I am so shocked about that thread stating most women have no pubic hair

[roseability]

I don't know quite why it has disturbed me so much. Like most women I have plucked/shaved and groomed for many years of my life. However the thought of putting myself through that really upsets me for some reason. Not that I plan to. It is just that I have never, ever considered that pubic hair is undesirable. I can't help but relate it to women in porn with little or no pubic hair and it makes me sad to think girls and young women (I have a daughter) will no doubt feel insecure about their vagina and how it looks in this way.

I am by no means a good feminist. As I mentioned I do shave my legs and I wear make up. I have read Beauty and Misogyny by Sheila Jeffreys and I question why I even do this. However it makes me almost weep to think of my daughter being influenced in such a way.

I was just really upset by that thread and I m not sure why

dittany - I don't wear high legged suits, I am just very hairy and don't like it. Never have.

Expat - I'm doing fine. I am in the process of writing yet another assignment hence I am in avoidance mode and having a wee surf here. Hope you are OK?

LRD - perhaps it's the people around you? The (granted limited) conversations I have had about feminism have been with people who would slate me for all of the above for letting down the sisterhood! Or angry words to that effect...

It reminds me very much of the breastfeeding mafia I encountered after having dd1.

Maybe I just attract the extremists! Gives me something to talk about anyway

Am well, mears, thanks for asking. Wee man is now 2 and speaking. Yet another with a heavy Scottish accent .

The only accent to have :)

or, following dittany, they could always start showing swimsuit models with thigh length pubes. It would be no more ridiculous than showing those with none, and no less ideological.

at weedle. Yes, I expect if people told me I was letting down the sisterhood I'd be raising an eyebrow (I'm not keen on 'the sisterhood' as a phrase, for starters ...).

IME the women who argue strongly against having friendships with men etc are those that have been most abused by them. I repeat again - this is my experience.

I am still bemused and a little saddened by the picture painted of feminists of not being polite, not being friends with men, and all looking like bag ladies!

I met some drunk men on the train a couple of months ago on the way back from a feminism conference. I told them I'd been at a feminism conference, eventually, and their jaws dropped. I didn't have a moustache and wasn't wearing my dungarees that day and they said I was "so young"!

JIA I did say in my first sentence that I am ignorant as to what feminism means today. I just answered your question the best way I could.

Tho I did avoid saying I don't think Germaine Greer (sp) comes accross well and as thats the only famous feminist I know it colours my view I'm sure

oops x post - such a slow typer

maybe typing should be brought back

There are swimsuits that don't show pubes -- two pieces with boy brief bottoms are very handy, and the suits you can wear if you don't want too much sun exposure.

Ooh, I can't stand Germaine Greer.

I learned lots about feminism on here and from people in RL - don't think I've ever read all the way through any proper 'feminist textbook' type stuff (though I should).

Well said, Prolesworth. That's what I was trying to say earlier on but didn't manage to articulate very well.

We are arguing for the choice to remove body hair if people want to. It's the fact that the choice may be in effect taken away from a generation of young women that we're concerned about. It's not about weakness. I wonder how many of us would think to remove our leg hair, for example, if it wasn't the cultural norm.

On an aside, I wonder why/how it evolved that women should remove their leg hair etc instead of men. I am guessing that in order to perpetuate the image of masculinity - of a hirsute man - the "other", feminine image has to be as far removed from that as possible, i.e. hair free. And therefore the burden of hair removal falls upon women.

I have known men who pluck a little of their pubic hair to give them the "optical inch". However, that's a select area and isn't a full blown painful wax!

I understand what you're saying, Weedle, about answering my question. Guess I was just shocked at how negative your view of feminists is!

I met Germaine Greer briefly at the Chelt Lit Festival a few months back. The talk she gave was a little odd but on a one to one basis, I have to say, she was absolutely lovely! I must confess to being very surprised.

Jess, I would agree that hair removal is at heart to differentiate our oestrogeney selves from the testosteroney hirsute men.
Also facial hair on women is often associated with older women, so a hairfree face is a sign of youth & fertility.

@Prolesworth - yep, my ex did this. I don't think it made the slightest bit of difference.

Mind you, he had issues about his manhood, not that he needed to. And I'm sure his porn consumption in the latter stages of our relationships didn't help his massive insecurity on that front!

Ooow is right Proles.

I really like Germaine - if only because she so furiously defends her right to change her mind.

I think pubic hair sticking out of a swimming costume is as horrible as my son's unshaven face. It is just preference. I would rather remove it than wear longer shorts to cover it.

I do agree however with the original posting that it is very sad that girls feel they have to remove pubic hair to please men.

I do think though that it is fine to remove pubic hair if it pleases women themselves which it may well do. It is the same as men shaving their faces if that is their preference IMO.

men's fashion mags: - some men (facially) are clean shaven, some have some manly stubble, some have stylised facial hair (still see a couple with goatee thingy).

woimen's fashion mags: - as others have said, extremely small swimsuits with strategically inserted finger to prove bald as coot fanjo.

no designer stubble in existence. ever.

shaving your face as a man is still optional (i get that you have to be groomed - the mountain man look has been left in the sixties) but teenage boys are told that hair is manly - look how many of them have that ridiculous wispy moustache/ chin fluff because they are trying to prove they are real men. teenage girls are being told that their hair is dirty and grim and makes them unfanciable.

i see an issue with your son's face and with my daughter's pubes there, mears tbh (am assuming he is a teen - may be completely wrong lol). both are trying desperately to conform to what society is telling them. men are hairy. women are not.

good feminists shave legs,wear make up.the act of buying and using cosmetics doesnt render anyone bad feminist

I found it strange how many people got so terribly offended about people discussing cultural influences etc. I find that sort of thing very interesting because it is all about understanding why we behave in particular ways, and we are all the products of our environment. That's not a slur, just an observation surely. No one has entirely free will after all.

Of course we all react to those influences in different ways, and I suspect that part of the underlying disagreement on that thread is that if a view is taken that the mainstreaming of porn is probably a factor in the wider acceptance of pubic grooming as normal, then those that do groom feel that other people are saying that they personally must be doing it because they have watched porn, and that that means they are bad, or stupid or weak willed perhaps.

Most of us make decisions on a multi-factoral basis, but as someone who doesn't shave/dilapidate anywhere as a matter of course my personal experience is that it isn't a very easy choice at times because going against the norm is quite isolating. For example not shaving under my arms (mostly because I find it physically difficult, time consuming and the results very uncomfortable - all sticky and sweaty, plus why should I bloody have to) means that in the summer I feel very very self conscious, which is totally ridiculous when most of the time I am surrounded by people who I suspect have never thought about their under arm hair at all (I work mostly with men). Women just are not portrayed with under arm hair ever, except when some snapper has caught a sleb in order to utterly denigrate her. I was on a marketing course the other day and we looked at the beginning of the shaving trend for women, which was very much commercially driven. There was an intake of breath across the class when the tutor said that before then women hadn't shaved, clearly people found that difficult to comprehend it is so normalised.

My dd has just started to grow pubic hair and I celebrated that with her as part of growing up. I feel very sad that in a few years she may feel that her natural form is unacceptable.

Is "fashion" something we choose to follow, or something we're compelled to follow? Because there have been some disagreements here with the theme of whether pubic shaving is forced or not. And I think for young women, "fashion" is what describes the situation. And some older people are joining in also--but I hope we wouldn't call a middle-aged woman who shaves her crotch "mutton dressed as lamb".

If this did start with pornography (I've heard the trend specifically linked to Deep Throat) then it's a sad proof of "the mainstreaming of porn". People who've had minimal exposure to pornography are following a movement that spread out from porn, and are either unaware or unconcerned that it started there. It's getting us whether we want it or not and whether we know it or not.

I had my bikini line waxed once and as I was doing it I kept thinking "NEver AGAIN"
Now... I have a large tattoo on my lower back and another on my shoulder. I have also 'done' natural childbirth twice. Tatoos hurt a lot, and drug-free childbirth goes without saying, but the waxing was different, somehow. It was absolutely the result of cultural conditioning, I knew that at the time, (I was 18 or so). HOw can I put it... I felt as though I was conforming to an expected norm. With tattoos and childbirth you're not. (I had to fight for my drug-free birth.)
BUt lying there akimbo in this waxing salon felt sterile and disempowering. My boyfriend at the time loved the results, but nah... that was the first and last time I had my bikini line waxed.