sometimes i shave my legs, and sometimes i don't

Hello friend.

Sometimes I wish that my blog was still private. Not all the time, but sometimes. It's nice to rant about something and know that it isn't going to cause a problem because it shouldn't cause a problem, but you just need to say it and some people might take offense and turn it into something it's not.
Oh well. I guess that's what Whisper is for.


When I was younger and began thinking about shaving my legs, I remember my mother asking me if I was sure. She told me that once you start, you can't stop.
I now know that's not true.

I used to try so hard to conform to particular body standards, but for me it was always difficult. I'm not a particularly thin girl. I'm not thick even. I just know that I'll never look like Monica and Rachel from Friends. I can work out and diet all I want, but I have a particular body type. As long as I'm healthy and fit and comfortable, that's all that matters.
This is a relatively new body image realization for me.

However I learned the truth about leg shaving quite a long time ago.
I used to work at a sleep-away summer camp. There were lots of girls, plus the three councilors, sharing 2 showers. Showers had to be REALLY short, which basically meant that you would never really have time to shave your legs every day. Yes, you can get a rhythm and get it done pretty quickly.. But not that quickly. (I even gave up using conditioner that summer. Result: Hermione hair.) So you didn't shave your legs every day. And that was okay!

I remember finding it so strange once I got to college that girls insisted on shaving their legs every single day. It's a ridiculous routine to have to stick to and it's an even more ridiculous expectation to be set for women to live by.

So if I'm heading off to a Zumba class but I didn't shave my legs the night before, I don't torture myself with long pants to cover up my shame. There is no shame in some stubble. NONE. If it's an uncharacteristically warm day and I want to wear a pair of shorts or a skirt, I'm not going to let a bit of stubble stop me, nor will I let it force me to wear tights as an act of concealment.

A small hiatus of leg-shaving doesn't make me unclean. If it did, then the majority of men would be absolutely filthy.

Let's think about this ridiculous expectation in another way.
Not every man shaves his face every day. Some do. Either it's expected of them by their peers or their careers or the voices in their head. That's fine. But the majority of men do not set aside 10-15 minutes every day to shave. If a man has a bit of scruff, is that considered appalling, or even shameful? Of course not!
And guess what! The surface area of a man's face is likely to be less than the surface area of a woman's thigh.

I accepted this ages ago, and since then have never really strictly adhered to a "shave legs every day" routine. Until recently, I thought that I was the only one with this realization. But then I discovered this. Yes this comic isn't exactly about the legs, but if it's something that someone bothered to make a comic about, would it be relatively common (at least, more so than I originally thought)? And if it applies to that portion of the body, then wouldn't it probably apply to others as well? (I think the fact that the lyric "Sometimes I shave my legs, and sometimes I don't" even exists is proof as well.)

The point I'm making isn't that we should all live in a society where no one shaves and we all have heaps of hair coming from every part of our bodies. I just think that people shouldn't feel like slaves to a highly unrealistic expectation. People should be allowed to stick with a routine that works for them and that they are comfortable with. And if anyone should judge or shame you for these decisions, well then screw them! We make thousands of decisions about our lives and our appearance and how we emote to others every day. We can't completely cast our happiness aside in making these decisions just to please the faceless masses.

It's topics like this that really make me realize how much of a feminist I've become over the years. I've never really labeled myself as such before, but now I'm proud to.


Currently playing on my iPod: I See Fire - Ed Sheeran
Tiny break from Christmas music..
I've been in love with this song since I first heard it at the Hobbit Fan Event in Wellington. It's freaking brilliant. It perfectly captures the mood we are left with at the end of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug while still driving us to want more, to want to know what happens after you see the fire approaching, and to not want to wait a year for the third (and, sadly, final) installment. Ed Sheeran is an amazing writer. As soon as I found out he was writing the credit song, I knew that I would not be disappointed.