What's annoying me recently is people's attitudes about body hair on women. For those who don't know, I just leave mine alone. The argument for women shaving or getting rid of it in some way seems either to be that it seems more hygienic or 'cleaner'. I don't understand why anyone would think this! Pubic hair especially, performs a function similar to the cilia in the nose and eyelashes - it prevents dirt and other particles from entering the body, helping to prevent against infection.
The act of shaving, waxing, or any other form of hair removal removes this protective barrier, leaving you more open to infections. Shaving especially, leaves the skin with tiny cuts all over, which makes it even more likely to become sore or infected. Along with the higher chance of things like ingrown hairs from hair removal, this doesn't exactly help the case for 'hygeine' as the reason we perform these tasks. (Also there's a thing called washing, which you can do no matter how much hair you have...)
Pubic hair is also a signifier to others that you have gone through puberty and are physically mature enough to engage in intercourse and to carry a child. (This has nothing to do with emotional maturity though.) It helps in releasing pheremones which are attractive to mates.
Originally the removal of pubic hair started off in porn in order to get better camera angles and a better view of what was happening. It was something very different and 'out there', which no one in society actually did, it was purely in porn, but has gradually infiltrated society's conciousness as something which is 'natural' and all women should look like.
Leg hair - well it's there to keep us warm when we're cold, and cool us down when we're hot. Underarm hair helps in cooling us down, and also in releasing pheremones.
Removing all of our body hair can not only actualy increase the chances of infection, but also removes the signifiers that we are past puberty. This is similar to the way that wearing high heels imitates the way we look as we're going through puberty - our limbs are longer in comparison to the rest of our bodies, which is a visual signal that we are on our way to physical maturity. It's this infantilisation which unnerves me. Our whole society seems to encourage the idea that women should appear pre-pubescent. Even our language echoes this - while the term 'boy' refers to children, or as a putdown to those considered inferior, women are referred to as girls throughout their lives: grown women engage in 'girl talk', go round to visit the girls, and are encouraged through this language and pressure to conform to pre-pubescent body images, to remain childlike. The implication here is that they are immature, without power, and therefore less than men.
The idea that women are only sexually appealing when they look like children, well that's just damn creepy.
People have been removing or leaving body hair for centuries, it didn't start with camera angles in porn. lice, ease of oral sex and personal taste were much bigger factors in the past.
ReplyDeleteAlthough misogeny and infantalism are factors for emphasising this recently for far too many... there are also people who just like the aesthetic of vulva curves too. if we can wear our head hair different lengths and colours for personal taste, we must not assume all people who like shaved pubes are pedophiles or misogenists. those terms are often used too easily.
I think you may have over simplified this in your post.
You know what, I agree with you here - I think I have. I don't think I've written nearly as clearly as I could have.
DeleteI realise that everyone likes different things, and of course personal preference doesn't generally have anything to do with misogeny or infantalism. It's more the fact that this isn't an individual's personal preference, but a societal ideal that's evolved so far that if a woman is seen with natural body hair, it's addressed as though they're monsters - just google 'Julia Roberts armpits' and you'll see pages of results about how disgusting and revolting it was when she flashed her armpit hair.
I'm all for individual choice and taste, and if you prefer shaved pubes or underarms or legs then that's fine, but being physically nauseated by the sight of body hair on a female shouldn't be a normal reaction, yet it's something that's been conditioned into most of our society in the UK.
There's also the hundreds of websites and pop-ups about 'barely legal', 'young teens', 'jailbait', and the fact that 'newspapers' are still reporting about 14-year-old girls wearing bikinis under the guise of criticising the behavious, but showing all the photos with captions about how sexy and old they look for their age... This isn't a personal problem, it's a societal one.