sometime in October, with the assistance of literary criticism class:
Me: Hey, I don’t like shaving my legs.
My Inner Feminist: Who said you had to?
Me: Um.
My Inner Feminist: . . .
Me: Was it . . . the patriarchy?
My Inner Feminist: Bingo.
Me: Was it an ideology that compels self-modification for women on the assumption of inadequacy and reinforces the to-be-looked-at-ness of the female body?
My Inner Feminist: Yup.
Me: DANG . . .
My Inner Feminist: Dang is right.
Me: So, does that mean I can stop shaving my legs?
My Inner Feminist: Yes, yes it does.
Me: Oh, ok. Well then, I think I’ll stop.
My Inner Feminist: Good job.
November:
Me: I kind of resent that now I can’t shave my legs even if I want to, because you’d make it sound like collusion with the patriarchy.
My Inner Feminist: Tough. Such is the cost of cultural analysis.
Me: Yeah, I know. Fine.
circa January:
My Inner Feminist: How’s the leg hair?
Me: It’s good. I’m actually becoming rather fond of it now that we’re past that awkward prickly stage.
My Inner Feminist: Really? Would you say that it’s growing on you?
Me: Augh, don’t do that to me. You’re supposed to liberate women, not hurt them.
My Inner Feminist: Sorry. But anyway, it’s still winter, so no one has really seen it yet.
Me: Now who’s reinforcing to-be-looked-at-ness?
My Inner Feminist: Just sayin’. This isn’t very gutsy just yet. You going to shave when you wear a skirt?
Me: I dunno. We’ll see.
summer:
Me: Um, so I’m pretty ok with my leg hair now. Yay not having to shave.
My Inner Feminist: Huzzah! Down with the patriarchy!
9 comments:
You make me giggle, o my roommate.
Brilliant. I'm very proud of you. One more peg out of the patriarchal ladder. I've just come off of a year of that particular quest myself. Very fulfilling.
haha, i remember doing this in high school! i just hated being chained to a razor. turns out i actually prefer waxing. sorry cixous, i prefer the invigorating pain of patriarchy to fuzzy freedom. though it is a great feeling to stand outside in your boxers and feel the wind rush through your leg hairs...
your my personal feminist hero! whenever harding contacts you in a year or so to see what you're doing, you should mention this -- it's quite laudatory. maybe one day you'll get to the point that you want to shave to be ironic or something -- all i know is, the first time you do, the feel of bedsheets on your bare legs could send you straight to heaven. is it anti-feminist to shave for that reason?
oh i love Howard's End! i also love Room With A View - every time i read one of his books i constantly come across passages that i want to copy and put on my quote wall - just so beautiful - like Woolfe, but in a different way.
Don't know if you remember a "Brianne" in your classes at Harding, but I found your blog through Facebook. Anyway, just wanted to post on this and give my 2 cents about leg-shaving. I gave up on it once my husband [boyfriend at the time] said he didn't care :) I will shave every few months, but mostly because I highly enjoy the feel of clean sheets on newly shaven legs. For some reason I felt you needed to know all this.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Are you sure your premise is correct: the patriarchy? There are qualities that must distinguish men and women, and shaving of legs is one of them. Have some integrity towards your appearance instead of trying to fight the oppressive male race.
Besides this just furthers your oppression rather than releasing you from it since you are doing it in opposition to this patriarchal decree rather than from your own free will.
Brianne:
Thanks for the comment. :) I looked for your blog to comment on earlier but didn't find it, so I got distracted about replying. Yeah, I definitely remember being in English classes with you. I hope you're doing well.
Marco:
Let me clarify a bit: by the patriarchy I don't mean to say that all men are oppressive -- but I do think there's a cultural tendency to objectify women, and I object to that. I'm also not trying to say that men and women should look the same. However, I'm not clear on what sort of integrity would obligate leg shaving.
On the second objection, I do agree with you that a life defined by reaction to oppression could be shallow. Still, it's inevitable that some aspects of working to solve a problem will be shaped by the nature of that problem -- for example, we wouldn't say that in the US revolutionary war, strategies to counter the movements of British troops actually strengthened oppression because they operated as a reaction rather than spontaneously. I think that both independent actions and specific reactions to perceived problems can be valuable if carried out thoughtfully.
Thanks a lot for the comments, Marco, and I hope you have a good week.
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