Shaving

I TRY to shave once a week during the summer. That may seem shockingly seldom to some of you. Let me just say a few words in my defense. First, I have some kind of genetic anomaly (that's my theory anyway) that prevents me from shaving in the shower like all the other women in America. I just can't do it. This means I have to find the time for a bath, and there always seems to be other things higher on the to-do list. Second, shaving really isn't that important to me. I'll wear shorts and run errands even with leg stubble. I figure people aren't going to get THAT close to my legs anyway. Although when Ava starts asking questions about why I have fur under my arms, I do feel motivated to run that bath water!
I usually butcher myself while shaving, which is another reason I am in no hurry to yank out the razor. Instead of silky soft legs, mine are plastered with Dora bandaids. A friend of mine told me she loves her Schick Intuition Razor. I am seriously considering trying it. It even has the shaving cream built into it.
Ava has watched me shave a few times, and now she even uses the letter "T" from her bath alphabet set to pretend shave. Seeing that was humorous and heart-breaking at the same time. It makes me sad that one day she must face the hassles of puberty and the pressure to conform to our society's definitions of beauty. In fact, all this got me to wondering who decided shaving was such a necessary thing anyway? I doubt the prairie women wasted their time removing arm and leg hair. So I looked up The History of Shaving and this is what I found...

"Why Women Shave Their Legs and Underarms -

We all know the power of advertising. At the turn of the century, for example, the South African Diamond company, DeBeers, created the image that the diamond was forever and therefore would make an excellent wedding ring.

Another marketing campaign around this time convinced the women of North America to shave their body hair. Notably, women in the other parts of the world do not engage on masse in this ritual. Even in French Canada, the habit is not largely undertaken.

It all began with the May, 1915 edition of Harper's Bazaar magazine that featured a model sporting the latest fashion. She wore a sleeveless evening gown that exposed, for the first time in fashion, her bare shoulders, and her armpits.

A young marketing executive with the Wilkinson Sword Company, who also made razor blades for men, designed a campaign to convince the women of North America that:

(a) Underarm hair was unhygienic (b) It was unfeminine.

In two years, the sales of razor blades doubled as our grandmothers and great grandmothers made themselves conform to this socially constructed gender stereotype. This norm for North American women has been reinforced by several generations of daughters who role-modeled their mothers."

So there we have it. Thank you Harper's Bazaar and some stupid young executive. Thanks to all of us for reinforcing it generation after generation. I knew a girl in college who refused to shave. At the time I looked down on that decision. Now I know that it was truly liberating. I'm not quite ready to toss my razors, but I am starting to question the validity of various beauty regimens and the pressure society places on women to conform to its fabricated values. It's probably because I have a daughter now, and I really want her to realize that she is beautiful just the way God made her...hairy legs and all.