mamas who don't shave~ what will you tell your dd and will you/do you allow shaving? - Page 21

[tireesix]

Hairy legs makes me uncomfortable, they are so itchy to the point of hurting, so yeah, I shave my legs etc because otherwise, I am just way too uncomfortable.

As for DDs, their body, their choice.

[Agatha_Ann]

I have only read to page 10 and then I skipped here, so I apologize if I am off track of the current conversation. I shave my armpits, pluck my brows, and wax my arms, full brazilian, and my legs. I am basically hairless from the neck down. I'm blonde so it is not an appearence thing, just comfort. This is MY personal choice because it makes me feek more comfortable and cleaner. DH actually wants to see me with a little hair, but as was mentioned earlier, the thought of AF sticking to hair makes me shudder : I've done this for 15 years because it feels more comfortable to me. I could care less what other women do.

I think that saying women who remove hair from their bodies are subconsiously oppressed is silly. It makes me think of people who say I am oppressed as a homemaker. I have a Masters degree, I just choose to stay home. I don't have to shave/pluck/wax but I choose to. Isn't that the beauty of the women's rights movement? To be free to make choices?

My DD can do what she wishes with her own body. I will support her in what makes her happy.

[holyhelianthus]

Isn't that the beauty of the women's rights movement? To be free to make choices?

Sure as long as you are making the choices "they" deem acceptable.

[BroodyWoodsgal]

Originally Posted by magstphil

Sure as long as you are making the choices "they" deem acceptable.

Don't even get me started on how cheated I feel by the "femenist" movement....:

[holyhelianthus]

Originally Posted by AverysMomma

Don't even get me started on how cheated I feel by the "femenist" movement....:

We should start a tribe!

Of course the movement was needed and I wouldn't go back and stop it but wow in some parts it seems to have taken on this whole other meaning

[katiesk]

I think that saying women who remove hair from their bodies are subconsiously oppressed is silly.

but is anyone saying that? i'm certainly not.

[holyhelianthus]

Originally Posted by katiesk

but is anyone saying that? i'm certainly not.

Earlier in the thread some things were said along these lines like women who shave don't do it for themselves, etc.

[1littlebit]

Originally Posted by magstphil

Earlier in the thread some things were said along these lines like women who shave don't do it for themselves, etc.

this is something i thought of earlier in the thread but couldn't find the right words for. i don't think it is fair to say that women aren't doing it for themselves. even if a woman shaves because she believes that is what other people find attractive, if she wears make up to look more like angelina jolie, and if she wears 4 in heels and mini skirts on her barely above underweight body b/c she thinks that it is attractive b/c that is what the media portrays technically she is still doing all of it for herself. maybe i don't think these things are necessarily true or important but so what? if they are important to her then she is doing it for herself.

some women don't believe SAHMs really choose to do that... and that it is left over oppression or something that is driving that desire... well then they can choose not to SAHM and i say good for them... they can think what they want but that doesn't make it true for me. some women believe that women who WOHM only do it because they feel like they have to or a whole host of other really offensive reasons... but i am 100% certain that there are women who WOHM because they enjoy it and it works for them...people can insist that she doesn't like it until the cows come home but it doesn't actually change anything. there are tons of reasons why people choose to do things and when it comes down to it we make choices based on what is important to us. so in the end what we do is for ourselves.

[rhubarbarin]

Again, I don't think anyone here is saying 'pedophilia' what we are saying is that there are men, and maybe a large percentage, who would ultimately prefer a younger, less experienced, less opinionated girl over an older, more experienced woman who isn't concerned with the smoothness of her armpits. Do you really not believe there are men out there like that?

So you think body hair=physical age, emotional maturity and outspokenness. And body hair removal=youth, less life experience and compliance? This seems a bit silly to me and it's certainly not true personally. I was completely hairy until 19 and have chosen to remove more of my hair as I aged.

I happen, through little effort of my own, to comply fairly well with current American beauty standards (young, look even younger, white, blonde, blue-eyed, cute face, thin body, long head hair, no body hair). I am also a radical feminist who has plenty of life experience and strong opinions and am not concerned with maintaining my armpits, or anything else, for the benefit of the male gaze. These things are not mutually exclusive.

When someone says shaving makes a woman 'look like a little girl' and that it's somehow inappropriate or creepy that men would like their partners shaved because it makes them 'look like a little girl', they are indeed referencing pedophilia since only actual children before puberty, not teens who are children under the law, have no body hair. I had just as much body hair at 15 as I do now, at 25. An older woman is only slightly more likely to be unshaven, due to changing social norms. Emotional maturity (which plenty of people older in age are lacking in) has absolutely nothing to do with body hair removal.

As far as men, of course the majority desire younger and conventionally attractive women. This is so and has ever been so (and younger, conventionally attractive men catch my own eye the most as well). But I don't give a crap what 'the average American male' wants/demands in his sexual or romantic partners, and I don't think he's pertinent to this discussion. My body hair has nothing to do with anyone else! It's mine, to do what I please with.

but is anyone saying that? i'm certainly not.

Well, the OP started off with

I do not shave because I feel like it is a disgusting habit invented by men to make grown women look more like little girls.

and I didn't read the whole thread.

[Erin082]

I do shave, but I totally agree with you about the pressure for grown woman to look like children . . . my stepdaughter (14) was complaining the other day about her new curves and calling herself "fat". Shelamented that when she was twelve she weighed 100 lbs, and is now approaching 120. the kid is a total knockout btw, not an ounce of loose flesh on her . . . her dad chimed in that she should watch her weight. I was outraged, horrified and very very sad. I explained to her that as women mature they get curves, that she needed the "fat" , that it was natures intention that women have them . . . I am nursing so I used that as one example of "why". Then I turned on her father . . . LOL. I asked him how he would feel if he were expected to look the same way NOW as he did before puberty. How silly would that be? And also very damaging . . . but I digress. As for the shaving, I did it without permission at 11 . . . dsd did it also without permission, at - YIKES- 9!!! Unless your daughter is completely sheltered from the mainstream world, I imagine that chances are she will want to try shaving at some point. Just as I can't force my dsd to embrace her womanly beauty, only encourage it and "try" to set a good example, I suspect that is all that can be done on the issue of shaving also . . . Good Luck

[Agatha_Ann]

Originally Posted by Agatha_Ann

I have only read to page 10 and then I skipped here, so I apologize if I am off track of the current conversation. I shave my armpits, pluck my brows, and wax my arms, full brazilian, and my legs. I am basically hairless from the neck down. I'm blonde so it is not an appearence thing, just comfort. This is MY personal choice because it makes me feek more comfortable and cleaner. DH actually wants to see me with a little hair, but as was mentioned earlier, the thought of AF sticking to hair makes me shudder : I've done this for 15 years because it feels more comfortable to me. I could care less what other women do.

I think that saying women who remove hair from their bodies are subconsiously oppressed is silly. It makes me think of people who say I am oppressed as a homemaker. I have a Masters degree, I just choose to stay home. I don't have to shave/pluck/wax but I choose to. Isn't that the beauty of the women's rights movement? To be free to make choices?

My DD can do what she wishes with her own body. I will support her in what makes her happy.

Quoting myself....

I forgot one of my other reasons for having no hair- and one of my favorites! I have a tattoo right above my pubic bone and I would be very sad if I couldn't see it! So there ya go... one of my reasons is purely vain

[Agatha_Ann]

Originally Posted by 1littlebit

this is something i thought of earlier in the thread but couldn't find the right words for. i don't think it is fair to say that women aren't doing it for themselves. even if a woman shaves because she believes that is what other people find attractive, if she wears make up to look more like angelina jolie, and if she wears 4 in heels and mini skirts on her barely above underweight body b/c she thinks that it is attractive b/c that is what the media portrays technically she is still doing all of it for herself. maybe i don't think these things are necessarily true or important but so what? if they are important to her then she is doing it for herself.

some women don't believe SAHMs really choose to do that... and that it is left over oppression or something that is driving that desire... well then they can choose not to SAHM and i say good for them... they can think what they want but that doesn't make it true for me. some women believe that women who WOHM only do it because they feel like they have to or a whole host of other really offensive reasons... but i am 100% certain that there are women who WOHM because they enjoy it and it works for them...people can insist that she doesn't like it until the cows come home but it doesn't actually change anything. there are tons of reasons why people choose to do things and when it comes down to it we make choices based on what is important to us. so in the end what we do is for ourselves.

I agree.

[~PurityLake~]

Originally Posted by magstphil

I suppose it was

that made me get all peevy. There are just often posts reprimanding those who use 'vagina' as all encompassing of the female genitalia and it's just old. I apologize for the confusion and the outburst.

Carry on. Hormonal pregnant woman subdued.

Hey what a cool new smilie!

I will be more careful with my use of that phrase. I actually, as I typed it, thought to myself, I should reword that but I don't know why. I just had this feeling that it might not properly convey what I meant, which was along the lines of: I was just reading along, thinking and learning and felt no need to respond, but this particular statement I couldn't just read and not reply. And although I would love that I was just trying to be funny, and made someone laugh, 'cause I love to be funny and make people laugh, in this case, I seriously thought she literally meant a hairless vagina, implying that unshaved women would have hairy vaginas. It had nothing to do with reprimanding anyone. I am a very visual and literal reader and when I read that, I was immediately given a visual as I read.

And I love that new smilie, too.

[MusicianDad]

Originally Posted by magstphil

Assuming you mean "weren't critiqued" I agree.

That's what I meant.

Changed it.

[AngeliqueW]

Originally Posted by AverysMomma

.

my Vagina Awesomeness Sequence was triggered...as I counted down to the day I would finally meet my first child...somewhere inside, another kind of countdown was taking place...a countdown to the day I would realize my true power as a woman, the day my vagina would reveal to me, what it really is, show me her "stuff" so to speak. I stopped trimming at all during this time and couldn't exactly pinpoint why...it just felt incredibly disrespectful to me...she was like a beast in waiting,I felt that for privacey sake, I needed to grow a coat, not to shield her from view, so much as provide some privacey, for the "big day". I liked how long it got and though my husbands eyes grew wide at catching a glimse of her in full day light...and he would occasionally make comments...it kind of thrilled me that he was so amazed...my vagina really started to look like something else, I'll tell ya! It was almost like it began to LOOK to him, as powerful as I felt it was becoming!

Then I gave birth...and I became like some sort of sorceress! The day I birthed my baby, I realized my POWER! I came into my true, femenine magic. That day completely changed me, the way Isaw myself and my relationships with my vagina, FOREVER. My vagina just knocked my socks off! Suddenly this issue of shaving didn't even seem like it was UP to me....my vagina became this very, very powerful force...almost too powerful to really belong to me. I birthed my baby, and it was like my vagina had become some portal to the universe...this being came OUT of me, through this place I had always had, but never had a true sense of!!

SO....I don't like to shave my lady parts now. They are sacred and I think, it's not so much a patch of hair for me now...it's more like a wizards cloak. To trim her...maybe, maybe at some point, if she gets REALLY unruly....I went a little crazy when my DD was a coupe of months old and I cut off my head hair and a lot of my vulva hair...that was no good. I felt a bit sick at it. I mean, it's like chopping off the cloak of a mighty wizard!! Imagine, a mighty, all powerful wizard...running through life all naked and scraggly looking!! No, no...I don't want to cut it again. It's long and silky and wild looking and it seems fitting....because I feel like a REAL woman now...like magic and femenine mystery...it's not mysterious if you can SEE it, you know?

Will you please be my new best friend?

[VisionaryMom]

I'm an intermittent shaver of my legs and armpits. I don't shave my pubic hair at all. As for DD, she is welcome to try it out if she wants, but I certainly won't be much of a help in terms of doing it "right." I've gone years without shaving and now shave maybe every 4 months. I assume she will learn that we don't want her to take at face value what the dominant culture pushes at her through the discussions we have throughout her childhood.