Resisting femininity experiment - who's in?

[sethstarkaddersmackerel]

I was thought-provoked by the 'I'm a feminist but....' thread, particularly Dittany's posts, in which she talked about women who choose not to 'perform femininity'.

I posted on the other thread that I hugely object to all that bikini-line business but do still shave my legs. Am not sure why I do this, so I think I'm going to stop and see how it feels. It felt like a major issue when I was 20 or so but I actually suspect not shaving them now would make me feel more, rather than less, confident.

So I wondered if anyone else was thinking about giving up any beauty practices or other elements of compulsory femininity and would like to do it together and see how it feels.

this is not a competition - if you decide after a day you hate it and can't live without it, fine, but it would be really interesting to hear about, and I think it could advance our understanding of how this all works.

anyone else in?

btw, I am in a vile mood today so if anyone wants to come along to the thread and tell us we are just falling into the trap of thinking all feminists have to have hairy legs, or that actually they wax everything and are a still better feminist than meeeee, I will tell them to fuck off because if you don't 'get' this I can't be bothered explaining, either you get it or you don't

So from my personal experience it seems like it's women policng women to a great extent.

What I found really interesting a few years ago was when Julia Roberts was photographed with hairy armpits. It was female commentators on TV who seemed utterly appalled by it - the sneering look of disbelief on their faces was a picture.

My wife sometimes shaves her legs and armpits, sometimes not.

It's entirely up to her what she does of course, but I love it when she doesn't, to be honest.

but he couldn't shake off the pubes=dirty feeling and his bedside manner spoke volumes

Utterly bloody atrocious. What a cock.

I am like that sometimes I do sometimes I don't. No one has ever commented male or female and no one has ever admired when I am smooth either.

Mymblesson, blaming women for misogyny is as old as God's dog. Do you know that some male "academics" blamed women for foot-binding in china because it was the girls' mothers who carried out the torture, all the while neatly failing to mention that no man would marry a woman with unbound feet, that they fetishized the feet, were obsessed with them etc etc. Blaming women for their oppression by men ain't new

I'm not a non-participant, I am considering what it is I should do.

I think I'll stop messing about with my hair, does that count?

I have never encountered any negative commments from partners and I have been this way (unshaven) since I was 17.

I have dark hair so its not like they never saw it! Not one man (and I've known quite a few intimately) has said more than "Oh you don't wax" or "Oh your legs are fluffy/hairy/not shaved

And they never said they didn't like it either. Lot's were long term paartners too.

yes, it counts

Not to bitch about others (well ...), but have you guys been in Style and Beauty recently? There's a thread about someone who's not sure if she should tell her 19 year old to wax her lip as her DD is very fussy about waxing her eyebrows but doesn't seem to have noticed the lip hair, and her mum is worried she'll be mortified when she realizes.

There's a response saying mum should take her DD down to the salon and get her waxed 'everywhere necessary' ... in this particular situation it does sound as if the daughter genuinely would want her mum to point out her mustache, but I'm still fairly disturbed by the thread.

Btw, I was away from the net but saw this thread and have been wandering around the Youth Hostel I was staying in with my now very furry legs on display. I was quite disappointed, no one even gave me a funny look! Guess it's not very shocking really.

Blaming women for their oppression by men ain't new

Oh, no blaming intended at all. I just wonder how it got like this. I need to read more background I think.

I'm not sure that he would be repulsed by a little bit of pubic hair TBH, even if you have a lovely, lush patch. Doctors see all sorts of variations on the body hair front and IME ar not fazed by those sorts of things.

Really smelly feet are a different matter

(I'm talking about my experience of working in the profession)

@ "disappointed". Nobody is even noticing this revolution. Harrumph

Well I am, sakura!

And sorry, you'd already linked to the thread I mentioned, but I didn't see it (I was skimming the thread).

I'm quite interesting in this because although my DH is 6 foot tall and about 3 foot wide with a large mustache and beard, he also has long, silky, curly blond hair and is frequently mistaken for a woman from the back. He finds this highly amusing.

Does anyone else have a long-haired male partner who has similar experiences?

I have a very low-maintenance (ie. wash and brush and leave to dry) bob in my hair, but I am seriously considering asking my hairdresser to do a very short crop on it...what's the worst that will happen? I'll look a bit shit for a few months until it grows out. I have thick, dark, good condition, fast-growing hair. I've had it short before and it did look a bit shit IMO, but my mum and DH loved it. But I've never had it cut nicely into a very short cut - just cut by some bloke who normally does men's hair. Styled by a proper hairdresser and it might look great.

And here I am worrying about what I look like again! I don't think cropping my hair really counts for this experiment as I do jack shit it anyway, bar getting it cut every couple of months because I hate the feel of it on my neck when it gets too long.

Does anyone else have a long-haired male partner who has similar experiences?

I used to have long hair, which went almost down to my bum and quite often used to get mistaken for a woman.

I remember once bring on the hard shoulder of the M1 under bonnet of my MG and trying to repair the bloody thing for the nth time, hair in a pony tail, when a white van with a couple of blokes in it pulled up behind to give me a hand.

The look on their faces when I got out from under the bonnet was quite a picture. I presume they thought they were coming to the rescue of a Damsel in Distress.

What was it Galileo said? Eppur si (re)movere?

Mym, that sounds hilarious! Did you accept their kindly offer of help, then?

often used to get mistaken for a woman

From behind, I should clarify!

Did you accept their kindly offer of help, then?

The driver said, ermmm... alright, mate?' in an embarrassed sort of way, and I just I replied, 'yeah, just sorting out the carbs', then he sort of grunted and they drove off.

I like to think it means I have a great arse, frankly.

Cross posts!

I like that you did a bit of masculine car-talk to reassure each other.

Something that strikes me reading this thread is that the negative reactions sound almost as if they think there's something permanent going on. It's odd, isn't it? I mean, society insists that we should never be hairy of leg or pit, so we must constantly remove the hair. And in the same way, people are responding to this thread as if seth were making a permanent change to her body - and she's not, that's the point. Surely even someone with really thick, curly, tough hair will only take half an hour max to remove it again, should she choose?

Do you think it's disturbing to the naysayers because we could all whip the fur off legs, pits and other places and look exactly like real, feminine laydees again, and no-one would know we'd ever 'let the side down'? It's almost as if posters who advocate all the hair removal are angry because they think we're cheating somehow?

Don't know if that makes sense.

Mymblesson - my mother has the reverse story of that. When she was pregnant she had a shaved head due to illness. She was once chased in a roadragey manner by an angry man because she refused to go over the speed limit, he wouldn't stop tailing her car until she got to work and parked up. He screeched in next to her and got out shouting and swearing and offering a fight. She just calmly opened the door and got out in front of him, revealing her 9 months pregnant belly.

Apparently he went bright red, muttered "sorry" and drove off shamefaced. :o

...and while I'm here, I just wanted to say good on you all for doing this. At the moment I am too in love with the idea of looking "smart" for work after a year of working at home to want to participate, but I'll be reading and seeing if I find inspiration :)