Is pubic hair a feminist issue?

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Sorry if this has been done to death already.

Following on from another thread elsewhere there seems to be a divide between women who do and don't remove their pubic hair.

Some women who don't do it see it as another form of control that men have over women. That women are removing all their hair to please men and because it is now being normalised.
The women who do do it do so because they want to and they like it.

So, is it a feminist issue? Should women be able to do what they chose or are women doing it because it's another form of control even if they are doing it through their own free choice?

You can be a feminist and still make anti feminist choices. It's awareness that's important.

"Surely feminism is about letting women have the freedom of choice as to what to do with their body?"

Feminism is about analysing society and where that society places a differential pressure on each sex to do something, pointing that out.

In some areas, feminism is about increasing choices (for example, the right to vote, the outlawing of marital rape, the right to work after marriage etc) but it is not so simple as to say "any choice by a woman is a feminist choice"

This doesn't mean I'm trying to tell you not to wax, Egg. But there are no portrayals of women in underwear or swim suits or whatever on TV or in magazines that show any pubic (or other) hair.

Take horse meat; it's tasty, nutritious etc but it's very uncommon in our country to eat it. We are all making a free choice to eat beef, pork etc (religion/diet allowing) but are we making a free choice not to eat horse meat? What would a free choice even look like in the context of Uk history and current practice re horse meat? If you'd grown up in France 50 years ago, would your choice to eat or not to eat horse have had the same "quality" as choosing that today in the UK?

It's a far from perfect analogy but hopefully it shows how choices cannot be separated entirely from surroundings.

Why do you hate the phrase "radfem", turn?

You can be a feminist and still make anti feminist choices. It's awareness that's important.

A very good point.

I am 55 and divorced.
Have legs lasered and have regular Brazilians because I like it. Not because a man wants me to.

I don't shave or wax down there - apart from the odd shaving a bit if swimming. Don't want to spend time doing it.

I haven't shaved my legs since October and it has been quite liberating although I probably will shave them in the next month.

Women should be able to do what they want.

"Have legs lasered and have regular Brazilians because I like it. Not because a man wants me to."

I don't think anyone is saying that you do it because a specific man asked you to. But have you thougth about what was behind your decision to have a Brazilian in the first place? How did you hear about it? When did you first see another woman with no pubic hair?

Sure, but you wouldn't be at horse meat if you grew up in France 50 years ago (or roast starling if you grew up in England 500 years ago)!

Same as op's friend on Facebook wouldn't have dreamed of saying pubic hair was gross 50 years ago but now finds it so - because it's not really in her universe of acceptable any more.

I agree that it's a feminist issue. Not because removing body hair is in itself anti feminist but because the pressure to remove it is disproportionately placed on one gender and has been through various cultures and history.

I personally prefer to remove most of mine but I don't make that decision in a vacuum. I will also defend anyone's right to do that and it makes me uncomfortable that women asking about hair removal methods in S and B have their threads diverted into this discussion. The right to your body and to make decisions about it is paramount. Yes of course those decisions are subject to social and cultural pressure. Well done to those who defy it but it doesn't make the reasons behind those decisions less real or valid.

I like the way I look with little hair.
I don't like a full bushy pubic area.
Full stop.

But what first made you think of it?

I make anti-feminist choices all the time. It would be quite tiring to function in normal society and not do so. Plus I like some things which are not feminist e.g. I enjoy wearing very high heels at work (not to and from though I wear flats and change I'm not a masochist!).

Anyway. What people do individually is not done in a vacuum, few choices we make are truly "free".

The fact that fashions for different cosmetic appearances of various parts of the body changes over the years shows that this is down to fashion, which is driven from various directions. I don't think that people tending to do something more can be said to be "driven by men" or by women - something gets out into the cultural landscape and either it proliferates or not and the reasons for that are fairly complicated I would imagine. Marketers spend squillions trying to work it out I think.

Anyway. Yes pubes are a feminist issue, no that doesn't mean that whatever an individual does with theirs is "wrong" or something.

Agree that men are coming in for higher standards of personal grooming as well, that's not necessarily a great thing IMO. I noticed this a few years back when I was single and seeing a few men who were a bit younger than me, they all trimmed back and neatened which definitely wasn't the case when I was younger.

DH and I both have untamed pubes and this presents us with no problems whatsoever in terms of hygiene, comfort or shagging

I don't think anyone is saying that you do it because a specific man asked you to. But have you thougth about what was behind your decision to have a Brazilian in the first place? How did you hear about it? When did you first see another woman with no pubic hair?

This is exactly what I mean. No man is actually telling women that they should do this, (well some might but that is another story) but women are feeling that they have to.

I mean look at armpits. Most women remove the hair on their pits and don't think twice about it. More and more men are doing so as well, you just don't see ads for eg pants with men with sprouty armpit hair. Why not? What's wrong with it?

And when women have shown pit hair in the past there has been a certain amount of horror at least in the US remember Julia Roberts?

Are people still hairier on the continent?

Thinking on that, I wonder if there is a link towards the states here. Stacks of porn is out of there, they have as a nation very high standards of grooming generally and (not all of them!) a sometimes peculiar (to my eyes) approach to things to do with sex and stuff. Like vaginal douche things (do they still have that). Why?

So is a lot of this to do with preferences coming from across the pond?

OR is it that the media are in cahoots with the politicians and they want to keep us all so busy spending vast amounts of time trying to rid ourselves of hair that we don't have time for a revolution?

Just a couple of thoughts

If I saw a photo of two women, one with Brazilian, one with Bush, I prefer former.
Personal preference.
Like I prefer full breasted women to flat chested .

I first read about shaving it all off in an Anais Nin novel when I was 17.

The Brazilian - that's Sex and the City - my waxer remembers the specific date it was broadcast as that's when they all started getting requests and they had to be trained in it.

I personally don't see a difference, feminism-wise in waxing to have a neat triangle or shaving your armpits versus a Hollywood.

I like the way I look with little hair.

Now lots of people are saying that they like the way the look shaved. Am I alone in not often looking at my fanjo? Also, my legs and armpits are on show in the summer. My fanjo isn't.

I love looking at my fanjo

I can categorically state that I have had not one woman tell me to shave my pubic hair. I have had no conversation, have not read it in a magazine, watched a porn film and thought it looked good. I stated why I did it in the previous thread.

I have however, had loads of women tell me why I shouldn't, why it is wrong and had all my personal reasons for doing so being made out to be bollocks.

I'm going to grow my pit hair too this Summer.
Together with not wearing make up and not wearing heels....
But its easy for me -I'm over 45 and have become invisible.

I have come to feel that pubic hair fashions, like most fashions, are much more about capitalism finding uses for spare money than feminism. Which is borne out by the increasing pressure on men to do a lot of body hair removal.

Clearly the male hair removal thing has passed DH by. It's like he's wearing a mohair jumper.

I see this as a real feminist issue. I don't see how being waxed in such an intimate area would make you feel good. What messages do we give our daughters on this? If you remove all your pubic hair, do you expect your daughter to do the same? At what age?

How can people be so very sure that they haven't been influenced by the porn industry. Or by anything else?