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

If you are still there, Proud2Be let me just tell you that I am also proud to be feminine.

It's just that being feminine for me does not include having bald legs and armpits and so forth.

And what gives you the impression that women are not doing this for themselves, because they want to and like it? I do not like shaving. I do not like armpit stubble. So yes, for me, hairiness is definitely my own choice for me.

What makes you think us hairy women don't want to look good? Who gave you the monopoly on deciding what looks good?

For your information, I am a stunning woman, hairy legs and all.

My oh my. Much has happened during my morning's break from MN. Certainly took me a while to catch up on Proud2be's arguments illogical utterings.

LOL @ 'better feminist then you Dittany' (emphasis mine obv )

Excellent T-shirts by the way. Really like the exploitation one. Do we have nothing similar locally?

I am lusting after 'Well behaved women rarely make history'. My mate has that as a fridge magnet. I want the T-Shirt. Where can I get it??

you can get it on CafePress

I have that T-shirt (bought it in St Lucia!!)

SAF - and did you??!

or if it's femininity, the NHS could save thousands every year on FTM sex changes - never mind mastectomies, a quick whizz over with the clippers and you're a bloke!

Ther's a critical femininity point????? Nobody told me that. I think I must have gone waaayy past mine when I had a number 2.

Actually, on the body hair conversation, I am very hairy. Peversely I love my body hair, especially on my arms. I've always been deeply fond of it. Whn I travelled in China I was constantly surrounded by people who, having very little body hair themselves, were tansfixed by it. I could always rely on someone shyly coming up and stroking my arms. For an extra thrill I would show them my legs

except, of course, that that isn't perverse.
What is perverse is removing all your body hair.
Now why would anyone do that?

My cousin is very dark and hairy, as a child she would sit on my dad's lap and stroke his forearms and say 'fur, fur'.... It has taken a while to come to terms with her own 'fur'

Why do people see failure to remove hair as an act of rebellion?

It's just being isn't it? Removing hair is an active act, not removing it, is just ... well... just defaulting to being.

Yes and claim not to care at all but still see the need to come on and insult people.

Like white van drivers who don't care that women are there existing in the street going about their normal business, but who nevertheless feel the need to yell abuse at them. Even though they don't care about them bieng there....

also you can't win with the people who object, because if you devote a lot of time and energy to explaining why you are doing it then you are attention-seeking, making a big deal out of it etc, but if you don't explain they will talk shit about why you are doing it and declare that the reason you haven't answered their ridiculous objections is that you can't

Hmmm... interesting, food for thought... Have been reading this thread and thought you were probably a bunch of navel-gazing nutters, but there is actually some logic here.

Some of you seem to be saying that you want to look good, but your idea of good not an idea imposed on you. Others seem to be saying forget looking good, you just want to feel good about yourself. Is that a fair summary?

I want to look good, and only as an adult realised the difference to my appearance made by a smidge of mascara (and a pallet-load of cover-up!). As a teenager I thought I had no chance of being anything other than ugly, so I didn't bother how I looked. My excellent mother trained me well that it's what's on the inside that counts. Then I met my DH, who retrained me by near-obsessing about appearances, although he takes a lot of pride in his appearance too so at least it's not a gender thing.

But having lived in a Muslim culture, I find I'm now much more comfortable in ankle-length skirts than anything else and I wonder if I'll have the confidence to stick with that when I move back to the West later this year.

So, look who turned out to be the navel-gazer! Is any of this relevant, do you think?

It's an interesting point about wearing what you're comfortable in - for whatever reason. I think women spend a lot of their time dressing to meet other people's expectations, keeping up with trends, making sure never to wear something too short or low cut, or too 'young'. Really trying not to stand out too much.

If I were more confident I'd wear maxi dresses most of the time. And have hair no longer than 2cm- on my head. And dye it different rainbow colours.

Puffin yes if I had no constraints I'd look extremely [ahem] interesting.

Even now I think "if I were thinner then I could get away with

I would love to be all brightly coloured and tattooed, TBH With flared brown cord dungarees (you can't buy them anyway more's the pity).

Basically I want to live in the 70s

lostinafrica it will be fascinating to observe yourself and what, if any, changes you make or feel like making when you have been back in the West for a while.

you could make some brown flared cord dungarees - I'm sure the 70s feminists would have made their own.

Yes, we'll see. I feel more comfortable now, with most of my shape covered, than I have done at any stage in the past in more conventional Western clothes. But whether that's just an age thing, I don't know. I mean, isn't it teenagers who feel the pressure to have a perfect body the most? I'm past childbearing now I've had the op, I can forget about looking good and I'm not sure society will really care.

I have a question - do you think it's true that men are more visually stimulated than women? In which case, I'd like to look attractive to my DH in the bedroom and not so attractive to the man on the street... Ha! I've assimilated more of the local culture than I thought!

Have been reading some of the links from further upthread... all very thought-provoking.