Apr 30 2009
To Shave or not to shave..that is the question.
In health and biology classes in school, we learned that body hair is a part of sexual development for males and females. Why is it, then, that body hair is okay for one sex, but not for another? I took a poll on women’s body hair over the weekend and got some varying opinions. Some said that it’s a personal choice, some said, “Eww, nasty, shave it or wax it.” One said it didn’t bother him unless there was “a forest”. Why is this such an issue with women, when men can have as much body hair as they want? Don’t get me wrong, there are comments and jokes among people when a man has a lot of body hair, but on a whole it’s more acceptable when a man has body hair. Some comments women have gotten about body hair, if they don’t remove it regularly, is that they’re lesbian, lazy or just don’t care about themselves. Everyone is born with body hair, it’s just that in some cases it’s so light that it can’t be seen or it’s in scant supply on that person, and it all depends what racial group you fall under. There are some who say that having body hair, especially underarm hair, is unhygienic. The reason we grow body hair in the first place is to try to help keep the body clean and free of infection by trapping dirt and germs and keeping them away from the body. The hair is the body’s built-in filter, so for those people think that’s unhygienic, you’re absolutely wrong. Not only that, but body hair traps the natural pheromones secreted to attract mates. There was a time when razors and wax weren’t around, and no one seemed to have a problem then. Are the inventions of razors, wax and other hair removal systems supposed to make us more enlightened?
Products for body hair removal almost never feature men, and if they do, it’s the shaving system for them to get a smooth look, but it’s acceptable for them to have beards and such, even ads to cover gray in facial hair. It’s usually how the woman can have the smoothest legs and win men’s approval, because it’s after the product is used that they’re on a date with a man and he’s rubbing against her legs or arms with a smile of appreciation and the woman is beaming at his touch. So why are hair removal products mostly for women? To get the approval of men, to be “truly beautiful”.
It all goes back to the feminine standard, especially here in America. Women are supposed to be “the fairer sex”, “sugar and spice and everything nice”, and just “soft and smooth”. The man can be as “rugged” as he wants to be. When a man removes his body hair, it’s because he’s in a sport where body hair can slow him down, i.e. swimming, or some other rare reason. A woman is made to feel bad about the natural development of hair, or at least keeping it, by those advertisements or comments. Comedian Jeff Foxworthy said in one of his routines about his wife’s body hair, that he could clean the grill with her legs when she hasn’t shaved in a while, and if she asks if he wants to fool around, he tells her that he’s going to wait until she’s shaved. Jokes were told for years about how European women didn’t shave, but the news now is that the American standard of smoothness has reached over to Europe and women are now more body hair conscious.
Here in America, there are numerous body hair removal methods to choose from, but they’re also expensive! I have about five shaving systems, trying to see over the years which ones will produce the smoothest shave, and I only refill one of them because it’s cheaper to do so. If you’ve ever checked out the shaving needs aisle, you’ll see it’s one thing to buy the razor, but quite another to buy cartridge refills. For one of the razors I have, it would be about $11-15.00 to refill one, $8-9 for the other, and the cheapest one I refill is about $3.00. The disposables can be just as expensive, with one of the ones I’ve used for a decent shave where the head doesn’t come off (I’ve had that happen with a cheaper razor and a famous maker razor), costing about $6.00. Waxing was painful, so I never used that again, and I even had an allergic reaction to one chemical hair remover as a teenager. Then there’s the famous Brazilian bikini wax and its resulting “landing strip”, or wax until they’re bare down there (yes, the rhyme was intentional). With the economy being in its current state, it’s cheaper just to let the hair grow! Painful tangles? Buy a pair of those small scissors and trim yourself in the privacy of home.
Honestly, does it matter if a woman decides not to shave, and is completely natural? Why would it make her less attractive? We as a nation are always talking about getting back to nature in our food and energy sources so our bodies and the environment will function better. We were meant to have body hair, both men and women, it’s only natural! Unless women having no body hair brings about world peace and fixes the economy permanently, leave us alone and let our gardens grow!
