Shaving and all of that - new lows

It's only reading on here about shaving before smear test/childbirth that has had me a bit worried about what the health professionals might think of me not bothering

I honestly don't think they will give a crap. If they weren't prepared to see hairy women, they wouldn't have become a healthcare professional looking after women & babies, would they!

plenty that wasn't my intention, it was supposed to be rhetorical based on my immediate experience. Yes, there are always articles that belittle women too. And women tend to be criticised more than men, in general, and in particular. Societal pressure is a tough one. But please don't call my point of view ridiculous.

kritiq I don't have any day-to-day dealings with pre-teens or teenagers, so can understand your concern, based on the reasons you have stated.

I removed my leg hair as soon as it appeared as a pre-teen and other hair as it arrived. But got bored of it/ maybe more accepting of my own bodily changes once I'd had a chance to process them. As did my DM, she told me later, as did my friends when questioned in later years. I did not speak of it or show it, at the time. I was only able to ask of other women's experiences when I was at university.
Maybe these children within your professional experience, are just vocalising what others have always felt and experienced.

You are very lucky to have had your feminist credentials switched on at such an early age. You have probably been able to use your time much more profitably as you've not had to do things that others do, as you've been strong minded enough to dismiss them as unnecessary and negative time wasters.

What a horrible article

Back peddling here, but where in the post does it say that she thinks her hair is "dirty and disgusting".
I've not seen the original thread, this is a thread about a thread.
Aren't you putting negative comments about women's genitals to make your point? In that case, you are assuming that women think negatively of their own genitals.

I didn't read the other thread either but greenhill you have implied that people who don't remove hair are sweaty slobs on this thread.

Hideous article about Pixie Lott and Julia Roberts here

The idea that there isn't societal pressure on women to conform to hairlessness is ridiculous.

Thanks rosabud. I agree - the fact that folks are thinking about whether they might be harshly judged for not shaving in itself does show just how normalised the practice has become, how if you don't do it and would never consider doing it, it still niggles in the back of the mind.

Greenhill, I'm trying, but I'm not "getting" your pitch for this just being a choice, and actually a positive choice for women. For starters, it IS a gendered issue. Waxing and shaving of male genitals hasn't become as mainstream as that for women, and you'd never hear either men or women describing men who didn't shave or wax as dirty, disgusting or repulsive. Women who don't DO get this. I work with young girls who haven't even started growing pubic hair, but already they are picking up that their genitals will be considered ugly or shameful (and by extension they will be) if they don't wax or shave. That makes me feel deeply sad every time I hear it (along with usually a whole litany of things they have to change about their bodies in order to be acceptable by their peers, let alone every stand the chance of getting a boyfriend.)

One might also argue that women are under more pressure than men to cover their grey hair, so that is also a gendered expectation. Surely you recognise that women get far more criticism for their appearance if they look natural than men do - the old, "she's letting herself go," comments.

I get that you are saying that women you know don't shave or trim because they feel dirty or shameful or they hate their own bodies. However, I hear many women say they do it because they believe it is/feel's cleaner (implying if they don't, it's dirty.) In popular culture, we see women celebrities ripped to shreds for having a bit of body hair exposed (e.g. Julia Roberts, Pixie Lott) and nasty comments about women who don't shave or wax are pretty common parlance. Imo, it's not that they feel ashamed of having pubic hair or hate their bodies, but they don't want to be subjected to nasty pronouncements about their hygiene, appearance or level of femininity, so they conform.

rosabud I am not missing the point. I just have a different take on it to you.

There is much more social pressure to dye your hair if you have any grey, or if you have even a few strands, as it is not youthful. Very few women don't give in to that societal pressure. Also some younger women feel they have to make a statement about their own individuality by having it all sorts of shades, to be different. Men dye their hair to look fashionable, or because they want to get on in work and not look older too.

Also, with tattoos, there is a great deal of social pressure among certain groups to have the names of their children/ birthdates / family names on their wrists or backs and I know of many women who celebrate the birth of their children with new tattoos. Yes, after the birth, as it would be dangerous in terms of blood poisoning before it. Tattoos are now moving into majority, not minority interest. Teenagers are starting to feel obliged to have them, as most of their peer group have them. I know many parents with tattoos who have teenagers who want tattoos too, and just as many parents who despair because their teenagers have had a tattoo behind their parents' back. That is genuine societal pressure.

Before birth, the woman was probably trying to control all the variables, as she could not control everything that was going to go on in the delivery suite.

Part of that would be packing her bag, getting all the stuff together she wanted to have and feeling comfortable in her own skin. I bet she probably thought to get a haircut too as she knew she wouldn't be going to the hairdressers for some time.

I don't think that it would have been the first time the woman would have trimmed her pubic hair, I suspect she was making a comment about it not having been looked at recently due to her enormous bump being in the way. I don't know as I didn't read the post, but nearly everyone I know that has had a baby has trimmed their pubes before birth, some even getting their mothers or partners to help them. Not because any of us found it dirty or shameful or because we hate our bodies either.

A mooncup is a silicone cup that you use instead of tampons and wash out. It collects everything with very little leakage so a lot cleaner (I'm only saying that because like I said before it's so different to towels especially with how much you lose after a baby, not that there's anything wrong with blood).

My understanding of vajazzle is it's a diamonte design that replaces the pubic hair.

I'm not disagreeing with you, you are making good points.
But I don't understand why someone's own choice of personal grooming has to be a negative, self-hating one if it is not 100% natural and untouched.
Yes, vajazzling is a silly fashion, but it is very much a minority one, mainly connected with not very bright TOWIE girls, some may copy it, but it is a fad and only a small percentage of people would copy it. Then it would be done probably for a laugh, which is not connected to self hatred.
People dye their hair, have tattoos, pierce their body parts in the name of fashion and to be part of an in-crowd. None of these things are done out of self-loathing.

I can't imagine that anyone is looking at the hair when you're giving birth, there's far more important things to worry about - although I did hear of a rather rude comment made to a pregnant mother by a doctor about how long her hair had got! I've got to admit it's the only one and possibly one on MOBSW though.

The only reason I'd consider trimming is because being a mooncup user I'm not used to using towels and hate the feeling of blood in my pubic hair (sorry if that goes on the TMI side).

Trust me rosy. Doctors, nurses and midwives see HUNDREDS of fannies a week. They're interested in diagnosing and treating health problems. They don't give a flying fig whether you're fanny is a fashion plate.
Oh, I know that. It just crosses my mind in a way it never used to. Obviously that must be evidence that all this shaving is not personal choice at all, despite what people like to think!

Trust me rosy. Doctors, nurses and midwives see HUNDREDS of fannies a week. They're interested in diagnosing and treating health problems. They don't give a flying fig whether you're fanny is a fashion plate. If they DID say something, I'd complain, just as if they made a negative comment about your hairstyle (on the head), your blouse, your teeth or anything else related to your appearance which was clinically irrelevant.

Look, having investigations and treatments is stressful enough in the best of circumstances. Why the Hell are folks adding to the stress with this?

Some really strange comments here while I was composing that post.

Greenhill, I seriously don't get the argument that I think you are posing that women who shave their pudenda are "out and proud," implying that if they don't they are more likely to be motivated by "socially prevalent fear and disgust." Um, no. The "fear and disgust" is of the female body in it's normal, adult form, which happens for most people to involve hair in the genital region. Nope, they are submitting to expensive, time consuming, painful and often risky procedures to make their bodies "less disgusting" and conform more acceptably to the current fashion for women's bodies. Suggesting that this is "liberating," and not shaving is a sign of feeling fear and disgust seems very bizarre to me.

Empusa, that's kind of just playing with words. Basically, if you don't shave or wax, you'll get comments like those from amothersplaceisinthewrong above. That's a "negative outcome." If you do shave or wax, you're hardly going to be handed bouquets by other women in the shower room or diamond earrings from your husband for having a particularly fine and smooth pudenda. Thing is, you'll only get comments if you don't conform with the fashion, and those comments will be negative.

It's only reading on here about shaving before smear test/childbirth that has had me a bit worried about what the health professionals might think of me not bothering
I must admit, I'd never given it a moment's thought until I started reading about it on here. Now I do find myself wondering what people might think. I find the idea of shaving it all off bizarre but I have become a bit more groomed recently, purely from mn! I don't think I've ever heard it discussed in real life though.

(The citation is Tanner, Norrie & Mellen 2011 - no idea why the first name got left off.)

Whatmeworry, I do realise there have been overarching "fashions" in body hair throughout history and in different countries and cultures, whether it be hair on the face, head, legs or genitals. However, women removing all or most of their pubic hair through waxing or shaving in Western society is a modern phenomenon.

As mentioned, 20 years ago, I was a nurse - a year of that working in gynaecology so in an average day, I saw between 20 and 40 pudendae. Apart from women who had no or little pubic hair due to chemotherapy or medical conditions, and a few who probably "trimmed" the length and around the top edge a bit, I honestly don't recall ever seeing a hairless or nearly hairless pubic region on any patients. This was in a hospital in London and I saw women of all ages, from all cultures and backgrounds of all socio-economic classes.

I left nursing, but kept in touch with a former colleague who stayed in the field. I distinctly remember a conversation with her in 2003 when she said that she first started noticing a few women shaving or waxing in the late 1990's, but it was still unusual to see more than a couple a week, mostly young women, until after the turn of the millennium when more and more were showing up.

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.

With regard to pre-op shaving, this was a common tradition that had no clinical basis. Research has shown that pre-op shaving can increase the risk of post op infection of the surgical site. (See Norrie & Melen, 2011's comprehensive review of evidence ), If hair will get in the way of stitching the wound (wherever it is on the body,) it is recommended that it be clipped short rather than shaved. When I've had surgery, the pre-op information from NHS in Wales said explicitly NOT to remove hair before surgery, citing research. It depresses me if health care practitioners are either retreating to outmoded traditions or putting fashion above clinical evidence.

As for fashion, a doctor raised serious concerns about the increased risk of skin and gynae infections as well as scarring associated with pubic hair removal. But I doubt this will make a difference when the practice has become so embedded and the marketing of products and services based on the falsehoods that pubic hair is ugly, dirty, smelly and unsexy means women feel they have to "suffer to be beautiful." I can only hope that sometime soon, there will be some sort of backlash against it and a move to "go natural" again.

"I mean that the women who modify the appearance of their genital areas, whether by removing hair, removing hair and gluing on little crystals, whatever - are doing so because they fear a negative outcome"

So they don't do it because of gaining a positive outcome then? Only because of fear of a negative outcome? And you know this is the case for all of them because...?

I hate to see hairy armpits on a woman and hairy legs and hairs sprouting from the bikkini line of a swimming cosutme.

greenhill I mean that the women who modify the appearance of their genital areas, whether by removing hair, removing hair and gluing on little crystals, whatever - are doing so because they fear a negative outcome, (this could be judgement, sneering, being thought to be dirty or messy or ugly, or any range of things) - if they don't do these things.

And HoleyGhost I think we can agree there. There's a world of difference between condemning an unfair system (such as the Patriarchy) and condemning what women do to get by in such a system.

I was treated with contempt while I gave birth. It made it more traumatic than it needed to be.

I very much doubt that had anything to do with my pubes. But whatever the reason, it was a silly one. Even if only 2% of midwives are as moronic as the one who attended my DD's birth, conforming in any way possible seems sensible.

But surely those women are exposing more of their genitals by removing all of the hair. They are out and proud, rather than covered up and hidden?

Do you mean they feel disgust for the offending hair or for the more exposed genitalia?
Surely if they were motivated by 'socially prevalent fear and disgust' they'd be hiding their genitals behind as much hair as possible, rather than thinking about their body parts and other people's perception of them more.

I haven't read the thread in question, but yes I am assuming that women who remove their pubes are motivated by some of the socially prevalent fear and disgust towards women's genitals.

Back peddling here, but where in the post does it say that she thinks her hair is "dirty and disgusting".

I've not seen the original thread, this is a thread about a thread.
Aren't you putting negative comments about women's genitals to make your point? In that case, you are assuming that women think negatively of their own genitals.

Agree with blackcurrants.

It never occurs to me that a professional fanjo-inspector will think about the state of my pubic hair, in all honesty.