With yesterday being the first beautiful spring day in Harrisonburg, students flocked outside to relax and soak in the sun. However, with the spike in temperature came a parallel spike in my desire to avoid the well-populated areas where my peers were talking about classes, summer plans, and inevitably, summer fashion. I have been dreading these conversations with growing anxiety, knowing full well that the warm weather would bring with it waves of body shaming commentary.
Every summer for as long as I can remember, I have shaved my legs sparingly, if at all. Due in equal parts to habits I picked up from my swim team, understanding from my partners who also didn’t want to shave daily, and my feminist rejection of mandatory grooming habits, shaving has never been something that I cared much about. Yet every time the weather gets warm, I hear conversations about women who don’t shave but should, women who haven’t shaved and can’t wear certain clothes, and women who can get away with not shaving as long as no one touches them.
And where do we begin to understand the amazing phenomenon of warm weather body shaming? As soon as the possibility of shorts is on the horizon, we see ads encouraging us to have our best bodies yet this summer. But the media isn’t the only driving force in this shaming venture. Just skimming social media sites the week before Spring Break will reveal girls promising to eat nothing but celery and burn off every calorie they ingest at the gym, lest they have an ounce of body fat bare for the world to criticize in their bikini.
The sad part, though, is that they aren’t wrong. If one of these girls were to wear a sundress without shaving her legs, or don a bathing suit without first preparing her body to be as model-like as possible, she would indubitably hear muttered commentary about her audacity to go out in public without making herself look decent. But why is this the case? Are women’s bodies so repulsive that they need to be plucked and waxed and styled and polished and tanned before we can go out in public? I don’t think so, but the grooming habits that we are expected to complete before being seen by other people are ridiculous and a little bit scary when they are considered mandatory.
I enjoy some facets of feminine grooming, but if I didn’t feel like shaving today, who are you to tell me that I need to cover up my legs when it’s hot out? This gender policing is pervasive in all areas of our culture, from the beach to the office building, and though it doesn’t seem like much to add shaving into my daily routine, listing all of the things I am expected to do to my body before I can be seen by other people makes it seem like I must have been pretty hideous to start with. How can we feel good about ourselves if we accept that we have to shape, trim, and paint our bodies before we are attractive enough to socialize with other human beings?
I understand that revolutionizing the way we see gendered grooming habits is no easy task, but we can all start with ourselves. The next time you don’t feel like shaving your legs but don’t want to sweat in a pair of jeans, wear your shorts anyway. Don’t criticize other women for what they choose to wear and how they choose to present themselves, and stand up for them if someone else does. Skip the gym if you’re exhausted, eat until you feel satisfied, and try to feel good about the way your body looks even if it doesn’t mirror what you see on swimsuit models. We can’t change the culture overnight, but we can certainly change the way we see it.
ShoutOut! James Madison University 
When I was really young, my mom was a major hippie and didn’t shave at all – I thought it was totally normal until I was school age and kids starting teasing ME about my mom’s unshaved legs and armpits. She continued her non-shaving habbits until I was a pre-teen and we started going to church. She said she had to wear and skirt to church and it was not an appropriate setting to be unshvaven…even though I was only 11 when this happened, I thought it was weird and kind of sad that she would change her beliefs in an effort to belong.
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Wow, that is really sad that she felt like she had to change her behavior to fit in, especially since she had clearly thought about it enough to decide it was important to her not to shave. I think it’s also telling that you never found it strange until you were exposed to a social climate that required those habits to belong.
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Awesome thoughts in this post! I find it not to be too much of a pain to shave, but I guess like you said, this came from my growing up with sports. I often will see other girls who have not shaved and I think rude thoughts to myself…but that must stop kelly!! I think women should be able to embrace their bodies whatever way they want to so you are so correct with that! It is a shame that we cannot change society over night 😦 but maybe one day things will be different for us and our bodies in this society!
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Haha, don’t be too hard on yourself- we are all taught that we should think those same mean comments about women who don’t subscribe to mainstream body regulatory behavior. The important thing is to recognize it and try to stop it in ourselves, and make others aware of it! I’m so glad you liked the post!
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I’m not going to be rude or insult feminism so please don’t just delete my comment and allow white men to actually be a part of the discourse. I just want to say, from my privileged perspective lol, nobody is forcing anybody to shave or tone up for summer. To the majority of guys, a thin, shaven body is just more appealing. If a girl doesn’t want to, then by all means don’t shave! You just won’t be as attractive to the majority of guys. And if you don’t care about that then all the power to you. A lot of girls want to be attractive because they like the type of guy who happens to like that. There’s nothing wrong with this. Of course people and companies are going to have opinions on what you ‘should’ do, but nobody is saying ‘do it or else!’. Feminism has its place in showing young girls they don’t have to do what society tells them. But any rational person will figure this out eventually. If they aren’t capable of figuring this out on their own and you happen to convince them, then they are just blindly following your ideologies the same way they would have blindly followed societies. The comments were saying that it’s a shame some lady had to change her behavior to fit in. I don’t see how that’s a shame? If you are trying to fit in to some group that practices certain behaviors, then what’s wrong with it? If you don’t want to, then why are you even involved in that group? The entire concept of ‘fitting in’ is dependent upon conforming behavior. This is a little long so I’ll conclude with this.. women have all the rights that men have, by law. Yes, there is misogyny, but as long as it’s not breaking any laws, it’s just a byproduct of having the freedom to hold your own opinion no matter how ignorant, racist, or misguided it is. I personally think that it’s wrong to promote an unhealthy lifestyle by convincing overweight people they should eat whatever they want, but if feminists and fat acceptance activists want to do it, then by all means do it! It’s your right, just like it’s my right to favor a certain body type.
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