Feminist Friday: Hairy vs. Hairless

Anti Pervert Hairy Leggings

It all started two months ago with those stupid freaking hairy "anti-pervert" leggings. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones that permeated my Facebook news stream with comments of "haha" and "eww." The ones that were billed to keep unwanted male attention at bay. Those stupid freaking leggings drove me to a feminist rage that put me on threat level explosive. I hate them. Even more so I hated that no one else around me seemed to understand that they weren't funny and they weren't gross but were the epitome of patriarchal bullshit and  perpetuated the beauty myth while not so subtly victim blaming.

So if you don't want "perverts" perving on you then you should have hairy legs. So obviously hairless legs are the only attractive thing to have; if you have hairy legs you're gross and even the perviest perv will leave you be. I've talked about hairlessness and what society tells us is beautiful before so I'm not going to rage on too long here--on the grand scale of how fucked up these leggings are it's the lesser of all the evils.

Women "have" to wear these leggings to stop perverts. Why can't the perverts stop themselves? Even suggesting that they will stop unwanted attention suggests that any unwanted attention is the fault of the woman being harassed and not the harasser--victim blaming and not even vaguely subtle about it. I'll also take it so far as to say they perpetuate the belief that rape is about sex when rape has nothing to do with sex and is about power. If you're a pretty, hairless girl you could get perved on so you need to protect yourself by making yourself ugly and hairy so no man would ever want to harass or perv on you. Obviously unattractive women are never raped or harassed, duh. 

I promise they're really hairy.

Those freaking hairy leggings pissed me off so much I decided to say fuck it and I would grow my own pair of leggings and challenge my own thoughts about hairy legs and say fuck you to the man. One little problem though--I can't shake that feeling that other people are judging me and my hairy legs and I really don't like it.

In general I've been okay about it. I've gone to swimming pools, worn dresses without tights to work, but I've also been somewhat hyper-conscious of what I think is other people staring at my legs. I'll be fine and not think about it but then cross my legs in a meeting and think that everyone is looking at my legs and how hairy they are. It doesn't help that hair in general grosses me out and I don't know if that is just a personal hang-up or societal norms rearing their ugly head but I can't embrace and love my hairy legs like I would in some utopian feminist fantasy. Maybe two months isn't long enough to break my subconscious subservience to societal norms but I'm not anywhere near 100% secure about having hairy legs.

I find myself apologizing for them, too. To the girl who waxes my eyebrows to friends when I'm out for drinks--they all say the same thing about how blonde I am and they hand't even noticed. They couldn't have not shaved for two months but I still can't reconcile it. I want to be happy, hairy and care-free but for whatever reason I'm fairly sure I'm at the end of my hairy journey. Although I have to say writing this and "coming out" with my hairy legs has made me feel a bit better about it all.  Still though feeling the wind blow between your leg hairs isn't a particularly pleasant experience.

It's increasingly difficult to reconcile my feminist beliefs with my own personal beauty beliefs but I hope I can fall back on my most favourite feminist belief--choice. I chose to have hairy legs and at some point I'm going to choose to have hairless legs again. Sure my choices are partially informed by what society tells me I should do but if I buck the norm and still don't like it surely making an informed choice is worth something? 



Let's be friends! Find me here:

Feminist Friday XII

So I was going to start an experiment; an armpit experiment. I realized that after binning my razor in France I hadn't shaved my armpits in Spain or once I got home to the UK and I figured it would be a nifty little experiment to see how long I could go and what people's reactions would be.  My experiment failed.


Let's stop a minute and look back at the whole idea of women shaving their armpits and why we do it. Do you know why we do it? I sure as hell didn't so I googled it (what did we do before Google? I don't think my Encyclopaedia Britannica would have helped me with this query). According to my research (aka Wikipedia) women's armpits began going bare after several magazines had ads with models sans armpit hair circa 1915. This coupled with the invention on the safety razor apparently sparked a trend throughout the English speaking world.

Somehow in less than 100 years we've all gone from fuzzy armpits to bald armpits with no real explanation. Everyone will remember how the press flipped when Julia Roberts showed up on a red carpet with fuzzy pits. Hairy armpits are dirty, disgusting, smelly and not fashionable---but why?


So I only lasted a week with my fuzzy pits and if I'm honest I'm blonde and not very hairy so it's not even like very much was there. So why did I shave? Well I was going for afternoon tea at a very fancy hotel to celebrate Blondie Boy's Great Grandma's 80th Birthday in a sleeveless dress and I didn't want to do anything that could irk BB's GG on her big day.


Personally I do normally shave my armpits but not so much because I'm worried other people will see my hairy pits, but just I don't like the feeling of hair there. If I want to get all analytical I could say if I never once shaved my armpits to begin with maybe I wouldn't feel that way and you'd probably be right. I think if you want to shave your pits or if you don't that should be your decision, but I do think women shaving their armpits is patriarchally influenced.


Why? Well do men shave their armpits? No. Do men get called dirty or gross for having hairy armpits? No. Do you see the inequality here? I could take this argument even further and say that society's current infatuation with hair removal is patriarchy's attempt to make us all powerless little girls, but I won't digress. I think there is a fine line between hair removal for hygienic purposes and hair removal to adhere to cultural "standards." Don't even get me started on vajazzling or I'll be here all week.


So to shave or not to shave?

Feminist Friday XII

Here's how it works. Write a blog about being a feminist mom, raising a feminist child, a rant or anything that falls under the realm of the theme for the week. Come back and link your post and post the button on your blog.


That's it.


You don't even have to be a blogger to take part - just send me your post and I will publish it on my blog for you. You don't even have to include your name if you prefer.


When you've published it, come back on Friday and via a widget thing you can add a link to your post and share it with everyone. The link remains open for 4 days.


Visit others, comment if you like them or feel inspired by them. Just go out and encourage and support other feminist Moms.


The more support you give, the more you will get back! I can't wait to meet and interact with other feminist moms around the world!