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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Do you think if I identified as non binary I could not shave my legs/bits to take the kids swimming?

77 replies

ABitCrapper · 25/11/2018 06:56

Or is non binary restricted to the under-40yos with blue hair?

Because I already genuinely always wear trousers, never wear make up, have a boy leg swimming costume, do DIY, have a stem degree, don't watch love island etc

I don't feel feminine
I am a woman who hates having periods and having social pressure to conform to female stereotypes.
However I enjoyed birthing, breastfeeding, and being the main carer for my children.

So I reckon I'm non binary?

But really, the only social pressure I bow to is hair removal. Not sure why?

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EgonSpengler · 25/11/2018 15:58

I've been experimenting with hair, as it were, since this summer. Just stopped shaving/waxing entirely. It was mainly prompted by a particularly nasty couple of ingrowing hairs on my bikini line after waxing one time. I have very dark, copious, body hair. Always been v aware of it, ever since a teen and have always battled at keeping it 'under control'. Have always hated the amount of time, money and pain I've spent doing it. As it was becoming autumn / winter I could be sure that not many people would see, but yesterday I went for a proper swim with my DD au naturel. It was so liberating! No one said anything and there weren't any looks (that I noticed). That said, I do wear board shorts to swim as I find them far more comfortable (and they hide my wild and wonderful bikini line). Pits and legs were flowing in the breeze though.

I've been thinking about it a lot and have come to the conclusion it's important for DD, 8, to see that we all have hair and it's not disgusting or unusual for women to have hair.

Time40 · 25/11/2018 16:01

I don't do my bikini line. I've never noticed anyone looking at me when I'm going swimming. I honestly don't think anyone cares.

BlackeyedGruesome · 25/11/2018 16:03

I will swim with hairy legs but not hairy armpits. Weird!

TheWildRumpyPumpus · 25/11/2018 16:06

Am I the only woman who has never once removed hair from their bikini line area? If it doesn’t bother me when why should I remove it in case other people can’t stop themselves looking at my crotch!

ChristmasSprite · 25/11/2018 16:06

So, the only gender role stereotype you conform to is shaving, but you birthed and fed DC, doesn't that just make you a woman who doesn't want to conform to gender role stereotypes except shaving?

If we could go though life without periods and still have babies and bf; does anyone actively enjoy having a period, its tolerated and often hated for the pain, the mess etc.

The thing about the gender terms is the 'rules', screw the rules, be you, be happy. Its just another, updated, term for stereotypes imv.

howonearthdidwegethere · 25/11/2018 16:11

This thread reminds me of a Smack The Pony sketch:

Grin
ChristmasSprite · 25/11/2018 16:35

Is that TW in fact actually just a man with male stereotypical views though? Hmm tick

ChristmasSprite · 25/11/2018 16:36

Baked bean in beard - shaving leg hair Confused

R0wantrees · 25/11/2018 16:54

You should be aware that India Willoughby would regard you as 'dirty'.

This was the view that India Willoughby expressed on Women's Hour last year. Only for women of course.

Jenni Murray wrote about it and described her feelings about India Willoughby's assertion. She was also branded a 'terf' by some in the transgender community and following their complaints publically rebuked by the BBC for the Time article.

'Jenni Murray: Be trans, be proud — but don’t call yourself a “real woman”
Can someone who has lived as a man, with all the privilege that entails, really lay claim to womanhood? It takes more than a sex change and make-up'
(extract)
The fury that a male-to-female transsexual could be so ignorant of the politics that have preoccupied women for centuries hit me again last year — 16 years after I had met Carol. This time I was speaking to another trans woman, India Willoughby, who had hit the headlines after appearing on the ITV programme Loose Women.

India held firmly to her belief that she was a “real woman”, ignoring the fact that she had spent all of her life before her transition enjoying the privileged position in our society generally accorded to a man. In a discussion about the Dorchester hotel’s demands that its female staff should always wear make-up, have a manicure and wear stockings over shaved legs, she was perfectly happy to go along with such requirements. There wasn’t a hint of understanding that she was simply playing into the stereotype — a man’s idea of what a woman should be.

She described hairy legs on a woman as “dirty”. But hairy legs are not considered dirty in a man. Did she not know that the question of whether a woman should shave her legs or her a rmpits had been a topic of debate among women for an awfully long time? And that to describe a woman who chose not to shave as dirty was insulting and again suggested an ignorance of sexual politics?

Unsurprisingly, my polite and informed line of questioning exposed me to a barrage of criticism on social media. I was a Terf and didn’t understand what Simone de Beauvoir, the author of one of the great feminist tracts, The Second Sex, meant when she wrote: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

As a matter of fact, I have understood perfectly what de Beauvoir meant ever since I read her as a teenage girl. Her subject was that “second sex”. She used the word sex advisedly." (continues)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/be-trans-be-proud-but-dont-call-yourself-a-real-woman-frtld7q5c

I was listening that morning and was so shocked, I had to listen again that evening to be sure I had heard it correctly. I didn't know who the guest was stating such views and so heard only a male voice.
I hadn't heard such things said since I was a teenager in the 1980s when a few boys spouted this and other sexist nonsense

ChristmasSprite · 25/11/2018 17:06

When actually beard - shaving legs can the author not see the contradiction and irony, or was that the point..women you have to do this and we men can do whatever and its just better?

DixieFlatline · 25/11/2018 17:16

I frequently walk around with baked beans stuck in my leg hair. What of it?

ChristmasSprite · 25/11/2018 17:22

Is this not viewed as outrageous sexism widely anymore, calling women 'dirty'??? When men have, by comparison, a ridiculous amount of hair, and should be then described as disgusting and filthy?

Sexist shite

ScottCheggJnr · 25/11/2018 17:25

Scottare you equating old (food poisoning risk) food in a beard, to clean female leg hair?!

Not the best example admittedly!

But I don't think we'll ever get away from social conditioning, whether the fashion en vogue is powdered wigs or shaven legs.

It's not just hairy legs. I reckon most women would find me unattractive if I totally let my beard go in an unkempt 'Wildman of Borneo style.

Spottycake · 25/11/2018 17:39

Scott- i don’t think most women would give a damn what you do with your beard actually. Its really not very interesting.

OlennasWimple · 25/11/2018 19:35

howonearth - I was about to post that sketch too Grin It's how I fear I might come across if I don't shave or think I've just got a bit of stubble on show

doublethink · 25/11/2018 19:52

I didn't shave my leg or underarm hair for a year, and found it a liberating and emotionally exhausting experience! I loved feeling of "I don't give a shit what anyone thinks, it's my body and I'm not going to do what society tells me to do with it, and I actually feel enpowered and strong, la la la" Grin but also hated the feeling of 'ah, shit, I do actually care because of years of social conditioning and a constant awareness of expectations that women should be hair free, and smooth=clean and hairy=unkempt and dirty, and I look grim" HmmBlushAngry. I managed a two week beach holiday with hairy legs, but caved to pressure a couple of weeks ago when I had to go to a hospital appointment and couldn't bear the thought of looking 'unkempt' Hmm.

ScottCheggJnr · 25/11/2018 21:23

Nobody should be pressured or feel embarrassed for their aesthetic choices or rejection of societal trends, but they will likely always exist in some form or another.

Most women likely don't give a shit about my personal grooming, but men who are well groomed are generally more likely to be successful in attracting the opposite sex. The same with women.

Attracting the opposite sex is a primary concern for most human beings who are single, and for many others social acceptance is desired in some form or another.

WomaninBoots · 25/11/2018 21:23

Interesting that Scott talks about women not finding his unkempt beard attractive... when I'm thinking about shaving my legs for swimming I'm really, really not worrying about whether I will be attractive to men or not. That really isn't the point. I actually don't want any man at the swimming pool to find me attractive. That's not what I'm worrying about, Scott, maybe other women are but I kind of doubt it. For me at least it's more visceral, pure shame at being seen with hairy legs without any ability to reason why or any words to truly articulate the shameful feeling.

I'm not having a go Scott, not really, I just think you're looking at the concern women have about having hairy legs from the point of view of being a man and assuming women are primarily concerned with how good they are at being a sexual object for men? And maybe if you want to sympathise with women on this issue you need to rethink your analogies? I just think it is interesting how you are looking at it.

I'm really glad there are plenty of women on here who have overcome this. I've just been looking at swimsuit with legs... who knew that it was possible to spend nearly 500 quid on a swimsuit? Fortunately cheaper options are available.

Polkapjs · 25/11/2018 21:31

I wish I didn’t get sweaty with armpit hair as I’m not arsed about shaving or what people think about body hair but I smell when I don’t shave and use deodorant so I just do.

It’s annoying though that it’s expected.

Catsandbootsandbootsandcats · 25/11/2018 21:42

Decathlon do a range of swimsuits with longer legs than normal swimsuits, as well as shorts etc. I got my swimsuit there as I hate the up your arse swimsuits that I had before.

I don't shave that often, and have been swimming plenty of times with hairy legs and pits and no one has ever looked at me as far as I've noticed.

moofolk · 25/11/2018 21:55

I have recently relented and shaved my legs (but not my pits). It's largely for swimming.

And I'm the family breadwinner so how far along the gender spectrum am I now? Semi-demi-nonbinary?

No high heels or makeup. No Love Island but I not Match of the Day either (very often); I don't like motor racing.

Oh and I have grown new humans inside my body.

ABitCrapper · 25/11/2018 21:59

Ffs. I'm not going to the swimming pool with my kids to pull. Confused

There is an ingrained shame with unshaved legs.

I don't want people to go "phwoar". I just really don't want them to look and mutter "look at the state of that! Gorilla legs!". Or worse.....

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ABitCrapper · 25/11/2018 22:00

That was to Scott obvs. Sorry to subsequent posterd

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ABitCrapper · 25/11/2018 22:04

The thing is, men can be hairy, and it's fine, as long as it's neat and trimmed. Why can't women? Why the shame?
And for what it's worth I have a beard as well. Used to be quite luxurious, but I've spent several thousand on laser removal, so it's now just normal female hairy hairiness. IE controllable by plucking everyday rather than shaving twice a day plus derma cover cream.

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ABitCrapper · 25/11/2018 22:06

I have looked into burkinis but felt it might be seen as appropriation

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