Why should women shave their legs? A question I pose to myself more often than I should due to both the people I surround myself with and the age we live in. After watching a video from YouTube channel StyleLikeU titled ‘sorry not sorry, women have body hair‘ (thanks to Edie for introducing me to this channel, they have some utterly fab videos) body hair is a subject that I feel needs to be talked about – she discusses that shaving ads are shaving nothing; a false impression for young girls that could be watching. The issue of women’s body hair should be questioned, for why is it an issue?
No, I am not a hypocrite for shaving my legs after questioning who suggested that women should live hairless – I like the feeling of smooth legs but I have no urge to shave my legs every week; I’ve only shaved them once this year. Whilst I do have blonde leg hair it is still noticeable, infact I’ve been told by one of my friends that they think it is ‘great I have the courage to not shave my legs’. However I have to inquire, what is the courage in not shaving your legs? There is none, unfortunately it is the norm to shave your legs (a task I find possibly too arduous for my low maintenance beauty regime).
Women have been oppressed by a society that has been grown up to think that body hair is wrong. We’ve been removing hair from the dawn of time and I found out today that even women in Ancient Egypt removed all their hair with tweezers so lets just be grateful we are in the 21st Century and not 3500 B.C. Much like everything that is not considered mainstream body hair is sadly still seen as ‘gross’ and ‘unhygienic’ – *news flash* it’s not.
“It’s unnatural for women to have body hair”
Body hair is the most natural thing ever, we were born with hair! What if women didn’t have to feel that they needed to shave their legs? There is nothing wrong in not shaving or shaving but we have been programmed to think that shaving your legs is really the only way – it is the fact women feel they have to do this act.
Some women shave for society, others for the views that men have of them, I fall under the ‘occasional shaving’ category and other women do it as it makes them feel cleaner. It is ridiculous that men can shave yet women who are also blessed with the same hair feel ashamed and embarrassed. I ask you to not shave and see what people think or continue to shave (I am about to for my holiday tomorrow and but I don’t the rest of the year simply because razors are expensive, it’s time consuming and honestly I am perfectly happy with the state of my body) but don’t feel like you have to shave your legs, especially for other people. Whatever you do, do it for you.
So, my question to you is: do you feel that women should shave their legs? Leave me a comment below as I would love to know your thoughts.
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