud, full sound. Sometimes people turn around to see who it is, and that embarrasses me a little. Then I smile and forget about it. Unlocking boots — and the sound they make — makes me feel like an incredible woman, whole and strong.

I was trying to explain this to my dad the other day. He also always wears noisy boots. ‘But,’ he added, ‘when I don’t want to draw attention to myself, I wear quieter shoes.’

How do you explain to him that I don’t wear noisy shoes because I want to be noticed (sometimes I do, though), but because they remind me that I am worthy of taking up space?

When I first started wearing these boots, I wore them to the library to do research for an essay I had to write for an exam: The Power of Stories for Minorities: Poison or Cure?

I spent whole afternoons on JSTOR, reading articles about how stories and words are fundamental to the formation of a community’s identity, and about how denying people the ability to tell their own stories (sometimes by telling them on their behalf) can have devastating effects. Unsurprisingly, there were constant references to colonialism and patriarchy. After all, erasing from memory realities that differ from the so-called standard is a way of taking away the space in which those realities exist.

In the Freedom Charter, it says: ‘Our struggle is also a struggle against forgetting.’

bell hooks herself stresses the need to create ‘spaces where one is able to redeem and reclaim the past, legacies of pain, suffering, and triumph in ways that transform present reality.’

Then, one day, I left the library and, with my noisy boots, walked through the city centre, got on the underground, packed with sweaty bodies, and went to see an exhibition of Niki de Saint Phalle at a museum.

I stood still, looking at the rounded, dancing bodies of her Nanas, imagining what it would be like to believe in what they represented: an army of warriors, feminist muses, confident, joyful, powerful women, free from the stereotypes imposed by society. Niki de Saint Phalle created gigantic works that took up a huge amount of space, claiming the right to take it back.

I don’t know whether it’s because I’m a woman or because it’s just who I am (probably a mix of both), but I often found myself ashamed of simply being out in the world. I felt cumbersome, not enough of anything to justify my presence. I believed it was better not to be perceived at all than the opposite.

What turned out to be essential to my serenity was turning over in my mind the words of those women and men who had reclaimed their own narratives and their own voices, while I walked home, filling the city with the full, loud clicking of my boots.

CLACK CLACK CLACK

The moment my brain thought, God, I’m so loud. How embarrassing. What must they think of me? Maybe they think I want attention? ‘Who does she think she is?’, I immediately told myself that it was okay to take up space, that it was right (there is room for everyone), and that it was absurd to think otherwise.

I take up space, I repeated to myself with every confident step CLACK CLACK

My lungs were breathing like they hadn’t in a long time.

I LOVE MY BOOTS. They also carried my mum around for years, and she was an incredible woman. And now they carry me, and when I run in them, I feel like a damn free and sexy unicorn.

About the Author

Currently pursuing a degree in Modern Literature at the University of Milan, Italy, Priscilla Franken contributes creative work to various local periodicals, including La Balena Bianca, and writes reviews for digital culture magazines in Italy. English is her second language.