Leg hair - a feminist issue?
Leg har: Ew, it’s so gross/disgusting/dirty/wrong! Unless you’re a boy and not a swimmer or cyclist. Then it’s basically compulsory, or people will start making snide remarks about your sexuality.
But I still haven’t managed to get my head about the reaction to female leg hair. Why is it more gross than, say, your eyebrows? Why does no one ever go, “Ew, you have hairy eyebrows”? I haven’t shaved my legs since I was fourteen, but without fail, when I don shorts and let my leg hair run wild and free, I get the familiar chorus of “Gross! That’s so rank!”
Uh, actually, it’s not. I wash just as much as you do. Maybe more. But these days, the only women seen to have leg hair are either feminists, or lesbians. Or LESBIAN FEMINISTS - run for cover!
Having hairy legs wouldn’t be a big deal to me if people didn’t keep making it one. I don’t shave my legs because I can’t be bothered: it takes me ages, it’s boring, I’m not that keen on the slimy feeling of just-shaved legs, and the sight of leg hair has never disturbed me. But the more people hassle me about this totally trivial thing, the more it becomes part of my identity. So these days, in reaction to people’s pointed questions and pulled faces, I’ll rant about the double standards and infantilising of women. These things are true - the double standards are total bullshit, and the trend of removing all women’s body hair strikes me as seriously weird - but they were never the reason I stopped shaving. I just did it because I wanted to!
But with all the pressure people put on me, if I weren’t a feminist - if I weren’t used to having unpopular and weird beliefs (women should get paid the same as men? RADICAL) - I probably would’ve caved years ago. And I’m sure this is the case with lots of women; they shave their legs because they’re expected to, because it’s too much hassle not to. How dumb is that? So I like to think that by being stubborn about this, I am making it easy for more lazy people to do fun things with their time, like Facebook or Spider Solitaire, instead of pissing around with razors and shaving gel and whatnot. Because it’s not going to become normal until people start doing it!
But I still haven’t managed to get my head about the reaction to female leg hair. Why is it more gross than, say, your eyebrows? Why does no one ever go, “Ew, you have hairy eyebrows”? I haven’t shaved my legs since I was fourteen, but without fail, when I don shorts and let my leg hair run wild and free, I get the familiar chorus of “Gross! That’s so rank!”
Uh, actually, it’s not. I wash just as much as you do. Maybe more. But these days, the only women seen to have leg hair are either feminists, or lesbians. Or LESBIAN FEMINISTS - run for cover!
Having hairy legs wouldn’t be a big deal to me if people didn’t keep making it one. I don’t shave my legs because I can’t be bothered: it takes me ages, it’s boring, I’m not that keen on the slimy feeling of just-shaved legs, and the sight of leg hair has never disturbed me. But the more people hassle me about this totally trivial thing, the more it becomes part of my identity. So these days, in reaction to people’s pointed questions and pulled faces, I’ll rant about the double standards and infantilising of women. These things are true - the double standards are total bullshit, and the trend of removing all women’s body hair strikes me as seriously weird - but they were never the reason I stopped shaving. I just did it because I wanted to!
But with all the pressure people put on me, if I weren’t a feminist - if I weren’t used to having unpopular and weird beliefs (women should get paid the same as men? RADICAL) - I probably would’ve caved years ago. And I’m sure this is the case with lots of women; they shave their legs because they’re expected to, because it’s too much hassle not to. How dumb is that? So I like to think that by being stubborn about this, I am making it easy for more lazy people to do fun things with their time, like Facebook or Spider Solitaire, instead of pissing around with razors and shaving gel and whatnot. Because it’s not going to become normal until people start doing it!