Weird topic, right? Well, it’s a big part of my life every Sunday during the winter or every day during the summer. When I was 11 ish or so, I saw other girls were shaving their legs and I wanted to join in too. My mom showed me the basic method- don’t shave your legs dry, be super careful by the ankles and behind the knees. There is this unspoken rule about leg shaving among women in the western countries. If you don’t do it, you’re looked at as an uncleanly person. Not until the early 1900s did the concept of regularly shaving one’s legs come full circle. This is not a new idea however, as 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, women were removing body hair- for aesthetic and health reasons. The media also played a major role in marketing the idea of shaving “objectionable hair.” Also, as skirts shrunk in length, the practice of shaving became more and more popular among women. Not only are women seen as unattractive or hippy-esque or exhibiting traits of “bra-burning” feminists if they don’t shave their legs at least semi-regularly, the societal pressures of shaving one’s legs (or one’s anything, for that matter) add another to-do (or must-do) on a woman’s list. We even go as far as spending thousands of dollars on painful laser hair removal treatments to appease our desire to live up to society’s standards.
Wow this is totally relevant to Diane's post the other day about modesty, as hemlines got higher and sleeveless dresses come on the scene, shaving became important! I read this article that said shaving the legs came after shaving underarms. In May of 1915 Harper's Bazaar magazine ran an ad with a girl showing a completely hairless underarm that read `Summer Dress and Modern Dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair.' Underarm shaving eventually lead to leg shaving... I don't know how to attach the link to it but here's what I read: http://askville.amazon.com/women-start-shaving-legs/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=5768114
ReplyDeleteWe all could count our many blessing though because if you think about the differences between shaving and i'll just say shaving in general, but the differences between shaving now and 3000 years ago, it's a lot more painless now days. Amanda stated that there were women known to participate in hair removal about 3000-4000 years ago and i can promise you that it wasn't with a 4 bladed Venus razor with automatic shaving cream coming from the head. So i would think that what your mother taught you how ever many years ago was almost an entirely different conversation compared to that between a mother and a daughter 2500 years ago. I would be curious to hear the both of those conversations and compare the details. So this knowledge has definitely been reinvented in today's modern world.
ReplyDeleteIt really sometimes surprises me what people are willing to do for the sake of beauty. Shaving seems like a totally normal thing to do, but if you think of it, you are running a very sharp knife across your skin, hoping that it just happens to cut the hair and not you. Fortunately we have safety razors now, but those were only invented in the late 1800's. I don't know if women shaved their legs before that, but men certainly shaved their faces, which is an even more unnerving place to put a knife. It is funny to me that the same people that teach us not to cut towards our hands when chopping vegetables also teach us how to shave.(Just by the way, despite the danger, I do shave regularly. Don't think I am one of those aforementioned hippies)
ReplyDeleteI think I got the luck of the draw as far as shaving goes... I never have to :U (and no I'm not a hippie) It's an interesting way of making yourself beautiful though. Just think of all the things those poor cavemen had to go through: no deodorant, no shaving, minimal if any teeth brushing... it almost seems like hygiene is almost superfluous to a truly successful life. But I guess women just aren't attracted to pure manliness anymore :(
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