There are few people know about it, but high heels were not originally designed for wearing women. For example, the Labutena shoes today with red soles were inspired by an outstanding fashion legislator at high heels of those times - the French king of Louis XIV. He adopted the law that only his courtyards can wear shoes on heels with a red sole.
The motive was pretty simple - so people of the XVII century it was easier to recognize that there was a privileged person, entitled to the King's yard.
But since such a fashion trend spread among the male aristocracy in Europe of the XVII century, the shoemakers faced the problem - they needed somehow to redo the design of the shoes, which was never designed for walking.
Many may have a reasonable question - for what shoes are meant, if not in order to walk in it. The fact is that the footwear not kings, but Persians, was taken as the basis. In the preceding age of the cavalry of the Persian army, which fought with the Ottoman Empire, used high heels. And they did it at all for beauty, but in order to more accurately shoot with a horse saddle.
When the soldier got up in stirrups, heels helped him more reliably fix the legs. And, given that the person at the same time stood more stable, he could more effectively shoot from Luka.
As the taste for the exotic Persian style of shoes spread across Europe, ironically, the rich aristocrats began to use high-heeled shoes to look more "courageous" and "militant." The heel height was even more increased compared to the Persian shoes, and also added an expensive red dye, which caused the association with war. Pretty quickly it became a "pisk" male fashion.
Women simply followed this example, when in the middle of the XVII century, the popular "androgine" is punishable fashion. Therefore, women began to copy the elements of male robes to "give masculinity" to their appearance.
And it doesn't matter that such shoes were completely impractical for walking, because the rich aristocracy has rarely moved on foot along the dirt roads of Europe of the XVII century.
So why men stopped wearing high heels, if they were once so fashionable, and women did not do it. With the Epoch of Enlightenment, society has become more rational and preference has been given to education, and not "privileged status". Men became uninteresting just to look beautiful and exquisitely dressed, instead they preferred to be more practical, simple and functional. This ultimately gave rise to the so-called "great male renunciation" in the XIX century, a historic phenomenon that set the tone of men's clothing in the following centuries.
So, high heels, bright tissues and class inequality, chose relatively simple black clothes, democracy and bourgeois ethics. It can be argued that the individuality of the male fashion also actually disappeared at this time.
Although after the French Revolution for a short time in the female fashion, short heels were popular, a new shift towards more practical fashion was still not spreading to both gentals. Women at that time were perceived as emotional, sentimental and poorly educated. This became the historical basis of why women continued to wear "stupid" high-heeled shoes, and men - no.
Similarly, high heels turned from the gender prejudice tool sex accessory. Elizabeth Semmelhac from the Museum of Shoe Bata believes that it was in the middle of the XIX century that people contributed to the fact that high heels began to be associated with sexual attractiveness. After all, at the time, images of naked models in high-heeled shoes were popular, which were printed on "spicy" Victorian postcards.