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Original poster

Sex ed - shaving legs in year 5

700 replies

Candycoco · 02/07/2015 23:24

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

OP posts:
Stratter5 · 08/07/2015 22:37

I shave my legs because I use fake tan. Simple as that. And I use fake tan because I am vain and like to look good FOR MYSELF.

Nobody else sees me. My fake tanned legs are hidden under jeans, unless I am in my back garden - which is pretty private. I just like having brown legs, and my legs are slow to tan. In the winter, my legs are gloriously hairy, and you'd sing their feminist praises.

I AM a feminist. And I reserve the right to do as I please with MY body.

LassUnparalleled · 08/07/2015 23:13

stratter the quote below is from an FWR thread. They aren't telling women not shave but we are so steeped in surrounding culture we can't possibly be making a genuinely free choice. We must analyse why we have made that choice.

Right, I've analysed it-I like the way my legs look shaved better than not shaved. I don't care two hoots about the surrounding culture.

"I think that the policing one is an interesting issue. I know a lot of women think feminists are policing their behaviour when they are in fact trying to do class analysis - there's a big difference between saying "you as an individual are a weak-willed sheep for shaving her legs..." (which is, generally, not what feminists are saying) and saying "all of us, whether we realise it or not are steeped in the surrounding culture, so shaving legs is not an entirely free choice - it is a choice which is much much easier to make than to resist - and in that respect it is a massively different type of 'choice' from a man deciding whether to be clean shaven or have a beard." But my experience is that no matter how carefully you try to articulate the second point of view, some people will always hear "and you, individual you who I the nasty feminazi have decided to pick on for the hell of it, are a weak minded sheep..."

Stratter5 · 08/07/2015 23:26

I've analysed it too. I've concluded that I like my legs to match my arms and face, and I don't take very kindly to being told what to think/do.

I AM Stratters, hear me ROAR (quietly, to myself, when nobody else is looking).

Lurkedforever1 · 08/07/2015 23:28

Ffs, if that's feminism then I'll take sexism thanks. Equally bad but at least sexists wouldn't object to my choice to shave my legs. That sort of writing always reminds me of dodgy homework essays at school that I wrote at break on topics I hadn't bothered to research. You know as in where you write the introduction, realise you have fuck all to back it up so you just spout bollocks and hope throwing in big words and philosophical high brow sounding sentences will distract whoevers reading it from the very real fact you are just chatting shit.

mathanxiety · 09/07/2015 03:19

How ironic that Sighing is using women's appearance as the means of separating the sheep from the goats.

Not intellect or character or anything that actually makes a difference to the world at large. Just what is surface level and completely inconsequential.

Yarp · 09/07/2015 05:23

I was hairy re- during- and post- pubescence

(rather like a goat actually)

Yarp · 09/07/2015 05:24

pre-

mathanxiety · 09/07/2015 06:05

I keep my toenails painted red in winter. They are my little secret. I like to take my big old, woolly old socks off look at them in January and February when all the Christmas decorations are put away. They make me smile.

cailindana · 09/07/2015 09:24

"Ffs, if that's feminism then I'll take sexism thanks. Equally bad but at least sexists wouldn't object to my choice to shave my legs."

Lurking could you point out a post where a feminist has objected to your choice to shave your legs? Because all I can see is posts from feminists (including me) saying "I don't care if someone shaves their legs" over and over and over. But for some reason that just doesn't get through and I'm wondering why.

Lurkedforever1 · 09/07/2015 09:37

Nobody has told me not to, but plenty of posts trying to analyse why a woman/girl would choose to shave. I'm a strong believer in equal rights, and the branch of feminism that appears to be based on the premise that I, as a female, cannot make decisions because I'm predisposed/ conditioned to conform to male standards is at its least insulting and at worst its own form of sexism.

cailindana · 09/07/2015 09:49

Again, who stated that you can't make decisions? The fact that we all conform to what society expects of us isn't insulting, it's just how the world works. We don't all go around nude and swearing because the world expects us to wear clothes and speak politely. Feminism looks at expectations beyond just the basics to understand how those expectations might help or hinder us. It's not a matter of judging anyone or telling you you can't make decisions, it's about understanding the kind of society we live in and identifying how it is affecting us so if it is having a negative effect we can change that.

cailindana · 09/07/2015 10:02

On its own shaving is a very minor issue. Really it doesn't matter a jot what anyone does with their body hair. It is only significant when it is considered as part of a larger tendency for women to be pressurised to appear a certain way and for them to feel stressed and upset about how they look because of society's expectations of them.

Lurkedforever1 · 09/07/2015 10:06

But we aren't having a debate about deep seated conditioning to conform to what society expects, like westerners not walking round nude. Not everything has to have some big long winded reason, it's quite often the case it's just personal taste or practicality. Eg I tend to wear jeans rather than floaty flowered trousers. Not because I am trying to not to stand out in a male dominated world, just because I like them, find them comfy and they fit my shape and size well. And I doubt the woman who prefers floaty floral feminine ones is doing so to conform to society, it'll be for the same reasons I have. It's shaving legs, which for me just isn't a feminist issue.

cailindana · 09/07/2015 10:11

It's fine if you don't see it as a feminist issue but that doesn't mean others agree with you.

You were saying that feminists are objecting to your choice to shave and telling you you can't make decision, neither of which is true.

rabbitstew · 09/07/2015 10:56

cailindana - would you not agree that the following post sounds quite judgemental? It seems to me it is judging the girl's parents and equating shaving your legs with self-torture. Is this person not a feminist? Feminists are every bit as capable of being judgemental as the rest of the human population, they are not immune. There is more than one type of "feminist." We are not all the same...

"I thought of this thread in horror today. A girl in yr 4. I realised (as she was scraping the cover of her book over her leg because she had regrowing stubble) her legs are shaved. This is a 9 year old. Why on earth would the parents of a 9 year old think it's OK for her to be trying out the modern west's equivalent of shaking a peacock's tail? (But then I have a real problem with all the 'necessary' self torture women are expected to do for the enjoyment of men)."

I'm afraid however I look at it, I still don't see female shaving as being any more pressurised than male shaving and if it is, I don't think it is because men are the ones exerting the pressure. Not all female fashion is about pleasing men - I don't think most men are attracted to the skeletal figures of female models, yet they are still the ones showing off the clothes, most of which I find pretty unappealing, so I don't follow the latest fashions, anyway. No man has ever commented on that to me. Women are the ones who largely comment on each others' clothes. As for leg shaving, my dh puts up with my legs in whatever state they are. He has never suggested I should shave them, which I tend only to get around to doing about once every couple of weeks. I, on the other hand, have commented when he has forgotten to shave for a couple of days and I don't like the feel of his stubble when he kisses me... and I would certainly comment if he grew a beard. I just don't see leg shaving as an issue about pressure put on women by men. Yes, it can be an issue of cultural expectation and societal pressure, which is a legitimate issue to take an interest in, but I do object to people trying to make out that it's something only women suffer from, which some people undoubtedly have on this thread.

cailindana · 09/07/2015 11:02

Yes, feminists can be judgemental just like everyone else, and that post is judgemental. I don't know who wrote it so I don't know if they're a feminist.

I understand your viewpoint that you don't think women suffer any more societal pressure than men. It's not a view I agree with.

Lurkedforever1 · 09/07/2015 11:28

I agree with rabbit, men are just as likely to suffer pressure to conform, which again I do not believe applies to leg shaving, if not more so purely because women in my experience are more judgemental and less likely to be judged in return for equally bad behaviour.

cailindana · 09/07/2015 11:31

Lurked do you feel women and men in the media receive the same amount of attention and criticism for their appearance?

Lurkedforever1 · 09/07/2015 12:00

I don't pay much attention to media that focuses on appearance to be honest. But in my limited experience it's far more likely to be a woman doing the judging. And certainly so in real life. I've always been naturally thin, in younger days extremely so, and that I know of I've never been judged by a male for it. But regularly by other females. Likewise I know if I jokingly called my stocky male friend a fat bastard in public for eating a large meal, the chances are nobody witnessing it would care. But I bet if the roles and physiques were reversed it would get a negative reaction from bystanders. Likewise if it was slapping each other in anger.

cailindana · 09/07/2015 12:05

You don't pay attention to media that focuses on appearance? So you've never seen a women's magazine, or an article in a newspaper about how a woman looks, or seen page three of the Sun?

Lurkedforever1 · 09/07/2015 12:11

Course I've seen them, about both men and women but not enough to debate which is worse. There may well be more womens appearances being judged in the media, however there's often a negative backlash, which isn't the case when it's a males appearance being judged by the media

cailindana · 09/07/2015 12:17

"however there's often a negative backlash, which isn't the case when it's a males appearance being judged by the media"

This isn't something I've come across in my time working in the media, can you point me to examples of it?

I can tell you that in most mainstream papers there is a whole section on women's appearance and absolutely none on men. In six months of publication the Sun judged women on appearance every single day, multiple times, and men not once. It is a fact, to anyone who has read any amount of print or digital publishing that women are judged constantly on appearance while men's appearance is rarely if ever commented on.

cailindana · 09/07/2015 12:22

I am also confused about how you've seen so little about appearance in the media but at the same time you know about this 'backlash' - how do you manage to know about the backlash around articles but not about the articles themselves?

rabbitstew · 09/07/2015 12:32

Women judge each other on their appearances. Newspapers want to sell newspapers. I don't think men generally buy newspapers so that they can read about the shock of Julia Roberts being seen with armpit hair, tbh. I don't think it's men who buy newspapers to read about their beer bellies, or how silly their pale legs look in shorts in the summer, either - I think that's mainly women, too...

I tend to judge things like this: if they don't actually affect the things I can do, I'm not bothered by them. I can still do sport with shaved legs, I can still become an engineer with shaved legs. Some of the farcical fashions in women's shoes, however, or tonnes of make up, or flimsy clothes - they stop me being able to move about and sweat and DO things. I would therefore seriously object to society expecting me to wear such things at all times. I don't even tend to wear such things on special occasions - then I will make an effort to find something I think looks pretty, but is also comfortable. I find it perfectly possible to do this. I know what I like and I know what I think suits me and makes me look attractive. I may not look fashionable and attract comments from other women, but I appear to appeal just fine to men and my friends.

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