November 17, 2008

• Why do women shave?

  Why do women shave? Why do you shave?
  
  I myself don’t shave. I grew up in a house where it was thought weird if a woman shaved. I don’t understand why women shave their legs and underarms. If God didn’t want us to have it He wouldn’t have given it to us.
  Also why do some women think they need to shave “down there”? Men and women are meant to have hair down there? Why do people shave it and try to look like children down there?
  
  Do you shave? Why?

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  Shaving facts:
  In the 1920s when women began wearing knee length, sleeveless ‘flapper dresses’ they also sported hairless legs and shaved under-arms.
   
  Shaving can have numerous side effects, including cuts, abrasions, irritation and the feeling that something is missing. Some people with curly hair have an adverse response to shaving called razor bumps due to ingrown hairs.
   
  For women, the practice of shaving the legs derives from a current cultural standard in the West that deems leg hair on women unattractive. This standard emerged during the early twentieth century, as women’s legs became more visible owing to shorter hemlines, and when the safety razor made the practice of leg shaving practical. The reasons for this cultural standard are debated, but it is sometimes seen as an example of a cultural mechanism for increasing sexuality.
   
  Some women, despite the social pressures that favor hairless legs in certain Western countries, never shave at all. While some refrain out of lack of concern, others consider leg and armpit shaving an unnatural and repressive societal double standard. Still others refrain in an effort to be less environmentally wasteful. Research also suggests that women who do not shave their body hair are “characterized by higher global self-esteem. Scholars suggest that this is because women with lower levels of self-esteem are less likely to be satisfied with their natural bodies, and thus more likely to alter them.
   
  Today, in many countries, especially in much of the Western world, it is more common for women than men to shave off their underarm hair regularly for aesthetic reasons, a practice that may be connected to the overall body hair distribution of sexes. Prevalence of this practice varies widely, though. Some Western women sport a stubble as a mark of defiance against imposed cultural mores. In some East European countries as well as China, underarm shaving is less common and is not considered esthetically necessary.
   
  In the West, the practice began around 1915 in the US and UK, when one or more magazines showed a woman in a dress with shaved underarms. Regular shaving became feasible with the introduction of the safety razor at the beginning of the 20th century. While underarm shaving was quickly adopted in English speaking countries, especially in the US and Canada, it did not become widespread on the Continent of Europe until well after WWII.

  As the temperature goes up and women’s clothing starts to range from small to non-existent, razor industry executives probably start thanking their lucky stars that most women in this country won’t be seen in public with a bit of stubble on their legs.

  Why do women do it? Shaving is such a hassle. It’s time-consuming and the tangible benefits seem minimal.

  What about waxing? What possesses women to voluntarily pay someone to torture them?

  I really don’t understand why women do it. I have never been one to be big on the idea.

  Who ever came up with the idea of shaving? What were they thinking? Taking a sharp implement of some sort and dragging it across their skin to remove their hair to make that area of their body hairless in an attempt to appear prepubescent? Of course, if you’re going to do that, you’re going to cut yourself frequently. And you’ll have to do it every day to keep the area hairless because the hair keeps growing back. It seems like you’d have better things to do with your time. You do have better things to do with your time, don’t you?

  I’m not saying that nobody should shave. You can shave if you really want to. But you should understand that you’ve been conditioned by cultural expectations which are not natural. Many people shave even though they don’t want to because they feel they have to. Many people have attitudes about their own bodies or about other people which are unhealthy or discriminatory simply because of irrational ideas about hair.

  Women naturally have hair on their legs and on their armpits. Really. I have no idea who came up with the idea of shaving it off. I know it’s not a universal thing, but in the US, the majority of women shave or remove the hair through even more ridiculous means. Women with hair, especially with armpit hair, are often viewed with disgust, by both men and by other women. Why? It’s completely natural to have this hair. If she never shaves, the hair is soft. If she showers regularly, the hair is clean. Just what is objectionable about it?
  If women weren’t supposed to grow hair there, then the hair wouldn’t grow there. But it does. It grows on men and women.

  Do you shave? You have that right. But to discriminate against someone else who doesn’t, for whatever reason (and the reason is really none of your business), is unconscionable.

  Both men and women may decide not to shave because they think it’s a stupid waste of time and they’ve got better things to do than spend minutes every day cutting themselves, trying to defy nature for no good reason in cultural exercise for a result they don’t think looks better than what nature gave them.

  Why shave just because Culture says you should? If God didn’t want you to have hair on your legs or underarms then he wouldn’t have given it to you.

  I think that the standards for women in this society are unrealistic and unfounded.

  I think that girls should be allowed to shave or not shave their legs if they want to and people shouldn’t judge them on that.

  Shaving legs has become such a part of American culture people often don’t stop and evaluate why we have this peculiar habit. After all, much of the rest of the world doesn’t remove leg hair. It is time to take a critical look at this practice and seriously ask, “Why do women shave their legs?”

  • 3:22 pm
  • 34 Comments