click to enlarge Photo by Sarah Fenske

I'll show you mine; you show me yours.

We asked this year’s class of Most Influential Business Women to tell us about the pair of shoes that best describes them, and more importantly, why. While some in the newsroom initially balked at the idea, it turned out to be the perfect filter to show readers the best qualities of these 25 spectacular business women.

In recent days, thehas seen significant backlash for its recent feature highlighting this year's 25 most influential business women. Accompanying the piece is a slideshow , for which these powerful and accomplished women were asked to — wait for it —. (You can read all about the RFT's response to that idea here .)Managing editor Vince Brennan wrote an introduction to the project, explaining his reasoning:Can't imagine why anybody in the newsroom thought that was a bad idea! But, OK, let's accept the premise.Above you will see a photo of the author of this piece, holding my right shoe. It is a gray and white size 11 1/2 Saucony Jazz Original, one of a pair. It says of my business style that I value comfort, but that I am also prepared to break into a full-on sprint at the drop of a hat if necessary to break the news. The gray color symbolizes the many gray areas one encounters in this field; the white represents the ideological purity of journalistic truth. (Also I'm colorblind, so they are easy to match with my many pairs of jeans and cut-off shorts — business attire, you understand.)So that's me. Laid bare for all to see through the infallible filter of footwear. How intimate.Curious, though, is that while digging through the's online staff directory, I couldn't find one photo of Brennan holding his shoes aloft for the Internet to analyze — just one shot that oddly only shows him from the chest up, and like, no footwear in his hands . How are we to take this man seriously without knowing what he puts on his feet each morning?Since the's critique of thepiece went live this morning, we've seen a deluge of men sending us photos of their own footwear. Keep 'em coming, guys!But we've yet to get a shoe pic from the's M.E. Which makes us wonder: What could he be hiding?You wearing some penny loafers down there, Vince? You think you're a real big shot, huh — keeping money on display in your shoes for the world to see?Is it those stupid so-called "shoes" that fit your feet like gloves? Those things just scream "sometimes I like to work with my feet instead of my hands, like a monkey. I have great coordination and dexterity with my toes. Watch me pick up this pencil."Crocs?How dare you! I say good day, sir.Show us your shoes!