To shave or not to shave. That is the question.
Only to most women it isn’t a question. There’s no choice involved.
To shave is the only option.
Most girls get to a stage in high school where their leg hair has become noticeable and therefore no longer acceptable, leaving them with one option; the razor.
There’s no rational discussion beforehand about why this is expected of women and not of men, no questioning what began the trend that made hairlessness the new norm and no mention of how we actually feel about our body hair.
I definitely didn’t feel like I had the option not to remove my leg and armpit hair.
I just needed to. Because girls aren’t supposed to have hair in those places.
They just don’t.
Right?
In case you weren’t aware, body hair is natural. We have hair all over our bodies in fact, it just grows more in some places than others.
Yet most women don’t feel they have the option to keep their body hair because of the judgement they would expect to face if they did.
Wearing shorts, a skirt, a bikini, without getting rid of any noticeable hair beforehand has become an act of rebellion which takes considerable courage.
If you shave, wax, use hair removal cream or any other method on your armpits, legs or bikini line; ask yourself why.
‘It feels cleaner, I prefer how I look without hair in those places, I like to, I would be judged if I didn’t…’
I think we could all come up with valid answers.
But imagine if, instead of shaved legs being the norm, removing eyebrow hair was.
Just saying that sounds bizarre but there is zero rationality behind why we shave our legs. Our bodies were designed that way in order to give us the extra insulation!
When you really think about it from a wider context, the efforts so many of us make over hair removal are crazy.
But then we live in a world where we can use technology that gives us dog filters… so there’s no denying our world as a whole is pretty bonkers.
Don’t get me wrong, the feeling of smooth legs after shaving is wonderful. In fact I might even go as far as recommending guys did it, just to enjoy the sensation. And I like how I look with shaved legs. But I imagine I would view my body hair very differently if it hadn’t been etched into society that women’s body hair is something to be ashamed of.
I have no idea how I would feel about it if, aged eleven, I hadn’t felt my only way to continue to fit in with school, society and womanhood as a whole was to get a wax.
It felt like a rite of passage. And sure, it was an entirely positive experience, but it wasn’t a conscious informed decision.
Shaving my legs makes me feel cleaner. But why should I feel dirty in response to something that couldn’t be more natural?
I don’t see men feeling grossed out by their hair.
It hasn’t been drilled into their minds that hairiness is wrong and disgusting.
So why has it been drilled into society for women?
We haven’t always felt the need to practice hair removal. In the Victorian era, women didn’t show any more skin than their face and hands so they weren’t exactly fussing about getting a wax before hitting the town.
Time for a quick history lesson…
The person we can blame for initiating the beauty movement that thrust a razor into our hands, insisting it was the new norm, is King Camp Gilette.
To Victorian women, body hair couldn’t have been any less of an issue. But when ladies began to start ditching the garments that buttoned them up to the chin, Gilette seized the opportunity to double his profits by adding women to his list of customers.
As soon as women were feeling more comfortable about showing skin, this businessman decided to take this as an opportunity to shame us for something totally natural and make some extra cash out of it.
He’d had a dip in the market, and this was his solution.
I don’t want to villainise the guy, I mean, what’s done is done, but when I was doing my research and finding this out, I can’t deny it made my blood boil.
It was in Gilette’s best interest to sell the idea that body hair on women was distasteful and unattractive. For him it meant money in the hand, so it was a no brainer to begin the advertising campaign as soon as sleeves began to shorten and more skin was on show.
However, this was mainly armpit hair.
Since hemlines were still pretty close to the ankle, and most women wore stockings, it was only around the time of the second World War when women started to care about their leg hair.
The war resulted in a nylon shortage. And this forced women to go bare legged under their dresses and pick up the razor once more.
It was also then encouraged that women should shave their legs to “boost moral” for soldiers out fighting the war.
God only knows how the absence of leg hair was supposed to be linked to the war effort. But that’s advertising for you.
Women’s body hair today is often associated with shame and embarrassment. It’s seen by many as unattractive, unsexy, unclean and distasteful. And this isn’t men imposing these opinions on women, its men and women alike subconsciously holding this view because that’s all we’ve really known. It’s not a belief we’ve come up with independently based on personal experience with any form of evidence, it’s simply what society has been whispering into our ears for as long as we can remember.
Fundamentally beauty trends are opportunities for businessmen like Gilette to make a profit.
Why should it take courage to brave the high street in shorts when you haven’t had a moment to shave?
Why are there so many movies where just before a sex scene a woman will excuse herself to go to the bathroom in order to “freshen up”?
While these characters frantically search for the razor, deodorant and moisturiser in order that they can return to the moment of passion smooth and hairless, what do the men do?
I don’t see that kind of effort being made on their part.
Why is it always the women who have to put in all this extra work just for general maintenance?
Society has preyed on us, so that we are the ones with the responsibility to live up to all these expectations.
Women don’t owe it to anyone to shave, wax, use hair removal cream or anything other method.
This is just another cruel rule in the Gender Handbook.
And hey, what if men want to shave their legs?
Why am I almost certain that that would result in ridicule on their part?
I wish I felt more able to go to the beach with my mates without having spent the morning rushing about getting rid of armpit, leg, and bikini line hair.
There have been too many occasions where my body hair has just been on the brink of being noticeable and I’ve held a debate in my head: do I bother with the razor or do I risk it and go without?
Nine times out of ten I’ll convince myself that I might as well just get rid of it.
I doubt anyone would comment if I didn’t, but I don’t feel comfortable in myself being out in public with hairy legs or armpits.
I want to feel like I have a choice. Like it’s not just expected of me.
Comments