Why I Could Never Give Up Shaving For The Sake Of Feminism
In recent years there’s been a trend in which women, embracing radical feminism, have elected to no longer shave their legs, underarms and nether regions (amongst other things) in order to dismantle the patriarchy.
As a far less radical feminist, I am moved by my respect for these women – and not for the reasons you may think. I am simply in awe of their ability to deal with their hair. How they can deal with hairy, itchy legs is entirely and utterly beyond me.
Let’s not beat around the bush. All us girls know that there is nothing comparable to the annoyance we are overcome with when we so much as think about shaving our legs. It’s a tiresome activity that needs to be repeated on a daily basis that takes up a precious fifteen to twenty minutes of our already busy days. It’s an irritating practice, riddled with the danger of nicking yourself and having to cover your legs with band aids (or pieces of toilet paper if you want to pull off the classic cartoon shaving man look). The practice is so time consuming, repetitive and downright dangerous that many of us have turned to waxing and hair removal cream to stave off the hair.
I too might have joined in the revolution of waxing and hair removal creams if it were not for the waiting.
Oh the waiting. I bought a bottle of Veet Hair Removal Cream a few weeks ago and it recommended having four days worth of hair growth.
Four. Days.
I can’t sleep with one day’s worth of growth and you want me to wait for FOUR?!
I am definitely an oddity, I hold no illusions around the fact. Many of my friends are able to go without shaving all winter and there are countless references to these types of people all over the internet. These people are both lucky and strange in my eyes. They are lucky in that they are the types of people that wax and hair removal cream are designed for. They are strange to me in that they don’t feel the itch.
The awful, dirty itch. If I skip a shave in the evening I end up lying in bed prickling all over and unable to rest my legs together. I feel unclean, I feel disgusting. I scratch and toss and turn until I get out of bed and use an electric razor – the worst kind of razor there is – so that I may finally sleep in peace.
I’ll be honest, the idea for this post came to me as I was shaving my legs in the shower last night. I had grumbled and grr’ed my way into the shower at 11.30pm. I was not a happy camper. But once I was in there and removing the hair and dead skin I felt freed. I reached my happy place, I was zen.
It’s an incredibly weird thing to admit. Shaving my legs helps me reach my centre. But the act of removing that layer and being fresh and smooth just calms me. And it was during that shower last night, where I happily failed to produce any blood, that I realized that I liked it.
I like to shave.
There, I said it.
Viva la razorlution; in which all women can reach their centre while shaving the day away!