NEXUS
KUPU WHAKAATU / 特辑
I have exciting news, folks: I have decided to stop shaving my legs. I haven’t necessarily made this choice out of some huge feminist epiphany; it’s more the fact that I just can’t be bothered doing it anymore. The awkward positions in the shower, the little head unclipping itself from the razor spontaneously, the getting cold because I turned the shower off to save water, which then leads to goosebumps on my legs, which then leads to a higher chance of accidentally cutting myself. Not to mention all the money I end up spending on those stupid pink taxxed women’s razors. Having smooth legs is nice, but it just doesn’t seem worth it to me.
With my legs being hairy again, I’m reminded of the first time I shaved. I was eleven or twelve and my mum told me that I should start off my leg-shaving journey right, and get them waxed. To this day, I have no idea why she thought that was a good idea. But I trusted her to make proper womanly decisions for me, so I said okay. I didn’t really see this as a big deal, but when I was telling my best friend about it, and my childhood crush walked past us and gave me a look, I realised: this was one of those woman things that you keep private. For a while after that, I didn’t talk to boys about my legs. I kept them shaved (after that first traumatic waxing appointment) and pretended that I had just been born with hairless legs. I struggled to keep up with expectations, all while learning about feminism and the unfair expectations that were on me, but not on men. I choose to shave, I’d tell people. Feminism is all about choice, and I choose to shave. I like shaving! It’s so nice to be hairless, and that is my personal, unmanipulated choice. But I don’t know if this was really true. It’s easy to tell off the rude boy at school who commented on your day five legs; it’s also easy to go home at the end of that day and shave, and tell yourself you were planning on doing it today anyway. 10 N.11 / V. 55
I’m not saying you can’t be a feminist with smooth legs. Of course you can. But before you make that choice, it’s best to think through why exactly you want to do that. Let's look at a bit of history. According to ModeratelyFoxy on Tumblr.com, shaving companies started selling to women because they needed to make money while the men were off at war. This is not true. Do not use Tumblr as a source. However, shaving companies did have a sneaky part in why women shave today, and I think it’s safe to say money was a motivator. The man making this money was King Camp Gillette. Women started shaving their armpits in 1915, just over 100 years ago. Before this, no one really cared about our body hair, because it was always hidden along with the rest of our body. Showing skin wasn’t really socially acceptable yet. But in the early 1900’s, women began to rid themselves of all the layers that they were expected to wear, and were now wearing sleeveless dresses that made the world aware of the fact that yes, women grew armpit hair. Women had freed themselves of one expectation, and Gillette was there to capitalise on that by creating a new expectation to replace it. One step forward and two steps back, am I right ladies? In 1915, Gillette introduced the Milady Décolleté razor, with advertisements
