Confession time: Today I shaved my legs for the first time in about a year.
If that makes you physically ill, then I advise you to just stop reading because it won't get any better from here.
That's right. About a year ago, while furiously shaving all the hair from my legs, I came to two big realizations: 1). Hair doesn't really bother me and 2). I HATE shaving. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. These realizations really confused me. Why was I spending so much time doing something that I dreaded for results that never impressed me?
From here I started to do some math, calculating all the time I wasted while dutifully grooming just my body hair. Here is my thought process: If it takes me twenty minutes to shave my legs, armpits, and bikini line (which is a moderate estimate), then that means I was spending about an hour a week (four hours a month, or 48 hours a year) doing something that only upset me.
That's two days out of the year I spent battling the natural state of my body in order to be deemed more acceptable to others. And it's a lot more time for some women who decide to shave every part of their body from the eyebrow down every day.
This struck me as ridiculous. What things could I have spent doing instead? Reading a book, listening to music, spending time with loved ones-- all these options sounded better to me. So why was I taking part in this ritual?
I think I started shaving in middle school. I vaguely remember being teased at swim practice by both girls and boys about my fuzzy legs. Embarrassed and ashamed, that night I went home, locked the bathroom door, took my mom's razor, and shaved my legs for the first time.
Because I was too afraid to ask anybody for help, I did a terrible job and ended up cutting myself a lot. I wonder what percentage of girls have a similar story to mine. I'd be willing to wager money that most girls only took up shaving after being teased by someone in their lives.
I went throughout high school and college shaving a few times a week. After I graduated college, I started questioning my reasoning for continuing on with something that I viewed as a waste of time.
And that catches us up to about a year ago, when I decided to give it up. Or at least I decided to never shave out of a duty to other people. I spent a year only shaving out of choice, which meant that I never ended up shaving my legs.
So how did people react to my year of almost no shaving? Well, I honestly think that most people had no idea. My clothes covered it up for the most part; I didn't flaunt it in everybody's faces. A few close friends commented on my hairy legs, some positively and some a little more negatively.
I had some friends who thought it was a cool test for me, but that they could never do it personally because their body hair was much thicker, darker, longer, etc. One or two physically recoiled when I showed them. I had a friend's mom tell me that they looked like "man legs," which was funny because I was 100% still a woman.
It's amazing how taboo body hair has become to our society. A large majority of the women I've talked to about body hair have argued that the point of feminism is that women have the opportunity to choose whatever they want to do with their bodies, and I absolutely agree with this. If shaving honestly makes you happier, then I have no qualms with your choice.
However, I think it's still important to question our reasoning for doing certain things. I'm not sure that women who were "choosing" to shave every day actually felt like they had a choice. Is it actually making a unbiased decision when the two options are either 1). Remove your body hair and be approved by our society or 2). Don't remove it and be on the receiving end of ridicule?
I just want women to understand that our "choices" aren't happening in a vacuum. Like I said, I'm pretty sure preteen girls aren't just waking up one day and thinking, "You know, I'd really like to take a sharp razor and remove all my body hair today."
We all make daily choices about our appearances, and I don't want to suggest that women who decide to shave (wear heels, put on make up, wear dresses, etc.) are being bad feminists. I just want to expose the fact that sometimes the choices we make as women contribute to that status quo, and therefore make it more difficult for the women on the other end whose appearances vary from what our society has deemed as "beautiful" and "feminine."
Once we start asking ourselves WHY we do the things we do, we can start to move towards changing things, so that one day little girls can feel comfortable just being who they are (hairy legs and all).
Fast forward to today, when I broke down and shaved my legs. I wish I could say that I came to a brilliant and beautiful realization about my body hair, but I haven't yet.
I still abhor shaving. However, I'm going to be in my friend's wedding wearing a dress, so of course I broke down and shaved. I understand that this makes me a hypocrite, and that's why I decided to write this. Because even though, deep down, I know that I shouldn't let society's standards dictate the choices I make about my body and how I feel about myself, they almost always creep back into my brain and make me question everything.
One day I'll get there, one day.
