GCSE biology textbook features woman with Brazilian

In terms of accuracy, it’s a fairly accurate depiction of what I look like.

There are a lot of magic words missing in comments here such as “in my opinion*

Usually that’s not necessary to stipulate on a forum full of individuals holding individual opinion, it’s pretty much assumed that if I’m writing or speaking, I’m giving my own opinion and not anybody else’s. It’s not difficult to get your head around that, surely.

We are talking about hairstyle for goodness sakes.

No, we are talking about a diagram in a biology textbook that’s supposed to show biological accuracy. This isn’t a pic from Cosmo. If a biological textbook needed to show the external appearance of the axilla in an adult, then yes, it should show hair.

Goodness me! In my view this is such a non-issue. We are talking about hairstyle for goodness sakes. People adopt different hairstyles. But the diagram is not about hair. It reflects a style that so many people have. And, as has been shown above, some women do persevere with grooming throughout pregnancy too.

Would lack of underarm hair have caused the same responses?

Last time I looked Barbie and her doll mates didn’t sport a bush either. Neither would I expect a diagram depicting a penis to be shrouded in hair.

Barbie doesn’t have nipples either. Or space between her toes. Or a navel. Because Barbie is a child’s toy, and biological accuracy isn’t a requirement unlike a biology textbook. Of course an external diagram in a biology textbook of an adult penis should include hair, why wouldn’t it? Even Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man had a bush drawn on.

Do a google image search of “Tanner staging female public hair” and see what accurate female development looks like. There isn’t a hitherto undocumented Stage 6, with hair sculpted into a landing strip . A biology textbook is about normal female development and reproduction.

And how is it “practical” to maintain a Brazilian in the latter stages of pregnancy?

Surely with all this porn people are enjoying they'd notice not only do so many of the performers have pubic hair, there is also a huge variety of vulvae amongst them.

@bigfluffy, how did the discussion with your students go?

PS: On this basis text books should not show men with shaved faces either. As for the porn argument, there is plenty of “hairy porn” out there too. And plenty if smooth genuinely lesbian women, so I don’t it is it all “man driven” as some have suggested.

There are a lot of magic words missing in comments here such as “in my opinion. There is no right or wrong.

In my opinion, it’s a diagram for goodness sake. From my experience of modern young women (l’m in my 40s so can’t subscribe to the young bit!), it represents a typical normal adopted style. It’s practical. Plus a big bush in the diagram would be distracting.

Last time I looked Barbie and her doll mates didn’t sport a bush either. Neither would I expect a diagram depicting a penis to be shrouded in hair.

If an armpit was depicted would you expect that to be hairy?

Adding my tuppence worth to say I'm also furious they deliberately drew a shaved pregnant woman. Wtf! Presumably the artist and the entire review group/editors are all into porn so made the assumption that that's what all women look like. Surprised they didn't add a clit or nipple ring and a tattoo as well.

As an old woman I'm so glad I went through puberty long before graphic, all-pervasive porn dictated I had to bloody shave my fanny for the boys, even while pregnant ffs! God I feel so sorry for girls and young women nowadays, without textbooks reinforcing the message.

Incidentally I don't think anybody has mentioned any of the evolutionary reasons both men and women have pubic hair. One of which is to trap pheromones which act as sexual stimulants....sorry a bit off topic.

Not quite sure where the issue is?

DoughnutCowboy
Reported.

https://www.brook.org.uk/data/Sowhattisaavulvaanywayyfinalbooklet.pdf

Some realistic pics of vulvas and pubic hair in this pamphlet.

I don't see the issue.

Most women shave now just like us men no longer wear powdered wigs or rock mullets/taches. People once thought Queen Vic was extreme for bathing once a month.

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/parents-slam-biology-textbook-for-unrealistic-depiction-of-womans-pubic-hair-a4066086.html

I read that they had apologised but I couldn’t find it. Did read this though. Well done OP!

Also I am sure there is a huge age divide here. Those under 45 - you have to understand LITERALLY NO ONE EVEN SHAVED REGULARLY UNTIL AFTER 2000. It wasn't even a thing. It was unheard of outside of fetish communities, and the fetish communities drove it into porn and porn drove it into the mainstream. There is no reason to do it for "cleanliness" or any other reason besides fetish.

They didn't shave me even in the 90s in the US.

I say bring back the full bush. It's normal and actually healthier. There is nothing unclean about natural body hair.

It doesn't surprise me that it's 7-8 years. It's smartphones. Kids got them around 2010 et voila-constant access to porn.
It's interesting that the boys don't seem to be going to doctors worried that their penises don't look anything like porn actors penises. Or maybe they are?

I'm a midwife. It's not standard practice in any of the hospitals I've worked in (all in the UK) to remove any hair from the vulva or the mons pubis before or after birth. Many women do come in with Hollywoods or Brazilians; many also come in completely natural. If an adult woman wants to remove her body hair for her own comfort, that's her own choice.
But 15 and 16 year-old girls are famously impressionable. My colleagues in gynae say there's been a huge upsurge in the number of teenagers coming in to request labiaplasties and the like in the last 7 or 8 years, and they're really concerned by it. I also worked in sexual health about 4 years ago and was dismayed at how many young teenage girls - 13 or 14 years old - were coming in with anxiety about what their (perfectly normal) vulvas looked like. Almost invariably, in discussion, they either said their partners had said it didn't look "right", or that they themselves felt it didn't compare the vulvas they'd seen in porn.
It's incredibly disheartening to think that teenagers are now receiving these messages in schools as well as through social media, porn, magazines, advertising etc. It's just relentless, and my heart breaks for girls growing up with this.

I was discussing this at the salon where i go for my lip and chin wax yesterday. Not this textbook but expectations in general The young woman who waxes my face (the only thing i can afford to get waxed and i will get to the economic pressures shortly) was telling me how her ex told her hair on women was gross so to piss him off she let it grow. Including the hair on her legs. Shes 20 so a lot younger than me. Im 45 and i told her that when i was that age it wasnt even on our radar. She smiled and wistfully said she sometimes wished she was born a couple of decades earlier. THIS is where we are with this!!!

THEN there is the cost of this and the pressure on poorer working class women who cant afford all this. So they are going to feel even more shit.

Im disgusted with Pearson. I THINK i still have a GCSE Biology textbook from 1988/89 Might hunt it out.

Don't really understand the offence.

Hows it different from a textbook showing a man with a clean shaven face? Or a woman with ANY hairstyle?

Shouldn't be more offensive, just because its in a pubic region.

It is common practice at our maternity unit, I'd been pre-warned by friends granted not the case everywhere though!

I wasn't shaved before giving birth and I had a right muff going on then! I'm pretty sure they don't do that anymore..