prickles

I stopped shaving my legs. And I don't intend to ever start again. Why should I waste my time, energy, money, and water on doing something that does not benefit my life or well-being in any way?

I remember the first time I shaved my legs. I think I was in fourth or fifth grade. We had had a school assembly of some sort and I noticed that one of my classmates had no hair on her legs. I knew what shaving was-- I had two older sisters and a mom who all shaved. But for some reason, seeing those hairless legs on one of the "popular" girls made it suddenly click: shaving my legs was the only way to be cool, pretty, popular. Looking down on my hairy legs that day, I was ashamed. Because how dare I have cute little blonde hairs growing out of my legs when they should be smooth and shiny and hairless. When I went home that day, I asked my mom to show me how to shave. She lathered up one leg and demonstrated. Told me to do the other by myself.

It took me a while to get fed up with shaving. I was on the swim team in high school, after all, and I had to shave to be faster. (This is a funny statement because I was slow, no matter how much hair I had on my legs.) And after that, I didn't really think about it. It's just something that I had to do. But then I started thinking about it, and it's just so ridiculous.

My worth as a human being should not be determined by how hairy my legs are. My worth should not be determined by if I wear makeup, how much sex I have, what clothes I wear, how I do my hair, what my body looks like when it is naked. But because I'm a woman, I'm told that those things are exactly what determines my worth as a person because someone somewhere along the way decided that women should be judged on those types of things.

It was probably a man who made up how a woman's worth is determined. But today, it's mostly other women who make sure these judgments stay firmly in place. And I'm not innocent. I have judged other women for looking slutty, for being too skinny, for wearing too much makeup. It's ridiculous, isn't it? It's almost like a mastermind planned it: "Get them to turn against each other, and they will never rise up."

So I decided to stop shaving my legs. Because I'm a mammal and I grow hair all over my body and it is stupid to pretend like I don't grow hair on one part of it. This does not make me any less of a woman, or more importantly, any less of a human being. Just like a fat woman wearing skin-tight clothes does not make her a disgusting person, but rather someone who is comfortable in her own skin and doesn't give a fuck what you think of her.

And that type of woman is very dangerous. And that's exactly the type of woman I am.

Because this is not disgusting-- it's natural! Albeit not very long yet.

I'm not writing this to say that women should stop shaving or that I'm better than other women because I did stop shaving. I'm not better than anyone else. We all have worth. Regardless of what we look like or what we wear. And my hairy legs remind me that I'm awesome, even if by societal standards I'm a freak. And my hairy legs remind me that this skinny bitch next me is not a skinny bitch, but a person who has thoughts and feelings and worth.