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.

But it's certainly not predestined.

It’s extremely common though, with shaving in particular.

I object to this too, especially in an educational resource. It would have far better either to have all or nothing. Yes, some pupils would probably have reacted to the 'all' option by saying 'ew, gross' which would have been a perfect opportunity for the teacher to explain that actually that is what women naturally look like.

A number of people have said girls feel under pressure to remove their public hair because boys think it is gross. True enough, but I think what is worse is that many girls and remove it because they themselves think it is gross.

Should have said 'girls and women at the end.

I am quire surprised at this.

Why not just show no hair, to show underlying anatomy, as it's a diagram?

I am going to show my 16 year old when eventually gets up, to see what he says.

When nine months pregnant I will admit to having everything off mainly as it was standard practice to be shaved at the local hospital and I really really didn't want to have to experience that!! Also during the post partum period it was easier to apply pain relief etc. Now this is fully my choice and I appreciate others wouldn't want to do this.

However, I am really horrified this image is in a GCSE textbook!? I suspect this reflects the illustrators assumption of what the typical woman has done...slightly more depressing.

I want to know how to remove most of your pubic hair with a bic and cheap conditioner without:

A) getting inflammation from conditioner getting into the micro (and not so micro) cuts a razor especially a cheap one makes.

B) Infection from the above. There's a reason why hospital acquired infection rates go down when hair is removed from the surgery site with clippers, not a bic. A man's face is not the same as a pubic area kept inside close fitting clothes, very near to excretions from the vagina and urethra, no matter how good your hygiene is.

C) Itching. Even when well shaved less likely using a bloody bic hair sitting inside pores that has been cut off bluntly at surface of the skin height in a highly sensitive and delicate area that changes shape, tone and rubs against fabric every step...It's not good.

D) ingrown hairs and small infections of pores causing bright red attractive welts no matter how much conditioner, exfoliant and moisturiser you use...In fact as none of those products are sterile or antibacterial I'd strongly suspect them of trapping or pushing bacteria Doreen into the pores and micro cuts. Nice.

This makes my blood boil! As if teenage girls don't have enough pressure already placed on them without a GCSE fucking textbook joining in!

My 15 yr old ds thinks pubic hair is "disgusting". I think this is a normal response from most teenage boys. This has clearly come from exposure to porn. You would expect a biology book to know better!

Is there someone we can bombard with emails / tweets?

Does he think his own pubic hair is disgusting or just womens’ pubic hair?

Boys are seeing porn with no other context for women’s bodies. They’re not questioning whether women have pubic hair - having it reinforced like this in a textbook is shocking.

@ChakiraChakra

Lots of people shave and don't end up with horrible after effects. It is just a matter of care and regularity, I guess.

I'm really not that fussed about what style of pubic hair a picture has. I really wouldn't have thought any teenagers will be rifling through biology magazines looking for pubic fashion tips.

Do you really not understand why it’s a problem, despite many people here discussing why?

You can get the same look with a bic razor and some cheap conditioner. and you can get painful ingrown hairs that way too....

I've been shaving 10 years with a razor and soap and never had an ingrown hair.

Also shaving doesn't itch! Maybe the first time, but it's not uncomfortable in the slightest.

"It is just a matter of care and regularity, I guess." - nope. Some people are prone to it, no matter what they do, how much money and time they spend on it.

You've missed the point, it's not about fashion. It's about normalising something that isn't typical, it's a specific choice made by some women, not a general state for every woman.

When nine months pregnant I will admit to having everything off mainly as it was standard practice to be shaved at the local hospitl

Same here. It wasn't "standard practice tho

@Deathgrip

I can see that other people have strong opinions on the matter. I don't consider a consensus to be the same as an absolute truth.

Is humanity in general under pressure from all angles to conform to a certain standard? Yes, certainly. Just like you are asking me to conform to the opinion of this group - to not be an 'outsider' - so humanity pressures those around them to eschew uniqueness. And cut their pubic hair to a cultural standard. But do I agree that a biology textbook is a centre for great damage in the hearts and minds of young woman across the country? No, I don't.

Further to that, I don't think a popular hairstyle is of any great consequence to the success or failure of our mutual endeavours. Whether it's in our shorts or not. I think it's irrelevant how many pubes someone has.

@Aleela can you understand that your experience is not going to be everyone else's experience?! It doesn't itch for you, it's not uncomfortable for you, ingrown hairs don't happen for you. For many women it's the opposite experience.

@AssassinatedBeauty

Obviously... But then I read this part too " I want to know how to remove most of your pubic hair with a bic and cheap conditioner without...." Which was clearly someone who doesn't believe it's possible when it is

And I would like to point out that despite my shaving, I don't think it should be seen as the norm, I often let it grow out when I cannot be bothered, as I'm 23 now I find myself not caring as much, when I was in secondary school it was a big deal.

God, it’s not about whether you get ingrown hairs or not. Great if you don’t. But medical professionals have warned that removing public hair raises risk of infection.

It’s about a message being sent to young girls that public hair is abnormal and disgusting and that they must remove it to be considered attractive or desirable. They are taught that it’s not natural. This is reinforced more or less everywhere in everything they see. Now it’s also in their schoolbooks. Can none of the ‘no ingrown hair’ brigade see that this adds to the existing problem? We know that mental health problems among teen girls is huge, we know they suffer sexual harassment and intense scrutiny of their bodies. We know that many think they need invasive surgery to be okay. Can none of you really see how shoving this image down a 14 year old’s neck and reinforcing that having pubic hair is dirty and abnormal might help to contribute to the problem? It’s not about people taking grooming tips ffs, it’s about what images are normalised.

I really wouldn't have thought any teenagers will be rifling through biology magazines looking for pubic fashion tips.

You wrote this, which implies you don’t get it at all.

It’s not about whether the teenagers will see this and think “oh great idea, I’ll get a Brazilian”. It’s about this subtly reinforcing for boys the heavily modified female bodies they are exposed to, in an educational setting. It’s about girls already being told this is the norm, and this being reinforced in an educational setting.

I think that the assertion was that it was very unlikely and not typical, rather than commonplace and the norm. Not suggesting that it was impossible.

This is ridiculous. Pearson should be ashamed of themselves. If I was on twitter I would have a rant!

Our poor young girls can't even learn biology without being told how they look naturally is not right.

It’s about a message being sent to young girls that public hair is abnormal and disgusting and that they must remove it to be considered attractive or desirable. They are taught that it’s not natural. This is reinforced more or less everywhere in everything they see. Now it’s also in their schoolbooks. Can none of the ‘no ingrown hair’ brigade see that this adds to the existing problem

Of course I see the problem, jheez. I don't agree with it. I was purely commenting on it being possible not to have all those negative things happen. It's not like I went to school and went through all that negativity around oubic hair is it, I mean why do I shave in the first place? Why did I start shaving aged 13? I deffo see the problem.

Aleela I am glad you see the problem. I was also exposed to unrealistic images at school but nowhere near the same as what girls today face with social media, porn and photoshopping. My point is that there is now literally nowhere that they can see a realistic image of a woman. They just see the plucked and preened version so no wonder they want surgery. Even their textbook tells them that bald with a landing strip is the norm.

I should stress, when I was at school- not at school