Shaving and all of that - new lows

I don't shave, but during my first birth had to be shaved a bit by a midwife for an unplanned C-section, felt it wasn't good use of her time and found it embarrassing, so for the second birth (attempted Vbac) trimmed the area in case had to have a second C-section, which in the end I did.

It bothers me that women feel that they HAVE to shave to avoid offending people and feel comfortable with themselves. However, I don't think telling them they shouldn't do it will help at all. The real problem is not the skin scraped bare of hair but the underlying belief that one's body is not acceptable in its natural state. Putting down the razor, although it can be a helpful step along the path to self-acceptance, is not magically going to turn someone into a confident person who loves her body.

If someone wants to stop shaving I would wholeheartedly support her, and I openly show off my own hairy legs/pits in public regularly as part of challenging expectations about what a woman 'should' look like, but I'm not going to tell anyone what she should or shouldn't do with her body.

This timeframe corresponds to the emergence of hairless genitals in porn, at a time when porn was becoming more explicit and readily accessible, free of charge, via the internet

I'm not sure the one causes the other, if you read around the subject you find other trends - various Asian faiths that shave, the hygiene arguments, fashionable people shaving down to de minimus etc - were all were coming into vogue at the time.

I suspect fashion leaders will shift again when all the chavs do it and it becomes passe, in fact I see more fashion articles popping up these days saying pubic hair is coming back as various models start to sport it again.

IMO the only sustainable Feminist positon is "do what you damned well like, its yours"

It's personal choice but you wouldn't find them attractive because of that choice. Is it the first thing you look for to make that decision? I honestly can't work out how the most stunning woman would suddenly not be attractive because she hadn't shaved.

Oh god.

I wasn't meaning to be rude about people who don't shave - as I said its personal choice.

The ewok was an exaggeration - a joke! When I say about not shaving I was talking about the extreme of really long leg & arm pit hair etc. Not that people that don't shave are ewoks.

I'm don't wanna get involved in the whole feminist debate. It's a lose - lose situation.

I am not a shaver generally but am quite hairy down there and did it so the midwife could see what she was looking at... seemed sensible to me at the time shrugs

NOONE has said on this thread a few points that I think are important given the situation.

If a woman is worrying about her pubic hair then she's not worrying about other things related to childbirth. Its actually a good diversionary tactic.

Secondly given that there is just so much emphasis put on 'correct behaviour' in pregnancy and childbirth to the point that the RCM, NCT and RCOG are putting out papers saying doctors should influence women to make 'good decisions' are we really surprised when women are concerned about being judged about their hair in childbirth?

Because quite honestly they may have every reason to feel like they are being assessed and conditioned to comply...

Not to mention its all in the context of historically shaving women done there, so asking about the ettituquete, is hardly a 'new low'.

Thats why I take real exception to the thread. Not necessarily about the subject, but certainly calling it a new low in childbirth? Hello?!

bybalou

I wasn't talking about faces as I take it you don't shave your face as most women don't grow hair on their faces. I was talking about the bits where both men and women are naturally hairy e.g armpits, genital area. That's what I was referring to by double standards. Men can grow forests under their arms or round their man bits and that's apparently OK, but there is a social expectation on women who are also hairy in those areas to shave and for a woman to say, as you did, that you would not expect your husband to be intimate with you if you were hairy. That is the double standard I was talking about (unless of course you do have a beard and moustache)

bubalou "if I looked like an ewok"

how polite of you. So women who don't remove their pubic hair look like ewoks now then

Shave if you want to, but there is no call for you to be rude about those of us who choose not to.

Ick, ick, ick.

It's up to anyone what they do with their bits, shave or not shave.

I strongly suspect some of this comes from porn. I have seen porn at stag do's and so on. If the smallish sample I've seen is anything to go by, women are emaciated, long legged, balloon breasted, prepubescents. They all also seem to walk in 9" heels. (and no for the avoidance of doubt, no matter what gymnastics they do, they are not at all attractive or arousing). I like porn written, as the pictures are better.

While I think the hairless look probably is porn related, the general desire for women not to look like women is fed by the bloody awful fashion mags, run by people who hate women.

I think I saw that Marilyn Monroe would be considered a plus size model? If women's fashion magazines push this tripe, and women believe it, then I'm unsurprised that some men do.

DW shaves her legs and armpits, because she wants to; I've considered getting my back and shoulders waxed. The only other thing I'd consider shaving is my head.

susiedaisy, glad to hear it and that is what I would have assumed, to be honest. Nevertheless, I do recall someone claiming on here that surgical/nursing staff did comment and joke amongst themselves about women who were not waxed/shaved to a greater or lesser extent. Obviously, they were only talking about those they worked with, but still... Very unprofessional and quite depressing if it was true.

grimbletart

I knew someone would reply something like this.

My husband does shave, he shaves his face - I don't really like spikes and he keeps his man area 'trimmed & neat'.

This isn't about my DH having double standards because he doesn't. I however can appreciate a women who is attractive - I would not find necessarily find her so attractive if she had really hairy legs.

Like I said it's personal taste. I don't care if everyone else insisted on looking like cousin it - I will still be shaving.

Not brave enough to have a wax though

bubalou I don't like having hair in those places and would not expect my husband to want be intimate with me if I looked like an ewok.

So does your husband shave as well then? If not,why not, given that both sexes naturally have body hair?

(I do shave my armpits and legs because I love the feeling of smooth skin - on men as well as women) so it is not that I am anti-shaving if that is what a person wants. But I don't understand a man wanting a woman to shave if he is not prepared to do so himself and I don't understand a woman disliking hair on herself but liking it on a man given that both sexes are naturally hairy.

Sounds like the old double standard to me.

It's depressing to think that women are shaving / waxing pre-birth because they're scared of being judged if they don't.

I didn't touch my pubic hair before giving birth, and I didn't get a single look or comment from any of the medical staff about it. If they cared at all about it, they didn't let me know. I'm sure that any midwife or obstetrician will have seen plenty of hairy vaginas.

I was under the impression that shaving/waxing actually increases the risk of infection - and that's why they tend to trim any hairy bits before surgery rather than shaving these days.

Perhaps this is an angle that feminist midwives could work on - that really you shouldn't be doing anything, because if the worst happens and you need surgery/episiotomy/stitching you have a lower risk of infection if you haven't shaved?

I don't really care to be honest about other peoples hair.

I shave my legs, under arms and bikini area.

I did so up until the day I gave birth.

I do this because this is what I feel most comfortable with.

I will NEVER and I say this with great confidence - give up shaving / removing my hair. (until I am old an incapable that it unless I can bribe my child to shave my legs )

I don't like having hair in those places and would not expect my husband to want be intimate with me if I looked like an ewok.

Although of course he doesn't care about a bit of leg hair - the thought of having proper hair growth on legs etc makes me gag.

But that is me. I'm not up for the whole 'waxing it ALL off thing' that seems to be popular - I just don't like the idea. Personal preference.

I work in women's health, in a surgical area and can honestly say that the team of over thirty members of staff that I work with have never gossiped/discussed the amount of pubic hair a patient has! They are too busy saving their lives and and helping them recuperate from surgery to be remotely interested in that, in my eyes it would be totally unprofessional to gossip in the staff room about a patient's vagina or pubic hair! when all said and done most women look pretty much the same down there.

Threads about shaving/waxing pre-childbirth pop up on here from time to time. There were some a few years ago when I was about to give birth. At least one of them had more than one person on the thread claiming to be a HCP (I think a midwife but I could be wrong) saying that she did judge women who were hairy and that the HCPs she worked with made comments about women who did not groom.

To be honest, I was a bit freaked out by it at the time, being older and not of the "all off" persuasion. You have enough to worry about in childbirth without worrying about what the midwives will think of your grooming or lack of it.

I hate to think that my little girl is probably going to grow up thinking that unshaven women are dirty and unpleasant and that waxing her bikini area is going to be a vital part of her life. It is all rather depressing and I do hope the culture changes before she grows up.

classic 'but what about the X' stuff, Hmm - we are capable of multi-tasking, you know. I can worry about the terrible backwards moves in all kinds of things, I'm dead clever, me.

Saying "This is too trivial for feminism, feminism should be doing X" is a bit daft. Start a thread on the stuff you want to talk about, invite people to talk, incite activism, whatever you fancy. But "you shouldn't be talking about x, you should be talking about whatever I deem appropriate for you to talk about" ... well .... sod that.

I think there is a clear feminist argument that body-modification, specifically of the genital area, specifically only in women, is indicative of a wider social movement away from feminism and towards women being 'not good enough' unless they peel, pluck, wax, shave, dye, anoint, etc. If a bunch of women are walking around hating their hairy vaginas and worrying that other people might hate them too, I think it's a worthwhile conversation to have from a feminist perspective.

Even while girl-children are bring killed at birth in India, yes. I can care about and agitate for more than one thing at a time, yknow.

You know what REALLY bothers me about this thread?

Is that people are more people here bothered about the fact that women are worrying about their pubic hair whilst giving birth, than the fact that there are currently backwards moves about women's rights and choice whilst giving birth which will put lives at risk.

But there you go.

That should read "bat an eyelid"

Being derided and judged by the Metro (same publisher as the misogynistic and misanthropic Daily Mail) is not the same as assuming that EVERYONE, even health care professionals, is/ are deriding or judging you for your grooming choices. I agree professionals probably don't bad an eyelid. If they do, they have either no social graces or are not concentrating on the job in hand!

The great thing about body hair is that it always grows back (!) so when the trivial fashion pendulum swings to something else, then grooming can change or not, as that person deems fit.

Tattoos are permanent so a bad choice of design made at 18 cannot be rectified without laser surgery. I was using it as an example of a bad fashion choice with long term consequences, often made under some form of peer pressure, so I don't think it was "nonsense".

I do not shave my legs or armpits and my pubic hair is also left alone.

I have given birth to three children, in Greece, where women tend to be much more groomed than in the UK.

Surprise surprise, none of the health care professionals were interested in how much body hair I had. No comments were made, and whatever they may have thought they kept it to themselves. And I frankly don't care what they may have thought. Actually, they were more interested in practising their English with me, when they weren't busy with my care!

And when my ds2 was born, I am sure they gave no thought to my pubic hair - they were too busy trying to save his life.

Buggered if I am going to feel pressured by anyone to shave when/where I don't want to. No one sees it anyway, so I could give a crap what they think.

I live in Australia & barely shave my legs/pits & don't even go there with my pubic hair. I don't get to feeling like a dirty smelly slob at all. I don't actually think it makes that much difference, after all, the hair is there for a reason.

I can honestly say that no one has mentioned my lack of shaving, I have had 2 sections & have been sterilised & no one made a comment or flinched an eyelid. BECAUSE IT IS PERFECTLY NORMAL TO HAVE PUBIC HAIR SO IT DOESN'T ACTUALLY SURPRISE HEALTH CARE WORKERS WHEN THEY REALISE YOU HAVE IT. (Caps on purpose)