I started shaving my legs in 4th grade after begging my mom to let me. The reason? Because all the ‘cool’ girls at school did, so did my mom, my aunts, my cousins, and virtually every feminine figure in my life. How was I to be accepted in this group without being able to look like them?
Almost immediately after the first time a razor touched my legs, it became something I seemingly couldn’t come back from. At 4th grade, if my leg hair began growing out again, I would start receiving comments from these feminine figures in my life alluding to it being ‘unhygienic’ and ‘un-ladylike.’
Growing up, being “ladylike” seemed to be my ticket into womanhood, acceptance, and inclusion. If I wasn’t sitting, eating, playing, dressing, talking, walking, or breathing how they wanted me to, it was deemed un-ladylike, I would be told, and I would fix it.
Within the past year or so I began reflecting on this concept of being ‘ladylike’ and how it shaped my childhood and my eventual sense of self in relation to my femininity. What once was thought of as my ticket into womanhood I now revere as a form of control, tying me to an anchor of expectation— which kept me from exploring what I could’ve been outside of being ‘ladylike.’
Lately I have found comfort, power, and healing through not shaving. At first it was something I was pretty insecure about, when the feminine beauty standard is to be shaven, having body hair again didn’t feel beautiful; this was another concept I had to examine, and overcome.
Something I must confess is that overcoming this concept is something that I am still working on, I often still wear clothes that cover my legs when I know I’m going to be somewhere with people who may not be used to seeing a woman with body hair i.e. school, work, or in situations where people don’t know me. I am still afraid of being deemed unladylike and unhygienic— but working through my relationship with shaving has been a step in taking back my body and my femininity, and I couldn’t be more excited to keep getting to know myself.