Sex ed - shaving legs in year 5

[Candycoco]

Have posted in education but posting here for traffic.

Dd came home from school today having had sex ed at school for the past 2 days.

I've always been very open with her and have answered questions as they've come up, so no big revelations this week.

However, she told me today that the boys were taught how to shave by male teacher, and girls were taught how to shave their legs. This just doesn't sit right with me. I know 99% of women do shave their legs and it's something I've already talked to dd about as she asked me last year about it and I told her she has to wait til end of year 6 before she starts secondary to do it.

I just feel it's a bit presumptuous and suggests all girls should. Maybe I'm being bit uptight about it but I don't like the message it sends. Is this normal to teach this as park of sex ed?

Thanks

I actually emailed the school today and the head emailed me back to say that s conversation regarding shaving did take place with the girls as they thought it was something that all girls would come into contact with at some point.

She said it was in response to a child asking the question in class and the teacher was put on the spot. When I asked dd who asked about shaving? she said no one, the teacher was talking about it whilst she was talking about hygiene which is exactly what she told me this morning. So nothing was lost in translation.

School don't see it as a problem but I did say I wasn't happy we weren't told in advance about it and don't see how it relates to sex ed when they'd been learning about body parts and periods otherwise.

I would be going crazy at the school for teaching this in primary school. They are children! Children!! The growing of hair is normal and explaining the choices, ie. waxing, shaving, going to a salon or doing it yourself. But it not normal to demonstrate this to children. Teenagers maybe but not under 11s.

I think I would have been a bit shocked to discover that my daughter had learned this in school at that age, but I wonder what the context was? Hopefully the messaging around it was positive and factual i.e. many women do, and if you want to, here's how to do it safely etc; it would be worth finding out. I would hope that they include some learning about the cultural nature of the practice, and reinforce that it is perfectly normal to have body hair.

I am also one of those women with dark, wiry hair on my legs and I remember being deeply self-conscious from around the age of 9 or 10. When I tried to talk to my mother about it, she was fairly dismissive, probably because she didn't want me shave so early or worry about it, but I think I would actually have welcomed some info from my teachers about it, and the opportunity to discuss it in a girl-only environment.

to be fair- for the boys who have absent/deceased fathers it's really important that someone shows them how to do it properly- I imagine they might have just been looking for a female equivalent to match the two and got it horribly wrong?

Given how rare it is to see a women with bare legs out and about au natural I think it is important to tell girls that actually, to achieve that look most women have to remove their leg hair. I am sure there are girls out there terrified that they are turning into a man because no one has pointed it out. It is obvious to us as adults, but not to children unless they see their mother doing it.

I am totally against sexualisation of little girls but on the other hand, we have a responsibility to teach them the norms of the society we live in. If someone has the confidence to choose not to conform to the norm, more power to them, but it should be their choice, not forced upon them through lack of choice.

WorraLiberty Fri 03-Jul-15 09:36:23
A great post.

It has apparently escaped the notice of many people that the whole leg shaving thing cropped up in the context of a sex ed class. Sex was one of those things that used not be talked about either. It was left to parents. That worked really well.

Why are we talking about periods and sex with unselfconscious little girls? Or how babies are born? They are a long way from sexual relationships surely? High heels have been mentioned, as if it is possible to make high heels go away if we just ignore the fact that in many workplaces it is expected of women that heels be worn. Are schools expected to prepare children for the real world or not?

'Unselfconscious' is a word I would not use to describe all ten year old girls either. Plenty are well into puberty, many have their periods, wear bras, and have been facing the daily upkeep of showering and using anti-perspirant and deodorant for a long time. Many have dark or coarse hair that they have been dealing with for a long time. Just because you don't notice it doesn't mean a ten year old doesn't, and isn't bothered by it and doesn't deal with it. Two of my DDs are redheads. Neither of them felt they had to bother with armpit shaving until they were about 17. The other two are dark-haired and shaved whatever they wanted to shave probably from age 11 or 12.

I suspect the negative feelings about this arise because some parents are uncomfortable about the idea of their children making decisions of their own about their bodies. There is much talk about 'letting' daughters shave...

Would you feel the same way about a daughter deciding to use tampons instead of pads at age 10? Would you respect that decision? What about makeup and nail polish? A look like punk or goth? At what point do children gain autonomy over their own bodies?

The teacher wasn't necessarily asked about it in that sex ed class. It could have come up at PE or in some other context, or in a private conversation between a child and a teacher.

If you are uncomfortable about anything but sex ed, periods, etc being talked about in sex ed class, then why not complain about the entire subject of hygiene being thrown in with it? What has deodorant got to do with it after all?

No, the teacher followed on the discussion on hygiene by saying most women choose to shave their legs too. My dd was able to tell me the whole story she is very articulate and it wasn't an In depth discussion it was only touched on.

I'm starting to think I must live on another planet to the rest of you. I must admit I didn't notice until I was 48 that most other women shave their legs . It isn't something that ever occurred to me. Same with eyebrows.

When I was a teen there was just a certain group of girls who wore make up, had hair done regularly and these were the ones who shaved/ plucked etc. Nobody else did. My mother certainly never did.

When did it become a thing that everyone did?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if how and if you should shave your legs has been a regular question raised in year 5 sex ed classes over the years. Girls of that age will be interested in what their mothers are doing, so when talking about deodorant and body changes, which do include growing thicker hair on your legs (and armpits) it would make sense for a curious child to ask about it. I can see how, after a few years of the same question coming up, a teacher could start incorporating it into the lesson without thinking. It's not as if sex ed at that age actually does focus on sexual intercourse, it is more focussed on the physical effects of puberty, and feelings. Getting hairier legs is an undeniable fact for most girls. So why not talk about it? And if talking about it, how can you avoid admitting the fact that most women don't look as though their legs are hairy, because they shave the hair off? Nitpicking about exactly what the teacher said, when talking about puberty and sex to a class full of children of different levels of development, maturity and understanding seems a bit harsh on the teacher to me. It's not as if she was talking about sex toys or different sexual positions. Hairy legs are really a pretty safe topic!

In my experience the mums who are horrified by discussions like this are the ones blessed with fine blonde body hair. Those of us who have pale skin and dark, strong body hair (and therefore who are likely to have DDs with the same) understand that this is something that our daughters shouldn't be embarrassed to discuss. The school mentioning that some women shave and explaining how it's done safely is not the same as the school telling girls that they should.

I would feel mightily pissed off that someone had taken a rite of passage like that away from me. I talked to both of my DDs when they were in Year 6 about how they may want to eliminate leg hair or to pluck their eyebrows one day but that there was no requirement to do it but if they ever wanted to explore then I would be happy to help them .... at some point in the future. If some blinking teacher had had this motherly moment with my DDs instead of me I would have been really, really annoyed. Perhaps that teacher should have a word with the Year 2s and tell them that Father Christmas doesn't exist nor does the tooth fairy, then she could really spoil some family moments.....

Is teaching your daughters about menstruation/tampons/pads not a motherly moment?

You are permitted to withdraw your child from sex ed classes in primary school, whoreandpeace. Then you can enjoy all the sex and puberty rites of passage you want with your dd...

Whore, you say that as if the removal of body hair will be a previously unknown concept to your DD? My girls have known about it for as long as I can remember. Certainly every time they want to go bloody swimming!

JohnCusack can I refer you to my post up thread where I pointed out that as a patent with fine blonde leg hair, I would welcome some input from someone more knowledgeable than me for my dark haired dd?

Sorry, Giddy, should have said many of the mums....

And since 'this the season to talk sex Ed I'd far rather discuss body image than 'So when a boy's thing is up there to send the bit of him to make the baby, how do you know they're not just having a wee?'

Many is better :) My mad xsil is dark haired and she was totally bizarre about dn shaving despite being dark too

*disclaimer I have MH problems. xsil is just plain bonkers.

For clarity: I and most other feminists would never criticise any woman for shaving her legs, plucking her eyebrows, having breast augmentation, whatever. What an individual woman does to her own body is entirely her own business

Except that isnt the message I get from what you have been saying. You (and by "you " I mean people who get worked up about this sort of thing )might not overtly criticise but you seem to have a difficulty with accepting it is possible just to look at dark fuzzy hair on pale skin and think not nice. Your position seems to be that it's not possible to make that decision without being pressurised.

It's all part of that awful phrase "performing feminity"

At its most basic it's the notion that I wear pretty dresses and shave my legs because I'm too stupid not to realise I've been brainwashed not because I prefer that look. The feminist in her unisex shirt and jeans however is being true to herself.

Having said that it is a slightly surprising thing to be taught in school.

Oh and finally please posters can you use ages of children? "Year whatever" means nothing to any one not in England and Wales. Thank you

My ds is 16 and has a small downy 'tache that he is very pleased with. He looks to be about average hairiness wise looking at his friends, so a one off demonstration of shaving (presumably with an electric shaver in the classroom, not a wet shave) six or seven years ago would have been a bit pointless. I can't imagine that many ten year old boys have any need to shave, nor are they likely to be teased or bullied if they did have any growth. Much more likely to be seen as a sign of positive manliness.

Girls on the other hand are regularly shamed for hairiness. Leg hair is considered ugly, having underarm hair unkempt and unhygenic and public hair gross. Little surprise that young girls find it all quite upsetting. And yes it should be discussed, but not in a 'you will get hairy and need to do something about it' in a much more nuanced and measured way so that girls understand why hairlessness is marketed.

That's not part of a discussion about hygiene as shaving has nothing to do with hygiene, discuss it in that context and those who don't shave will be told that they are dirty. Discuss it in the context of the ethics of beauty and the power of marketing, together with concepts of self determination, confidence, consent, pretense and dressing up.

I have a teenage dd btw and had and go on having those conversations with her. She has blond body hair and golden skin and delapidates. I have ultra pale skin and dark body hair and don't.

And this is why I would hate to be a teacher. What a storm in a teacup...