Talk:Tradition of removing shoes in the home and houses of worship

Baltic countries[edit]

The map (and info) regarding Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is wrong. Shoes are removed in Baltic countries. Kapsapää (talk) 08:46, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your concerns have been addressed. In the future, file comments should go where the file is hosted (Wikimedia Commons). Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 22:41, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mosques where worshippers keep their shoes[edit]

In Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda about a place in Dammaj: "The mosque was the only one in the Muslim world in which students were required to keep their shoes on. A hadith viewed as authoritative by Sheikh Muqbil stated the Prophet had prayed in this way": are there other sources about this? Apokrif (talk) 18:25, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What about South and Central America, and Africa?[edit]

--98.128.228.237 (talk) 10:22, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Position in the UK[edit]

"In the United Kingdom, there are people in both camps."

What does "both camps" mean? I don't see any prior mention of camps. The page title and lead mention only a tradition of removing shoes, not a tradition of not removing shoes.

But if wearing shoes at home versus not wearing shoes at home is what it means, it doesn't match with my experience at all. My experience is that people generally don't wear shoes in their own homes, and it would be considered weird to do so. But when visiting other people's homes, it varies – some will choose to remove their shoes, and some hosts will ask you to, but others aren't bothered about it. I see that the sources give the impression that, indeed, people vary, but it isn't clear from either source which position is the norm.

"That said, it is uncommon for people to walk around barefoot with people preferring to keep their socks on."

Really? I would have thought it to be not uncommon at all, at least in the warmer months of the year. Sandals and flipflops are normally worn without socks; how do you "keep" your socks on if you didn't have them on in the first place? Furthermore, the wording makes it sound as though the worldwide view makes a false dichotomy between having shoes on and being barefoot. Indeed, despite this comment, the paragraph doesn't mention slippers at all. I furthermore see that this statement is unsourced. — Smjg (talk) 15:09, 22 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

User:Moonsun147258 has just trimmed it down:

"In the United Kingdom, whether shoes are taken off is at the homeowner's discretion. However, taking one's shoes off is far more common."

I'm not sure that this is more accurate. For a start, it completely ignores the important distinction between residents and guests. Furthermore, it could be interpreted to the effect that the homeowner dictates "take your shoes off" or "keep your shoes on" for all residents and guests. In reality:

In most households, removing shoes when coming home is something residents do without a second thought. The main variation is in whether guests remove their shoes, and this depends to an extent on both the host's rules and the guest's preference.
Householders insisting that people keep their shoes on in the house would be an alien concept here.

To put it another way, for a given individual there are at least three questions:

Do you remove your shoes when entering your own home?
Do you remove your shoes when entering someone else's home, if not explicitly asked to do so by the host?
Do you expect your guests to remove their shoes?

OK, so one's answer to question 1 may be due to either personal choice or house policy depending on circumstances. And you could argue that 3 should be a 3-way question (take off, keep on or not really bothered either way) and, while I've seen implications that some householders in some places may have a "keep your shoes on" policy, I have trouble imagining it happening here. (I furthermore wonder if householders having such a policy would typically kick out anybody who arrives barefoot and doesn't bring any shoes.)

Furthermore, we should be more consistent about addressing the matter of what people do wear on their feet in the house if not shoes. With this trimming, everything about this has disappeared.

There must be a way we can write this so that

it addresses the dominant position on all of the questions I've listed
it addresses the matter I mentioned just now
it's accurate
it's adequately sourced.

But I'm not sure what that way is.... — Smjg (talk) 09:48, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, it's inappropriate to remove the mention of slippers from the UK statement and not equally remove it from all of the statements about other countries for which they are referred to. This makes it sound as though slippers aren't a thing here, which is nonsense. — Smjg (talk) 18:45, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The United States is changing[edit]

I lived in the USA until I was 40, then moved to New Zealand in 1995 where taking off shoes in one's home is commonplace and asking guests to do so is as well. I lived in 4 states - New York, Minnesota, Florida and I grew up in Rhode Island in New England. People wore overboots and totes over their shoes in snowy wet weather. Those, not shoes were left at the door. I visited and went inside homes in probably 20 other states. Until about the year 2010, I had never been asked to take off my shoes indoors in the USA.

I also visited people in Western Europe and the UK and lived in Italy and Spain for two years. Not once did I encounter this custom, and it never entered my mind that some people outside of Japan might take shows off inside. Never...until a recent trip to Berlin where some have such a requirement (and provided slippers). My wife grew up in California, lived in Italy, Greece, Iowa, and Montana, and never saw people with shoes off inside until moving here. But her best friend in the USA began to require all guests to take off shoes in recent years...saying that the "goovey people" now do so.

We never encountered a shoes-off policy in a home until we moved to New Zealand, where at least 50% of homes have such policy. (Unfortunately, the poll in the link was a readers poll and appears to no longer be on the site.)

At first, I was deeply insulted by being asked to take off my shoes. I had never heard of anyone outside of Japan doing so (not realizing that for much of the world from Canada to Eastern Europe throughout Asia it is mandatory). To me, removing shoes was compulsive behavior, like covering furniture with plastic. My feet easily get cold and sore when not in shoes. But now I always politely ask first and carry slippers with me -as in Germany where slippers are provided for guests.

Taking off shoes inside had been portrayed in the media as either an exotic “Japanese” custom or the behavior of an oddball. For example, con artist Roy Waller (Nicholas Cage) of the movie Matchstick Men with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, always took his shoes off – the only one to voluntarily do so. The eccentric Bertram Cooper in the series Mad Men, fascinated with Japanese culture, required people to take their shoes off in his office.

A single poll in the USA took place in 2023 - The CBS News/YouGov suggested (according to a small sample of 1,181 U.S. adult residents interviewed between May 11-15, 2023) that 44% of people 18-29 in the USA ask their guests to remove their shoes (as does my son and his American girlfriend). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-americans-are-shoes-off-at-home/. But only 7% of boomers ask people to take their shoes off inside. Times are changing, with the younger generation embracing this custom. Additionally, I know four households of American friends (all boomers) who now require shoes off - who did not do so before about 2010 when the shoes off movement began to take traction in the USA.

"That may be changing, but not without resistance. according to one article. ..But the pro-shoes crowd doesn’t buy the no-shoes reasoning. "It is the height of tacky to invite guests to your home and then require that they remove anything more than outdoor attire," said Jodi R.R. Smith of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting in Marblehead, Mass. "It is one thing to ask me to leave my L.L. Bean boots at the door for a Super Bowl party held during a snowstorm in New England. It is another to ask me to remove my heels at a cocktail party where everyone is dressed in suits and dresses."

I now wear slippers at night at home...(but my wife does not, and of course, our dogs don't). Nevertheless, I still feel slightly irked at being asked to take off my shoes in another home, as if someone asked me to take off my shirt inside. It just feels weird and makes my feet cold and sore. But I do so without complaining and try to remember to bring my slippers. I'm getting used to it. B.Bunkley (talk) 03:41, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]