GCSE biology textbook features woman with Brazilian

[Funkyfunkybeat12]

twitter.com/glaciuswhite23/status/1094341223102513158?s=21

The more I think about this, the more pissed off I get. What the fuck? The picture is of a woman at full term. And now the norm is apparently to make sure you keep up your expensive waxing ritual until you go into labour. Welcome to the new world where even your dorky school textbook teaches you about grooming expectations.

I won’t even go into the abuse Dr Victoria Bateman, the naked Brexit woman, got for daring to display natural pubic hair. Oh the horror.

That is utterly indefensible.

Family I haven't sent the email yet, but was going to use this address:

[email protected]

Hopefully they will tell me if it's the wrong one and give me an alternative to write to.

At first I thought over reaction.
But then I thought maybe not.
Not looked at biology book for 30 years but it looked ok at first to me. Same as usual. Just a pencil drawing.
At school 70's we girls were advised just to shave off any stray hair that may peak out the bikini (lol)
BUT my daughter used to shave the lot, though maybe because by that so did I - just prefayed it.

However l lived through the 'twiggy ' I used to feel my worth through being skinny.

Now through much more positive imagines promoted by years of work ,normal size healthy woman are acceptable.

Good example is Game of Thrones. (Yes I know there are some skinny women too)

But I feel more comfortable about my body than I ever have and deliberately put on 10 lbs about 3 years ago.

Look and feel better - thanks to good image promotion.

Fashion had a lot to answer for and 'waxing' is not away I would like to see it go.

On the program 'next supermodel ' they told them all
They 'had' to have a bazillion

It's absolute nonsense that you need to be rich to have a Brazilian. And also nonsense that it needs to be painful. You can get the same look with a bic razor and some cheap conditioner.

You can get serious painful infections from ingrown hairs that way. There is also a huge amount of itching and discomfort when the hair grows out. If you go to a salon, it's £30+ to have a Brazilian and you need it re-done probably on a monthly basis. You'd probably also struggle to get your bic-Brazilian perfected if you were 9 months pregnant.

It's no so much the cost, but the fact that this is presented as normal and normal for a heavily pregnant woman about to give birth. The Guardian vulva project showed us the range of what is 'normal' and very few of them look like Ms Perfect Brazilian in the textbook. And then we wonder why girls are so unhappy with their bodies and want to change them.

I agree with you OP.

Either show no hair (diagram approach) or natural hair (picture approach).

I just had a chat with my DD who did GCSE last year. She agreed and thought the image incredibly weird ( they didn’t use that book ) and promoted the sexist ideals of hairless women.

I intend on showing them the image (and some others if I can find them) and asking them what they think of it. Then seeing where the conversation takes us.

What if the first student who replies is a boy who says something that makes everyone else feel they have to agree? Such as expressing the view that any public hair is”gross”? Do you think any of the girls - or boys for that matter - will be able to give their honest views in front of their classmates without risking it becoming personal?

I think they very fact that this is about coercing girls and women into thinking their bodies should be hairless means it doesn’t lend itself to a whole-class discussion.

"What if the first student who replies is a boy who says something that makes everyone else feel they have to agree?"

I don't have any boys in my upper sixth group. There are some boys in the group next door. We had a discussion last week about the use of reusable sanitary ware and many of the girls were talking to me and the group about what they use and explaining how a mooncup works. I feel confident that they feel comfortable enough to talk openly if they want to.

If the illustrator didn’t do it on purpose and just drew default pubic hair (to them) and no one picked up on it, then that’s even worse IMO

But the views of boys are important because males are the ones driving this look.

So it would probably be pointless just asking the girls because you’d be missing out discussing with the boys the reason why hairlessness is so important to so many of them and why girls feel they have to comply.

"But the views of boys are important because males are the ones driving this look"

I agree. To be honest, I trust all my students to be thoughtful in what they say. The environment I have in my classroom and tutor, regardless of my own views, is one in which (I hope) students feel comfortable to express ideas without feeling like they are being judged. I often play devils advocate to provide the other half of the argument so if a student secretly disagrees with the opinions given, they feel like they have a voice.

I'll be interested to see what they think about this. Also interested to hear what Pearson have to say about it.

They gave an anatomical drawing a Brazilian?

What the fuck. That's incredibly gross. And worrying. Pearson absolutely deserve to be called out on that. As/when they respond, I'd be really grateful if someone could post it.

Asking a bunch of girls who have been fed this shit for years whether they are okay with the image will tell you very little. Few of them will tell you that it’s harmful or misogynistic because they might not see it like that yet. Women often look back on their teens and shudder at the shit they endured.

bigfluffy

I was going to reply to what you posted about being confident the girls will tell you what they really think but funky has said it perfectly.

You only have to watch the TV documentary “No More Girls and Biys” and listen to six and seven year old girls talking about girls being pretty and boys being strong to realise that by the time they get to secondary school, gender stereotypes are well and truly embedded in their mindset.

I agree with you OP thanks for raising it

Thank you Funky. Sometimes young people can have surprising insights. These are the students who have been exposed to the images and are the future adult feminists who will continue this fight for the right for women to choose what they want for their own bodies without prejudice or judgement.

Their opinions matter to me and if this opens up the dialogue with them and makes them think critically about what they are exposed to, then I am doing my job right.

Deathgrip I agree.

So what if they tell you ‘this is cool, pubes are a bit gross anyway’? Will you then think that there is no problem?

My 15 year old friend at school was having a relationship with a 28 year old man. Lots of other girls thought this was cool and grown up. Having a discussion about relationships between adults and teens would have been insightful, but I wouldn’t have placed much weight on their opinions about it to be honest. I am not in touch with her anymore but I hope she eventually saw it for what it was.

"So what if they tell you ‘this is cool, pubes are a bit gross anyway’? Will you then think that there is no problem? "

Majority of these students are off to university next year to study medicine /psychology/philosophy &ethics.

Lots of different directions that could go in. I would challenge their use of "gross". Talk to them about why we have pubic hair. Talk to them social "norm". Ask them what they would do/think if a future patient came in with pubic hair/no pubic hair? Do they even have the right to judge others?

Well, I hope your discussion goes well. I was just concerned by your initial dismissal of it and would also worry that you might dismiss it again if the girls tell you it’s not a problem.

Has anyone pointed out the pain it would cause to have a Brazilian when pregnant? I had a Brazilian years ago, but haven't removed hair now since then. It was sore then, they have to press on your belly aswell to tigntned the area. So I'm not sure if you can even have a Brazilian done when heavily pregnant.

On the contrary, there's no reason why every person would end up with ingrown hair, any more than a man would if he shaved his beard. Perhaps if you were particularly hairy and didn't moisturise and exfoliate properly, you would get ingrown hair. But it's certainly not predestined.

Thank you. Just to be clear, I absolutely agree with your overarching message here. If this issue is widespread, then it is important to lobby publishers of textbooks to ensure that students are exposed to accurate and diverse depictions of male and female bodies, not what is deemed to be a social norm.

Crowdo, I don’t think that men’s faces are covered in clothing and exposed to heat and moisture for most of the day. Ingrown hair infections are very real and for many they are unavoidable.

Anyway, despite the argument over whether Brazilians can be done on the cheap, do you not see a problem with a school textbook depicting this as normal on a heavily pregnant woman?

Thanks, bigfluffy