People
Piers Morgan drops sexist high heels campaign after being forced to wear stilettos on TV
9 years ago
We hope the Devil has wrapped up warm, because hell has officially frozen over: Piers Morgan has only gone and admitted that he’s wrong about something.
Last week, the Good Morning Britain host sparked outrage when he insisted that women should be forced to wear high heels to work. However, after being forced himself to don a pair of uncomfortable silver stilettos for an appearance on ITV’s Loose Women, it seems as if Morgan has (somewhat unsurprisingly) changed his mind.
“I have to actually be honest,” he said. “Away from all the bravado, it was one of the most painful things I have ever had to wear on my feet.
“It was very uncomfortable. And the idea of marching around in those all day… well, you got a point, ladies.”
Long-suffering co-host Susanna Reid relished Morgan’s admission of fault, saying: “Literally the quote was: ‘My campaign is over’.”
Morgan fired back: “My campaign was only to preserve an employer's right to ask the question, but actually, having worn them, maybe I was a little bit hasty.”
You think, Piers?
However, proving you can’t teach a dog new tricks, he later added: “I started to get into the swing of it and by the end I found them quite empowering.
“So, maybe the answer is that women stop wearing them and men start wearing them so we tower over you even more, and dominance is restored.”
The GMB host’s tune has certainly changed; during an interview with 27-year-old receptionist Nicola Thorp, who appeared on his show to talk about how she had been sent home from her London job for wearing flat shoes, his response was far from sympathetic.
Talking about her case, he said: “She [Nicola] was a receptionist for an accountancy firm, she wanted the right to wear flat shoes and not to wear lipstick.
“That, to me, is not what a receptionist should be.”
Meanwhile a new report, High heels and workplace dress codes (put together jointly by the Women and Equalities Commission and the Petitions Commission), has asked that action is taken against sexist dress codes in the workplace.
The report recommends that MPs “take urgent action to improve the effectiveness of the Equality Act” and that employment tribunals should be able to ask for more effective remedies, such as financial penalties, for those employers who breach the law.
It says: “It is clear that there are not currently enough disincentives to prevent employers breaching the law. While negative publicity will be a disincentive for many employers, this cannot and should not be relied on to prevent unlawful discrimination.
“The Government must substantially increase the financial penalties for employers found by employment tribunals to have breached the law.
“Penalties should be set at such a level as to ensure that employees are not deterred from bringing claims, and to deter employers from breaching the legislation.”
Read more: The death of high heels
The report includes medical evidence from the College of Podiatry, which suggests that women who have to wear high heels for extended periods of time could suffer long-term health problems.
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