No feminist debate in China over high heels

New York

THERESA May barely had her feet under the table as Britain's new prime minister when Chinese fashionistas began discussing her shoes, her gender and her power, in that order.

"We are watching Madame Meiyi," Hou Haiyan, 28, a fashion industry public relations executive, said in an interview shortly after Mrs May's appointment in mid-July, using the Chinese version of Mrs May's name. "She likes kitten heels and is fashionable. And she has power. Maybe her style is part of her power."

Interest in Mrs May and her footwear is not unique to China, but female political power is rare there. The Chinese Communist Party has never had a female leader, or a woman on its powerful Politburo Standing Com…