Paul Busey wrote:
Colin Nelson wrote:The people who are most critical of body hair on women are women, from my experience.
Wow! Sorry Colin, but I really have to disagree. Not with your perspective, which is unique and true to your own person. But as somone who is very well traveled in the world, I see just the opposite being true. Also, women's fashion and grooming trends are currently set by men (pretty much globally). I have never met a woman that would shave legs, pits, privates/bikini if it were not for social pressure and male expectations(just ask a few).
So cudos to you Cassie, and again, sorry Colin, not trying to pick on you, I just really felt the need to try and add balance to what you wrote.
We probably run in different circles. I've got a lot of hippie-like lady friends, but I grew up in a female dominated southern conservative family (many catholic school attendees) and never heard anyone belittle or make fun of women with hair like I have heard from the females of said upbringing. I'm pretty well traveled myself, and find a lot of US views on women and their suffering pretty humorous when compared to the constant sexual harassment of women in Europe and India, or the oppression they face in Africa and the Middle East. That stuff is a whole different discussion, and those places really have a lot of male based oppression of females, cultural and institutionalized oppression...real serious, not even remotely humorous, stuff.
But here in the US...women are really mean to one another in many ways, on different levels. It's really weird, actually, how focused they are on other women. Social conventions on style and "hygiene" are focused on to a scary degree. My best male friends are very opposite of me...they like conventional American women and the standards of grooming they have been held to since the early 1900's, but they don't really say mean things to or about women with hair. None of them have ever said anything to me about the women I date, though females have multiple times. Maybe its because my close male friends know I'd just dismiss the criticism, and the women think I care what their opinions on it are. I don't.
No hard feelings or criticism taken for your reply.
I'm curious as to what Cassie's decision is, or if she talked to her friend.
Remember that shaving is a fad, sold by marketers, just like the clothes with holes in them and frankly things like the pledge of allegiance...none of them are old, none of them are the cornerstone of our society, it's just new age propaganda that's been profitable for the last 100 years.
I flag the "shave club" sponsored ads on social media as offensive, because I never met a man or woman who was less valuable to society due to the hair on their body.
(I actually have beef with Joel Salatin over his required grooming to work with him, but I digress...he can demand whatever he wants on his own farm.)
p.s.
Be careful blaming men for the marketing of women's fashion. The people who market that stuff are not speaking for any significant minority or majority of men, they are simply selling things without regard to the impact it has on society, because they are horrible and disgusting people who sit in ivory towers and never really have to face the results of the poison they distribute to people. They are rich, sheltered, people who do not see you and I as humans, they see us as profit. (and tons of them are women..also, no offense to rich people because I love rich people, just not those rich people that don't have to live with the impacts of their choices.)
Just my 2 cents.
There has been a lot of good advice on this thread but I still think the best advice is "talk to your friend".
