A few weeks ago, i was hanging out on Stickam when a bizarre conversation came up: the topic of women shaving their legs. Very out of context for the room in i was in at the time, but i decided to add my own $0.02 anyway. I said that i didn’t shave my legs because 1) i don’t really care, and 2) my hair is so thin and fine, you can’t really see it from a distance (even when i haven’t shaved for a few months).
I got a few “ewwwww” type comments, but someone actively called me out on it. This particular gent told me it wasn’t acceptable – not because i don’t care, but because if i didn’t shave, it needed to be in defiance of the societal expectation that women SHOULD shave. He then tried to lecture me about body image conforming; i LOLed at him, and multiple people were telling him, “uh, dude, you have no idea who you’re talking to; she doesn’t need to hear this.”
(For context on that: some of the folks there are aware that i’ve been involved with fat/size/body acceptance bits, and most folks there knew me mostly as Ben’s Wife. Ben is known there as a smart fellow who isn’t likely to marry an idiot.)
I mostly laughed it off and exchanged private messages with a friend of mine who, like myself, simply could not believe this conversation was happening. Eventually he got the idea that he needed to hushface and actually did so.
But this situation kind of stuck in my craw. I was being pressured into having a Big Reason for what i was already doing (or not doing, rather). Because i am a contrary beasty, my inclination was to grab a razor and shave my legs on camera… or just to shave my legs at all, because now there was someone who tried to me why i shouldn’t. That wore off after a day or two, and i went back to not caring. And i don’t mean that every time i take a shower, i repeat a mantra of “i will not shave my legs because i don’t care!” I honestly don’t have much of an opinion either way. Sometimes i shave just because i’m bored. Sometimes i think about it and don’t do it because my back is bothering me and i don’t want to tempt fate.
If there’s one thing i’ve learned from my experience in the Fatosphere, it’s that my brain does not like the politicization of my body. I was thinking about this the other day while i was waiting for a bus (and had no pen & paper, so i may not be able to reconstruct the thoughts as i had them then, but rest assured that they were awesome).
Forcing myself to think of my body as a political tool felt like another form of degradation: it takes that much more control away from me. There was pressure to feel a certain way about myself, and while the reasons themselves weren’t necessarily Not Valid, it’s my body, and my relationship with it is no one else’s business. Just as much as your relationship with your body is none of my business.
Someone telling me i need to feel a certain way about my body in order to conform to their agenda or serve their purposes… sound familiar? I don’t let the media tell me how to feel about my fat, why should i let some bloke on the internet tell me how i should feel about my leg hair (or why i should feel a certain way about it)?
This is more than “you can’t tell me what to do!” This is my recognizing that i did myself more harm than good when i was in the Fatosphere by trying to make my body a political thing. If someone else finds it empowering to think of their body in that way? Good for them! I totally mean that. It just doesn’t do me any favors.
Do i want people to have a good relationship with their own bodies? Hell yes with a cherry on top. But i need to have a good relationship with my own body, and for me, that means not thinking of my body in political terms.
The relationship that Ben and i have is unique to us; if i tried to tell my friends how they should handle their marriages, it’s socially acceptable for them to tell me to mind my own damn business. In my ideal world, it would be socially acceptable for everyone to have that same response whenever someone told them how they should handle their relationships with their own bodies.
Hello! I loved this post, and the earlier one about organ donation/bodies and souls/astrophysics.
Just a comment about leg hair: I tend to shave my legs (for whatever reasons… not important) rather frequently. However, I had six weeks of hermitage, during which I did not once shave my legs. Near the end of this creaky lonely period, on a warm, mild day, I rode my bike into the lab to print something out. Wearing shorts, I learned that wind in your leg hair feels REALLY amazing. Each hair is a little mechanoreceptive antenna.
Sort of an apolitical post, but I thought you might appreciate it.