One of the unheralded joys of getting older for women is that the loss of estrogen leads to a near complete loss of the body hair that accompanied puberty. I'll take the win.
Same here. Legs almost hairless; even my armpits don't produce as much as they used to. Then again, my eyebrows are dying and I end up with "stray eyebrows" on my chin.
totally relating to this all the way through. Each year I stop shaving in the winter and as spring springs I see how long I can go before I cave again. Is it caving? Or is it choice? How deep patriarchal programming. Or do I like the aesthetics? Is it possible to even know at this point? And then that last line hit me in the gut and I was crying. I can't believe our girls are fighting the same shit we were. It just breaks my heart.
I remember when my daughter decided it was time to start shaving. She was so proud of her shaved legs. She'd hold them out to me over and over again and ask me to "feel how smooth," or "feel how much I need to shave." It was a rite of passage for her, but into what, exactly? A lifetime of altering her body to conform to sexist standards? It's such a hard thing to negotiate as a parent and a whole new perspective on our misogynist culture when you see your child experiencing it.
People are altering their bodies in much more invasive ways these days than shaving/epilating, and it’s art & self expression! Happens world wide forever too.
I don’t feel any outside pressure at this point, I just know what I like to see on myself. I’m nobody’s employee, I don’t represent any group. So it’s my business alone.
I must say, though, that I do question the maturity/self respect/judgment of those with facial tattoos. I treasure Maya Angelou in saying something along the lines of ‘people will tell you exactly who they are…’ Heed.
In England school uniform for girls is skirts and I’ve spent the last few days spiralling about not only the opportunity cost for girls because of this (not being able to run and jump or break out into a spontaneous sports game etc) but also the danger of teenagers having to walk bare legged or with sheer tights to school, through the dangerous streets of adult predators. Also because of these things girls have to become objects from such a young age, because of the oppression of impractical and revealing clothing and have to face body image insecurity and all of the shaving and tanning from as young as 11. Also, it is SO cold in a skirt, so impractical for our climate and tights are so so uncomfortable.
I loved this- it really resonated. My daughter is 17 and she chose not to shave. If hair doesn’t grow in thicker, then maybe I should stop.
The way she is treated/objectified by the outside world - the gazing world- is not okay- it is no better than I was treated at her age - it is beyond frustrating
For some reason I’ve always liked shaving my calves. I don’t bother in winter but I like the smoothness of my skin. My friends and I used to travel from Brooklyn all the way to the upper west side of Manhattan just to get our legs waxed by Russian aestheticians (one of my favorite words). Maybe it was the ritual/adventure of that exercise and how grown up we felt doing it that has made me so fond of my smooth legs, but my teenage daughter and trans son have both shamed me for the practice. They both like their hairy legs and call me brainwashed. I’m sure I am. But here we are. Daughters of the 70s. Still fighting for rights and respect. I appreciate being older and this thread for clarifying that at this point I don’t shave for anyone’s pleasure but my own.
Don’t let them shame you. Bad habit they need to knock off!
It’s none of their business. Smooth is just as sexy as their concept. And let’s face it, what the hell do they really know about sensual sex yet? Get real with ‘em and they will probably get skivved out and STFU.
I have often wondered how having clean shaven armpits and legs became the gold standard for beauty…and don’t get me started on shaven nether parts. The best thing about getting old has been no longer growing hair under the arms and on the legs (although I feel certain this is the result of type 2 diabetes more than age). However, I do battle every day with a Fu Manchu mustache and some stray chin hairs which I attack with a Venus razor.
Women's shaving in modern times began as a united effort by the women's fashion industry, the women's magazine industry, and the shaving products industry (which, obviously, was trying to expand its market.) As fashion began showing more skin than had been the case in the 19th century, women were propagandized that shaving the newly exposed underarms and legs was more "hygienic" than letting natural hair grow. Shaving the pubic area came later, influenced by pornography. Some have claimed that a shaved pubis and men's desire for it may be a more or less subconscious pedophilic desire, as pubic hair is a sign of sexual maturity. In any case, the population of women with a nearly monolithic devotion to bodily shaving is basically English-speaking Caucasian women. Women of color and non-English-speaking Caucasian women tend to take a more individual approach to the matter.
Where did you derive what you say in your last two sentences? Anecdotally, I’ve noticed some cases of non-white women doing what they want when it comes to body hair, but my own personal experience isn’t enough to make me speak on the subject with authority. Hopefully you are speaking from data-driven research, because the tone is very National Geographic: women towards the end there.
I assisted my wife in doing a paper as part of her bachelor's degree (which she received at 68--and she's dyslexic) and that was derived from data in the research (and anecdotally backed by speaking with an African American co-worker. )
I mean, that’s why I said anecdotal evidence is not sufficient (and I know a lot of non-white women, not just one). I’m still not sure what your data sources were, but that might not be an answer I’ll be getting today.
Eons of beautiful classic sculptures do not depict female body hair. Our ancestors had threading and waxing, not industrial razors: not “Big Beauty” (which in no way absolves BB…)
My hair is somewhat porous and definitely absorbs and incubates body odor in hot situations. It can be itchy and tickles under my leggings.
I have a machine that is painless after a few years. Feels good to get rid of it for weeks at a time. No stubble, mess, or appointments.
It’s MY body and my call how I maintain it entirely for my own prerogatives. I like what I like!
PS I got my pits lasered for a SCUBA trip @50 and it has been really great! (nicks/cuts go bad in salt water)
And… I do adore the hirsute gentlemen of the Sean Connery vibe! The disparagement of male chest hair today is a sad loss to me. Men are becoming subject to the same herd mentality that woman have experienced for a century. OTOH, I predict that in a hundred years, visible gender differences are going to be less and less obvious.
Oh no! Sometimes they are hard to see, per uh, location. Hope she’s 100% OK now.
My X (an ICU nurse) used to throw his used scrubs in the laundry with my coldwater lingerie and it freaked me out. Got his own basket immediately. He assumed he had special immunity; no thought for me… typical.
MRSA is a tough treatment to go through; last ditch antibiotics. Makes me nauseous just thinking about it…
I had MRSA in my right index finger in 2006, and by the time I was admitted to the hospital it had swollen and had the color of an overripe banana. I spent two nights in the hospital on intravenous antibiotics and had to have other antibiotics prescribed to combat recurrent infections for a while. Definitely no joke.(As far as shaving is concerned, were it not for the fact that my wife dislikes facial hair, I'd just grow my beard...lol)
Do you know where you picked it up? You’re probably right handed too. How awful! Are there still lasting effects?
I remember the fear of extremely early COVID (first diagnosed patients were 6 miles away…): frantic washing of everything I touched after a public outing, car keys, door handles, etc. Until the airborne information came in, we were flying blind.
Now that I know what I know, and masking is normalized enough to be unremarkable, as in places like Japan, I view the world as the viral bacterial soup that it is, and protect myself as I can. As we learned in Katrina… they’re not coming for ‘the little people’.
AND it’s working too. I haven’t had a cold in four years except for those three days camping at elevation in the rain. (Worth it!)
If it's any help, I was working in a men's medium security prison as a Corrections officer, and yes, I am right-handed. They had to cut the finger open to drain the abscess, and I was out a month before I could return to work.
As someone with a 14-year-old daughter I wish it were that simple. Having a loving, engaged mother there to teach you to keep your head up when you’re on the street and to yell loudly and run for the nearest grown woman if a man harasses you - or to comfort you when it happens - certainly helps, but it doesn’t make the world better. We need to be teaching our sons, not just our daughters.
Yes I wasn’t coming after you personally, Jim, sorry if it came across that way! I appreciate what you were saying and your comment was kind. I feel like the emphasis is so often on teaching our girls how to manage instead of teaching our boys how to help shift things, it just got my wheels spinning.
Hi Ally, please, I did not take it personally. If we can't all talk here....
My failing is the fact that I'm a WASP, and really just don't have any personal oppression that I can use to help relate (that and the fact that I don't know how to write). Looking forward to seeing your words again on these pages.❤️
Oh good. Last thing I wanted to do was send a barb in the direction of a kindhearted person! Sometimes things get lost in translation and feared that might have happened since I responded before I had coffee this morning. Always dangerous lol. Pleased to connect!
Loved this! Thank you! I'm 63 and going to the mountains for a few days with friends. I'll have to don a bathing suit for the hot tub. On my to do list, I've written in block letters: SHAVE LEGS! (I'm a little scared to at this point).
We did a lot of months long sailing trips. Water was limited so I slathered cheap lotion on my legs and used a cup of water to wash out the blade between swipes. Then I just let it grow. I'm blonde so you could only see it in the daylight. So many of my compatriots on boats did the same. No one cared. It was so liberating! Have not shaved my pits in years. My husband finds that erotic.
One issue right now is the patriarchal grooming precedent we see in our daily women newscasters with low cut, suggestive clothing, extremely long hair and extra heavy globs of eye makeup to accent the plastic surgery they endure to obtain a certain male approved look. But I guess even the men are committed to make up and hair dye now. It's just an odd thing, while women all around the country have found that the natural look is more becoming. TV just doesn't match what women really want to look like these days. Yet we see it every night on the news! However as long as I'm complaining about the nightly news on any station, I read a lot and find that what we are fed as "news" doesn't even begin to be what is really happening. So the entire industry is off it's footing. Maddening!
One of the unheralded joys of getting older for women is that the loss of estrogen leads to a near complete loss of the body hair that accompanied puberty. I'll take the win.
I was promised this glorious future, but it does not seem to be my fate.
my condolences. It may vary with the texture and amount of hair that arrived with puberty.
Also maybe taking estrogen?
Same here. Legs almost hairless; even my armpits don't produce as much as they used to. Then again, my eyebrows are dying and I end up with "stray eyebrows" on my chin.
Well that makes sense. With other features cooperating with gravity, why would my eyebrows be exempt? Thanx!
OMG. I always say aging is just gravity winning out. lol.
Unfortunately this includes the hair on our heads and eyebrows. Cheers!
Yes this is what happened to me by the time I was 42 or so.
It even felt like it was triggered by my use of a hair-growth-inhibiting lotion.
The hairs were just like, ok. Poof!
Very strange.
totally relating to this all the way through. Each year I stop shaving in the winter and as spring springs I see how long I can go before I cave again. Is it caving? Or is it choice? How deep patriarchal programming. Or do I like the aesthetics? Is it possible to even know at this point? And then that last line hit me in the gut and I was crying. I can't believe our girls are fighting the same shit we were. It just breaks my heart.
Same. No shave October-April!!
I remember when my daughter decided it was time to start shaving. She was so proud of her shaved legs. She'd hold them out to me over and over again and ask me to "feel how smooth," or "feel how much I need to shave." It was a rite of passage for her, but into what, exactly? A lifetime of altering her body to conform to sexist standards? It's such a hard thing to negotiate as a parent and a whole new perspective on our misogynist culture when you see your child experiencing it.
People are altering their bodies in much more invasive ways these days than shaving/epilating, and it’s art & self expression! Happens world wide forever too.
I don’t feel any outside pressure at this point, I just know what I like to see on myself. I’m nobody’s employee, I don’t represent any group. So it’s my business alone.
I must say, though, that I do question the maturity/self respect/judgment of those with facial tattoos. I treasure Maya Angelou in saying something along the lines of ‘people will tell you exactly who they are…’ Heed.
Fuck. You said it best.
In England school uniform for girls is skirts and I’ve spent the last few days spiralling about not only the opportunity cost for girls because of this (not being able to run and jump or break out into a spontaneous sports game etc) but also the danger of teenagers having to walk bare legged or with sheer tights to school, through the dangerous streets of adult predators. Also because of these things girls have to become objects from such a young age, because of the oppression of impractical and revealing clothing and have to face body image insecurity and all of the shaving and tanning from as young as 11. Also, it is SO cold in a skirt, so impractical for our climate and tights are so so uncomfortable.
Why skirts anymore? Why?
This sounds terrible. Oh my gosh.
I loved this- it really resonated. My daughter is 17 and she chose not to shave. If hair doesn’t grow in thicker, then maybe I should stop.
The way she is treated/objectified by the outside world - the gazing world- is not okay- it is no better than I was treated at her age - it is beyond frustrating
BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!
❤️
For some reason I’ve always liked shaving my calves. I don’t bother in winter but I like the smoothness of my skin. My friends and I used to travel from Brooklyn all the way to the upper west side of Manhattan just to get our legs waxed by Russian aestheticians (one of my favorite words). Maybe it was the ritual/adventure of that exercise and how grown up we felt doing it that has made me so fond of my smooth legs, but my teenage daughter and trans son have both shamed me for the practice. They both like their hairy legs and call me brainwashed. I’m sure I am. But here we are. Daughters of the 70s. Still fighting for rights and respect. I appreciate being older and this thread for clarifying that at this point I don’t shave for anyone’s pleasure but my own.
I weirdly enjoy shaving, too. It's kind of zen.
You have INFLUENCE Sari! Just today The New York Times’ Wirecutter is running a razor article: “ I’m as smooth as a seal”
Kudos 💖
Don’t let them shame you. Bad habit they need to knock off!
It’s none of their business. Smooth is just as sexy as their concept. And let’s face it, what the hell do they really know about sensual sex yet? Get real with ‘em and they will probably get skivved out and STFU.
I have often wondered how having clean shaven armpits and legs became the gold standard for beauty…and don’t get me started on shaven nether parts. The best thing about getting old has been no longer growing hair under the arms and on the legs (although I feel certain this is the result of type 2 diabetes more than age). However, I do battle every day with a Fu Manchu mustache and some stray chin hairs which I attack with a Venus razor.
"Yay, me, I have performed self-deprecating womanhood, do you like me now? " Brilliant.
My favorite part about this piece was being n ice to the pedicure specialists. It is a small gesture but in some cases avoids injury. I applaud you.
Women's shaving in modern times began as a united effort by the women's fashion industry, the women's magazine industry, and the shaving products industry (which, obviously, was trying to expand its market.) As fashion began showing more skin than had been the case in the 19th century, women were propagandized that shaving the newly exposed underarms and legs was more "hygienic" than letting natural hair grow. Shaving the pubic area came later, influenced by pornography. Some have claimed that a shaved pubis and men's desire for it may be a more or less subconscious pedophilic desire, as pubic hair is a sign of sexual maturity. In any case, the population of women with a nearly monolithic devotion to bodily shaving is basically English-speaking Caucasian women. Women of color and non-English-speaking Caucasian women tend to take a more individual approach to the matter.
Where did you derive what you say in your last two sentences? Anecdotally, I’ve noticed some cases of non-white women doing what they want when it comes to body hair, but my own personal experience isn’t enough to make me speak on the subject with authority. Hopefully you are speaking from data-driven research, because the tone is very National Geographic: women towards the end there.
I assisted my wife in doing a paper as part of her bachelor's degree (which she received at 68--and she's dyslexic) and that was derived from data in the research (and anecdotally backed by speaking with an African American co-worker. )
And that’s great that your wife got her BA despite her dyslexia.
I mean, that’s why I said anecdotal evidence is not sufficient (and I know a lot of non-white women, not just one). I’m still not sure what your data sources were, but that might not be an answer I’ll be getting today.
It's been a while, and I don't have a copy of the paper before me, but these were academic resources that were used.
Love this! I remember the Flicker. Still optimistic that the world will be better for your daughter (even if things seem a little dire at the moment).
I do it to maintain maximum aerodynamics waist down.
😂
Eons of beautiful classic sculptures do not depict female body hair. Our ancestors had threading and waxing, not industrial razors: not “Big Beauty” (which in no way absolves BB…)
My hair is somewhat porous and definitely absorbs and incubates body odor in hot situations. It can be itchy and tickles under my leggings.
I have a machine that is painless after a few years. Feels good to get rid of it for weeks at a time. No stubble, mess, or appointments.
It’s MY body and my call how I maintain it entirely for my own prerogatives. I like what I like!
PS I got my pits lasered for a SCUBA trip @50 and it has been really great! (nicks/cuts go bad in salt water)
And… I do adore the hirsute gentlemen of the Sean Connery vibe! The disparagement of male chest hair today is a sad loss to me. Men are becoming subject to the same herd mentality that woman have experienced for a century. OTOH, I predict that in a hundred years, visible gender differences are going to be less and less obvious.
{esthetician’82-‘93}
My sister got MRSA in her groin from an infected ingrown hair one summer after being in the water at Ocean City, MD. It was no joke.
Oh no! Sometimes they are hard to see, per uh, location. Hope she’s 100% OK now.
My X (an ICU nurse) used to throw his used scrubs in the laundry with my coldwater lingerie and it freaked me out. Got his own basket immediately. He assumed he had special immunity; no thought for me… typical.
MRSA is a tough treatment to go through; last ditch antibiotics. Makes me nauseous just thinking about it…
I had MRSA in my right index finger in 2006, and by the time I was admitted to the hospital it had swollen and had the color of an overripe banana. I spent two nights in the hospital on intravenous antibiotics and had to have other antibiotics prescribed to combat recurrent infections for a while. Definitely no joke.(As far as shaving is concerned, were it not for the fact that my wife dislikes facial hair, I'd just grow my beard...lol)
Do you know where you picked it up? You’re probably right handed too. How awful! Are there still lasting effects?
I remember the fear of extremely early COVID (first diagnosed patients were 6 miles away…): frantic washing of everything I touched after a public outing, car keys, door handles, etc. Until the airborne information came in, we were flying blind.
Now that I know what I know, and masking is normalized enough to be unremarkable, as in places like Japan, I view the world as the viral bacterial soup that it is, and protect myself as I can. As we learned in Katrina… they’re not coming for ‘the little people’.
AND it’s working too. I haven’t had a cold in four years except for those three days camping at elevation in the rain. (Worth it!)
Glad you recovered James.
If it's any help, I was working in a men's medium security prison as a Corrections officer, and yes, I am right-handed. They had to cut the finger open to drain the abscess, and I was out a month before I could return to work.
Yeah, she was early 20’s at the time. It was gross.
You care for her and teach her, you are giving her a better world.
As someone with a 14-year-old daughter I wish it were that simple. Having a loving, engaged mother there to teach you to keep your head up when you’re on the street and to yell loudly and run for the nearest grown woman if a man harasses you - or to comfort you when it happens - certainly helps, but it doesn’t make the world better. We need to be teaching our sons, not just our daughters.
Her world better, not "the" world.
Yes I wasn’t coming after you personally, Jim, sorry if it came across that way! I appreciate what you were saying and your comment was kind. I feel like the emphasis is so often on teaching our girls how to manage instead of teaching our boys how to help shift things, it just got my wheels spinning.
Hi Ally, please, I did not take it personally. If we can't all talk here....
My failing is the fact that I'm a WASP, and really just don't have any personal oppression that I can use to help relate (that and the fact that I don't know how to write). Looking forward to seeing your words again on these pages.❤️
Oh good. Last thing I wanted to do was send a barb in the direction of a kindhearted person! Sometimes things get lost in translation and feared that might have happened since I responded before I had coffee this morning. Always dangerous lol. Pleased to connect!
Loved this! Thank you! I'm 63 and going to the mountains for a few days with friends. I'll have to don a bathing suit for the hot tub. On my to do list, I've written in block letters: SHAVE LEGS! (I'm a little scared to at this point).
Why bother?! It might be chilly in the mountains. Keep that hair! Who cares? No one but YOU! What are you comfortable with?
We did a lot of months long sailing trips. Water was limited so I slathered cheap lotion on my legs and used a cup of water to wash out the blade between swipes. Then I just let it grow. I'm blonde so you could only see it in the daylight. So many of my compatriots on boats did the same. No one cared. It was so liberating! Have not shaved my pits in years. My husband finds that erotic.
One issue right now is the patriarchal grooming precedent we see in our daily women newscasters with low cut, suggestive clothing, extremely long hair and extra heavy globs of eye makeup to accent the plastic surgery they endure to obtain a certain male approved look. But I guess even the men are committed to make up and hair dye now. It's just an odd thing, while women all around the country have found that the natural look is more becoming. TV just doesn't match what women really want to look like these days. Yet we see it every night on the news! However as long as I'm complaining about the nightly news on any station, I read a lot and find that what we are fed as "news" doesn't even begin to be what is really happening. So the entire industry is off it's footing. Maddening!