Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world.

Quote Investigator found no substantive evidence for Monroe’s authorship. It traces the saying to Midler’s longer answer in Family Weekly on 13 January 1980, then a compact version credited to Midler in the Houston Chronicle on 27 November 1985. An Australian item dated 25 October 2003 credits the right-shoes version to Monroe, explicitly as a rumour, decades after her death. These newspaper citations were checked through Quote Investigator, not against the original newspaper pages. No claim is made that Midler personally uttered the exact later right-shoes wording, or that 2003 was the first-ever Monroe attribution. The atlas holds no Monroe full texts; no comprehensive manuscript search was possible.

1. 13 January 1980Earliest found · credited to Bette MidlerThe earliest form located by Quote Investigator is Midler’s longer footwear joke in a syndicated reader-question feature.Family Weekly, “Ask Them Yourself”: question for Bette Midler, syndicated in the Trenton Evening Times and Herald Statesman, 13 January 1980, Second page of supplement, unnumbered. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
2. 27 November 1985Reworded · credited to Bette MidlerThe Houston Chronicle credits Midler with the shorter correct-footwear version, already close to the modern slogan.Michelle Smith, “Great shoes can make a difference,” Houston Chronicle, Lifestyle, 27 November 1985, p. 3. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
3. 25 October 2003Credited to Marilyn MonroeAmy Mills credits a right-shoes version to Monroe as something she was rumoured to have said.Amy Mills, “Charmed, I’m sure Modern manners maketh the modern miss,” Australian newspaper item, 25 October 2003, edition 1; newspaper title not supplied in the consulted citation, p. 64. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source

The line circulates as Marilyn Monroe’s advice about shoes and confidence. The documentary history instead leads to Bette Midler answering a reader’s question about her taste for spike heels, with a joke about having searched shoe shops without yet finding the footwear that would let her rule the world.

The joke exaggerates the confidence and power the right shoes might give their wearer.

It is neither established Monroe advice nor, in its earliest located form, a solemn empowerment slogan. The shorter modern version drops Midler’s self-mocking admission that she has not found the necessary shoes.

Power

• If you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything. (not found)
• Golf is a good walk spoiled. (not found) Mark Twain
• Two intelligent people cannot fall in love; true love needs one idiot. (not found) Fyodor Dostoevsky
• I have nothing to declare except my genius. (not found) Oscar Wilde
• A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back again when it begins to rain. (not found) Robert Frost

• quoteinvestigator.com/2013/05/31/shoes-conquer

“Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world.” Attributed to Marilyn Monroe. No. Bette Midler wrote it, not Monroe. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/give-a-girl-the-right-shoes/ (checked 23 October 2026).

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