By Lesedi Khabele-Stevens
Nothing screams “liberal arts college” quite as loudly as students walking around campus without shoes. At the beginning of the Fall semester two years ago, it seemed as though many more students were walking around shoeless. The year before, I would see the occasional pair of barefeet. The feet I did see were not present in any of my classes so I tended to ignore them. The following year, they did start to show up in my classes.
I can’t claim that I know every individual’s reasons for ditching shoes, but given the fact that it went from a couple of people doing it to a more noticeable amount, it seems unlikely that people do it for health reasons. Much to the same tune of socks paired with Birkenstocks and Tevas, going shoeless feeds into the stereotype of the liberal arts college student who doesn’t shower or is a wealthy hipster. Going without shoes has become part of the Lewis & Clark dress code. Going shoeless communicates that one is all about comfort and not so much worried about fashion or appearance. On the flip side, not wearing shoes is arguably a choice of fashion. This choice, quite frankly, is disgusting.
It was only a couple of weeks into that first semester of sophomore year that I watched in horror as a pair of naked feet walked into the Bon while I was eating my dinner. Other people’s feet particles and my food do not be in such explicit contact. It’s rude. If anyone has ever brought this up to me, they know it is a rather large source of stress. I am very much against people going shoeless in places that are to be shared with others, e.g. the Bon and classrooms. Feet quite frankly are not pleasant to look at, and I definitely don’t want to see other people’s feet if I don’t have to. There is nothing I dread more than sitting in a class where I can see the bottoms of people’s dirty feet. It ends up becoming a distraction.
I can also say with much certainty that there were direct correlations between the hand-foot-mouth outbreak a couple of years ago and the rise in students leaving their shoes at home. Think about it. Hand-foot-mouth can be transmitted through contaminated objects and what better way to track dirt and contaminate spaces than barefeet?
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Shoes have as much, if not more, dirt on them than bare feet. Unless you are eating off of the floor, how does stuff on the floor get into your food that is up on a table or counter ? You should be more worried about the stuff on the hands of people. It is alarming how many people do NOT wash nor even rinse their hands after handling or wiping themselves after urinating or defecating, regardless if they do so in a private or public bathroom/restroom. Those same nasty hands touch doorknobs, doorhandles, or door pushbars, shopping carts, the produce in the fresh produce area, other items in any retail or food store, money, buttons on an A.T.M. or pay by card reader, table or countertop (especially at a restaurant), the food someone made for & brings to a potluck or party, etcetera ; I could go on & on. But you do not see a sink & soap everyone is made to use to wash their hands before or as they enter a store, eating place, or workplace, do you ? They do not make everyone use the hand sanitizer or hand wipes at the places that have them, do they ? Hardly anyone thinks twice before eating food someone else has prepared. Practically no one (who has use of their arms & hands) uses their feet, bare or sho(e)d, to shop, handle products, cook, or eat with (except to walk & stand on). Bare feet in public have no more “dirt” than shoes in public, & public barefooters wash their feet AT LEAST once a day. How often do shoes get washed ? Shoes have a lot more accumulated “dirt” on them than public bare feet. And our hands have more “dirt” & GERMS on them than our feet, bare or shod. Yet people want to start a riot just because someone is not wearing shoes in public. Go figure. Also, it is more disgusting to have feet in an enclosed shoe &/or sock, sweating & breeding bacterium & fungi in a warm & dark place which is perfect for that, INSTEAD OF being free & directly exposed to air & light which minimizes or totally rids of the sweating, bacterium, & fungi.