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.

It was fairly normal to have a Brazilian in the early 00s actually. I'm pretty sure it's outdated now, and it looks ridiculous in real life and in that textbook! What were they thinking!? I'm fairly sure a waxer wouldn't do a heavily pregnant women anyway?
My teen thinks all body hair is fairly gross, but not just on women. Lots of men remove all body hair now.
Does the illustration of the man have shaved knackers?(vom)

Waxers definitely do pregnant women. When I was pregnant and using a forum there were multiple posts about when to schedule a wax so it was gone for the birth, how to handle the increased pain, how they’d be mortified to go into labour before it’s done etc. It shocked me.

Fuck, that would be so painful!

IMO they should either be showing the biological norm - i.e. full hair - for accuracy, or none at all where the aim is for clarity of the underlying shape/structures. They shouldn't be showing a "style" as it does reinforce the message that this is the norm.

And I say that as someone whose personal preference for myself is to shave the lot off. When I can be arsed!

Brazilians are porn driven. They should not be in a biology textbook. The sexualisation of young girls is reaching epic proportions.

@IfNotNowThenWhy @Deathgrip if you've had one before then a full wax during pregnancy wasn't anymore painful for me personally, wouldn't recommend it for a first timer though as I appreciate many people are more sensitive. Also it wasn't to do with 'being mortified', if a nurse or doctor can't deal with pubic hair that's worrying but they're professionals (no doubt seen worse things!). I didn't want anyone shaving me so waxing at nine months avoided that delightful experience.

As an aside - the relatively new "enhanced recovery" (aka kick you out 24 hours after surgery) protocol for sections now often says that you shouldn't shave or wax in the 2-3 weeks before the op to reduce infection risk.

Is it common now to be shaved before giving birth? When, over 21 years ago, I had my first child, I wrote a birth plan which included not wanting to be shaved. One of the midwives looked at it and almost burst out laughing, saying that they hadn't done that for years.

I wasn't shaved before giving birth and I had a right muff going on then! I'm pretty sure they don't do that anymore..

It is common practice at our maternity unit, I'd been pre-warned by friends granted not the case everywhere though!

Don't really understand the offence.

Hows it different from a textbook showing a man with a clean shaven face? Or a woman with ANY hairstyle?

Shouldn't be more offensive, just because its in a pubic region.

I was discussing this at the salon where i go for my lip and chin wax yesterday. Not this textbook but expectations in general The young woman who waxes my face (the only thing i can afford to get waxed and i will get to the economic pressures shortly) was telling me how her ex told her hair on women was gross so to piss him off she let it grow. Including the hair on her legs. Shes 20 so a lot younger than me. Im 45 and i told her that when i was that age it wasnt even on our radar. She smiled and wistfully said she sometimes wished she was born a couple of decades earlier. THIS is where we are with this!!!

THEN there is the cost of this and the pressure on poorer working class women who cant afford all this. So they are going to feel even more shit.

Im disgusted with Pearson. I THINK i still have a GCSE Biology textbook from 1988/89 Might hunt it out.

I'm a midwife. It's not standard practice in any of the hospitals I've worked in (all in the UK) to remove any hair from the vulva or the mons pubis before or after birth. Many women do come in with Hollywoods or Brazilians; many also come in completely natural. If an adult woman wants to remove her body hair for her own comfort, that's her own choice.
But 15 and 16 year-old girls are famously impressionable. My colleagues in gynae say there's been a huge upsurge in the number of teenagers coming in to request labiaplasties and the like in the last 7 or 8 years, and they're really concerned by it. I also worked in sexual health about 4 years ago and was dismayed at how many young teenage girls - 13 or 14 years old - were coming in with anxiety about what their (perfectly normal) vulvas looked like. Almost invariably, in discussion, they either said their partners had said it didn't look "right", or that they themselves felt it didn't compare the vulvas they'd seen in porn.
It's incredibly disheartening to think that teenagers are now receiving these messages in schools as well as through social media, porn, magazines, advertising etc. It's just relentless, and my heart breaks for girls growing up with this.

It doesn't surprise me that it's 7-8 years. It's smartphones. Kids got them around 2010 et voila-constant access to porn.
It's interesting that the boys don't seem to be going to doctors worried that their penises don't look anything like porn actors penises. Or maybe they are?

I say bring back the full bush. It's normal and actually healthier. There is nothing unclean about natural body hair.

They didn't shave me even in the 90s in the US.

Also I am sure there is a huge age divide here. Those under 45 - you have to understand LITERALLY NO ONE EVEN SHAVED REGULARLY UNTIL AFTER 2000. It wasn't even a thing. It was unheard of outside of fetish communities, and the fetish communities drove it into porn and porn drove it into the mainstream. There is no reason to do it for "cleanliness" or any other reason besides fetish.

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/parents-slam-biology-textbook-for-unrealistic-depiction-of-womans-pubic-hair-a4066086.html

I read that they had apologised but I couldn’t find it. Did read this though. Well done OP!

I don't see the issue.

Most women shave now just like us men no longer wear powdered wigs or rock mullets/taches. People once thought Queen Vic was extreme for bathing once a month.

https://www.brook.org.uk/data/Sowhattisaavulvaanywayyfinalbooklet.pdf

Some realistic pics of vulvas and pubic hair in this pamphlet.

DoughnutCowboy
Reported.

Not quite sure where the issue is?

Adding my tuppence worth to say I'm also furious they deliberately drew a shaved pregnant woman. Wtf! Presumably the artist and the entire review group/editors are all into porn so made the assumption that that's what all women look like. Surprised they didn't add a clit or nipple ring and a tattoo as well.

As an old woman I'm so glad I went through puberty long before graphic, all-pervasive porn dictated I had to bloody shave my fanny for the boys, even while pregnant ffs! God I feel so sorry for girls and young women nowadays, without textbooks reinforcing the message.

Incidentally I don't think anybody has mentioned any of the evolutionary reasons both men and women have pubic hair. One of which is to trap pheromones which act as sexual stimulants....sorry a bit off topic.

There are a lot of magic words missing in comments here such as “in my opinion. There is no right or wrong.

In my opinion, it’s a diagram for goodness sake. From my experience of modern young women (l’m in my 40s so can’t subscribe to the young bit!), it represents a typical normal adopted style. It’s practical. Plus a big bush in the diagram would be distracting.

Last time I looked Barbie and her doll mates didn’t sport a bush either. Neither would I expect a diagram depicting a penis to be shrouded in hair.

If an armpit was depicted would you expect that to be hairy?