to shave or not to shave…..
In sixth grade I stole my mother’s cheap pink plastic razor from the oak cabinet under her bathroom sink, quickly before she could notice i locked myself in the bathroom and promptly shaved off all my body hair. this was the first time I’d shaved, prior to this date I’d never really thought much about it but that afternoon a group of girls had cornered me in the field just beyond the swings and told me that girls did n’t have hairy legs. defensively i pulled down the edges of my shorts to cover what I had just learned were my inappropriately furry legs. As a middle school high femme bordering on bio queen I kept shaving before giving it up to embrace androgyny in high school. After coming out as a dyke I would periodically pick up an old razer from the medicine cabinet, carefully stashed behind aftershave, cologne, and cold meds. fondly i would hold the little piece of pink plastic and think about despite knowing that it was a tool of the patriarchy I couldn’t help but long for it. It would be years before I would be able ot come to terms with my own queered femininity, and it would be years before I could embrace the idea that I wanted to shave my legs.
I have found that the shaving is something that nearly every femme I know has grappled with at one time or another. There is of course no right or wrong answer, I know some femmes who shave every piece of body hair, and others who see their hairy legs, and pitts as an intrical part of their queered femininity. As for me, I shave my legs just about every morning. I love the way my smooth legs feel rubbing up against one another, how it makes my tattoos and tights look, however I never shave my armpits because as strange as it sounds there is something about armpit hair that makes me feel a connection to dykeness (yes I know there are many problems generalizations like that). I no longer find my desire to shave to be at odds with my feminism, rather it like wearing makeup, dresses, and heels is an informed feminist decision, it is not “internalizing the patriarchy” rather it is embracing my queered femininity.
Shaving is a topic that came up this week on the personal blog of a femme friend of mine who was deciding whether or not she wanted to begin shaving, so I’m curious and want to pose a question to femme readers. Do you shave? Why or why not and does that decision relate to your identity as a femme in any way?
April 20th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
This is such interesting stuff! I think I’m the femme friend who inspired this post?
What I’m fascinated with is the different body parts we do chose to shave, if we shave at all. What are the ways in which queer norms and identity shape our ideas of shaving? To what extent does that have to do with being a femme? And how is shaving taken up differntly by other queer gender identities?
I think a small portion of my hesitation to shave is that I’ll somehow ‘fail’ as a femme. I won’t ‘look’ queer enough. I think this is where queer politics also normalize us in ways that might not be obvious.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Sometimes I think shaving is where it all starts to fall apart for me. I like to have nice, neat intellectual explanations for why it’s ok to do all these feminine things I do.
And I can say that it’s my choice to shave, that I like how it feels, etc. But when I think about why I started (in middle school, because there were only two girls lower on the social ladder than I and one of them had very hairy legs and I wanted to keep my position as not-quite-the-least-cool-kid) I know that I only started in order to conform. And now I just like doing it. I did grow it all out one summer while working as a camp counselor, but it took months to get past the stubble stage. And the stubble stage feels gross to me.
My mom told me that it wasn’t feminist, that it was something women did for men, but I only saw what the other girls had to say about it and I wanted to fit in with them.
The choice thing is important - if a partner ever had anything to say about the times when my legs get stubbly I would NOT be pleased.
I also shave my armpits - long armpit hair kind of ruins the line of a ballet type back bend, and some of my bikini line depending on what kind of performing I’m doing (ballet=pink tights=shaving)