Shoe Sizes
The Americans began their system of grading, at 1 (unlike the Europeans who start at zero) and use a formula to arrive at for clothes for men, shoes for women and children. The heel-to-toe foot length (in inches) multiplied by 3, then a constant is subtracted from the product. This constant is different for men, women and children.
The Formula
For men: 3 x foot length - 22 = Shoe size
For women: 3 x length of the foot - 21 (or, sometimes, 20.5 or 20) = size shoes
For children: 3 x foot length - 9.75 (sometimes 9.67) = Size
Obviously, it is the constant that is responsible for the difference between shoe sizes for men and women. (Can I ask why we need, even a constant in the first place?). Eduardo Kausel, a professor at MIT, wrote in his essay "sides Schmunits: What Do You Care?": "... For reasons now lost to history, there are different sizes for men, women and children, although he does not use the same number for a given size, boy or girl. ยจ May Looks like we just have to accept not knowing.
Over there is of course the vanity sizing argument. Women want their feet to appear smaller than they really are, while men want big feet. But this is mere speculation (unlike the women's clothing, where, thanks to the unfailing popularity of vintage clothing, we can prove conclusively that the size 7 is now equivalent to a size 12 a few decades ago). It seems unlikely that Edwin B. Simpson, the man who first introduced a system standardized shoes in the United States, had the vanity in mind. Simpson came with the system (which we more or less still use today) after a need for uniform shoes emerged during the civil war. Left and right shoes were mass produced for first time during the war, and each soldier was given a "shoe size". In the system of Simpson, a difference of one shoe size is correlated to 1 / 3 inch (half sizes are 1 / 6 inch apart), which still holds true today. But it explains yet why women and men were assigned different constants.
The problem (as most of the problems concerning units measurement standard) is purely American. Great Britain and continental Europe both choose to keep the shoe sizes for men and women equal. Since the United Kingdom finally adopted the system of Simpson, it seems unlikely that the difference comes with Simpson himself. Some other founding father of American shoes must have made the call.
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