5 Things No One Told Me About Growing Up As A Woman

I don’t know about you but the past ten or so years of my life have been a lesson in how to be female. I’ve had to learn everything about my own body, what certain parts of it are for, how they work, why they do weird stuff sometimes and what I have to do to make sure I keep it in tip top shape.

But aside from a few teenage magazines and a self-help book for teenage girls that didn’t have enough about how to ‘do sex’ in it for my fifteen year old self, I was left pretty clueless. Of course I could have asked my mum who was always on hand to explain everything and anything without embarrassment. But ewww, who wants to talk to their mum about pubes and stuff?!

So here are my top five tips compiled from my own failings as a teenage girl/young woman in the hope that they might help you!

 Shave your legs in the direction of hair growth

*small clap* yes, it might be obvious, I know. But for teenage me when faced with the prospect of shaving my legs, I went a bit off-piste. Instead of doing it gradually and in some sort of order, I just started shaving the hair off in all different directions. Thankfully my shins were shaved in the right direction but my calves are a whole other story. I shaved them SIDEWAYS. Yes, sideways. WTF WAS I THINKING. So now all the hair on the backs of my legs grows sideways.

Fucking brilliant. So, don’t do this if you’re new to shaving. Just take your time and be sensible!

Don’t shave your pubes I’M WARNING YOU.

NO. DO NOT GO NEAR THEM WITH A RAZOR FOR GODS SAKE.  I used to shave ALL of my pubes off with a razor and, well, there’s never been pain/discomfort/ingrown hairs like it. One of my teenage boyfriends used to love it being completely bare. THANKS PORN. So I would routinely shave it all off only to have to endure the pain of it growing back and a few nicks on the ol’ labia every now and then. WHY DO WE DO THIS TO OURSELVES?! As I’ve got older I’ve realised that actually I think pubic hair is sexy. It denotes adulthood and stops you looking like a pre-pubescent teen. I mean, tidy it up all you want, get an electric shaver and go to town on that ol’ bush but don’t use a razor and then cry cos it’s shit. Make sure you use the right sort of tools for the job and, never ever ever ever ever shave your pubes for a man. THEY’RE NOT WORTH IT. A man should love you pubes or no pubes and should never pressure you into getting rid of them. (Plus pubes are there for a reason! But if you like the bare look then you rock it gurl.)

Your boobs will never ever look the same

Another thank you must go to porn and lads mags and allllll those pictures of women with perfectly symmetrical breasts and pert nipples. LOL. That is not real. I imagine 99% of those women have had boob jobs cos gurl, your boobs are never gon be the same. I have one bigger than the other and that’s normal and it’s more than natural. Don’t be made to feel inadequate because you are plagued with images of tanned, perky boobs. Your boobs are unique to you and they’re all the more amazing for it. (Also let’s just remember boobs are actually for feeding a baby, not for men to perve over but, well, life.)

Good luck with your periods

Basically you’re screwed. I’m 22 and I still have trouble dealing with the waterfall that escapes me every month.  If I can go through a period without staining a) my pants b) my clothes and c) my bedsheets then I feel like I’ve won the fucking lottery. I don’t know if it’s just a thing I’m bad at? Or if it’s a universal woman thing but seriously, I still can’t deal with my periods without some sort of disaster each month. I mean it probably doesn’t help I was on and then off and then on again and then off again the contraceptive pill but my body still isn’t great at the whole bleedin’ with grace and dignity thing. And, if you are a woman whose got her shit together and can do periods then I BOW TO YOU, YOU GODDESS.

Wash your face

I sound like your mother. But seriously, wash your face. This is gross to admit and I actually hate myself for it but I only really started properly washing my face in the past year or so. Before I used to just rub a wet flannel over my cheeks quickly and be like ‘yep, done it’ when in fact that was a shit excuse for washing my face. Now I use proper face wash, scrubs, face masks, toners, moisturisers etc. My skin still isn’t amazing as I wish it was but oh god I don’t even want to imagine not washing my face now. It makes me feel so physically uncomfortable if I don’t wash my face morning and night!! Keep your face squeaky clean and you'll have fewer spots, fewer blocked pores and you'll look even more gorgeous than normal! 

I mean, I hope some of that is helpful and I’ve not just shamed myself on the internet (probs have) but I really hope that it will help girls and women to know that we all struggle a bit sometimes with the whole ‘being a woman’ thing so don’t feel like you’re the only one who can’t do it all perfectly!  

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Safe Space Talks Contraception

Deciding what kind of contraception to go on can be tricky and different women prefer different things. Today the Safe Space team are bringing you their contraception stories sharing what did and didn’t work for them so that you can make an informed decision about what you might like to try out and what might work best for your body. Please note that this is just our personal experiences, we aren’t medical professionals and it is always best to speak to a nurse or your GP before deciding on a contraception method.

Jo: I suffer with really severe period pains. After one type of medication failed to help, my doctor prescribed me the contraceptive pill Cerazette. Cerazette is a mini-pill, or a progestogen-only pill (POP), as opposed to a combined pill, which contains progestogen and oestrogen. I was prescribed a mini-pill because I also suffer with migraines, and my doctor believed a combined pill would affect them.

The mini-pill is a pill that you take every day, as opposed to stopping for a week with a combined pill to have your period. The mucus at the neck of the womb is thickened when taking the mini-pill, which makes it harder for sperm to make it’s way to the womb to fertilise an egg. Cerazette contains desogestrel, a synthetic progestogen, which stops ovulation in 97% of periods, meaning in most cases, an egg won’t be released, so my periods, for the most part, will stop. There may be some irregular spotting when you first start taking it, but this is perfectly normal. Although I’m not taking Cerazette for contraceptive reasons, it is a 12 hour pill; you’re supposed to take your pill around the same time every day, but if you forget to take a pill, you must take it within 12 hours of when you were due to take it. If you take it within that 12 hour period, you will still be protected and no other form of contraception will be required, including emergency contraception. However, if you don’t take your pill in the 12 hour window, you should take your pill as soon as you remember, and then as normal, but for two to seven days you won’t be protected, and should use a condom for that time, while using the pill.

I’ve now been taking Cerzette for five weeks. It’s around now, when my next period would have been due had I not been on the mini-pill, that it’s likely I’ll see some spotting, but this has yet to appear. Of the common side-effects of Cerzette, I’ve only really experienced getting a few spots. The leaflet that came with Cerzette actually says “acne” is a common side-effect, so I was thinking I’d get really bad skin with obvious, very sore spots, but that hasn’t been the case. My spots are very faint, more something I’d notice than anyone else, and they’re gone after about a day, with maybe some new ones in other areas of my face. I’ve not even had to bother with medicated concealer, the spots are really nothing to worry about.

It’s around now I would normally start suffering with PMS and sore, swollen boobs, but Cerzette has put a stop to both. So far, so good! I’m really happy with how Cerzette is working for me, and if I have a similar experience with it as Faye (see below), I’ll be a very happy lady!

Debbie: Like many of the others, I was first put on the mini-pill Cerazette when I was about 14. I’d just been diagnosed with polycystic ovaries (PCOS) and it was meant to help relieve some of the symptoms I’d been suffering with, such as period pain and body hair. Which it did, a little. But I dreaded having a period every 4th week, and it seemed to come around far too quickly.

I can’t remember exactly when or why my doctor suggested it, but about 4 and a half years ago they suggested having an implant. An implant is approximately 4cm long, and inserted into the back of the upper arm, and works by slowly releasing progesterone. It’s said to be more than 99% effective against pregnancy. The main bonus for me is not having to take a pill everyday. Thanks to my weird work hours and London life, it was getting harder to remember to take them, especially at the same time. Furthermore, I rarely get periods anymore, usually just under a lot of stress, which I guess causes a hormone imbalance. This is a side effect that a lot of people experience, though some may have heavier periods instead. This was a huge relief to me as period pain is the worst. The implant lasts for 3 years, and I didn’t hesitate at all in getting it replaced last year. While it’s not really an option if you are considering having kids, for me it is the perfect solution right now!

Ray: I was only on the mini-pill Cerazette that Jo’s already talked about for about 5-6 months so this’ll be rather a quick segment. I started taking Cerazette shortly after getting together with my current partner in June 2012 since I’d been single for 18 months prior to that so I thought if I was going to be sexually active again it might be worth giving it a try. The lack of a period break was also a nice incentive to try this pill. I didn’t used to be able to swallow pills but if I was going to be on a contraceptive pill it was kind of important that I did actually take it so I figured out how I could get the pill down (dry-swallow a la House with water to chase it) and phone alarms to remind me what time I should have it. I have to be honest my memory is pretty shoddy about how things were while I was on Cerazette but I vaguely recall that my periods never properly stopped and I spent a lot of time grumbling and cursing that I was bleeding longer and more randomly than when I wasn’t on the pill. Whether this would have eventually stopped I don’t know because unfortunately I ended up having what is probably an uncommon reaction to taking the mini-pill in December 2012.

I did already mention this in my Liveblog your Period post, but for anyone who might not have seen that - I had a bad reaction to Cerazette, my legs came up with a dozen or so weirdly swollen lumps which really flipping hurt. It was so painful to walk and bend my knees that I had to use crutches and in the end had about 6 days off work because I just would not have coped working at school all day. The doctor diagnosed me with having Erythema Nudosem and since I wasn’t on anything else which could have provoked a reaction my Cerazette pill was deemed the culprit and I came off it. I’d rather have the periods. Since then I’ve not tried any other form of contraceptive pill or implant partly from the worry that another method might still cause the same reaction. For me this isn’t too much of an issue as my periods are manageable but one day if I do decide to try some other form of contraceptive I would probably need to consult a doctor first to make sure I found an option that would work for me in the long-term.

Faye: I first started taking a pill when I got my first serious boyfriend at 17. It was only after I was on the pill that I realised how frustrating and irregular my periods were. I was put on Microgynon and sent on my way. This is just one of many combined pills and it is the first pill that doctors are likely to try you with. It has been so long with this pill that I don’t remember why I changed to something else but I know I did. The second combined pill I was on, I’ve already forgotten the name of but that also didn’t work. I was then put on Femodene. For a long time this pill worked for me. It regulated my periods for the first time ever and I had very little, if any pain. I was, in all honesty, over the moon. But then my body started to reject the pill. That’s the only way I can describe it. My periods became heavier, the pain came back tenfold and I started to have the worst mood-swings in history. On top of that, I had a three-week pain cycle and just one week of relief every single four-weeks. It was not a good way to live life. But when I came off the pill, it was still awful. Really painful, really heavy and completely irregular. After lots of trips to the gyno and some tests, the doctor finally prescribed me Cerazette, which as you know now is the mini-pill and I am back in heaven. I haven’t had a period in two years. I have had no pain in two years. I have had no mood-swings in two years. I feel like a normal human being every single day. There have been a few side effects, such as headaches, but I’m prone to them anyway, and I’ve had some “mini-periods” as I call them, when I miss pills (because I am super forgetful) at the wrong time in the cycle, but honestly, I cannot describe how pleased I am not to have periods and period pain anymore.

Joy: We never talk about what a “normal” period is, so it wasn’t until I was 21 that I knew I needed to do something. Every time my period came (which varied between every three and seven weeks), I was in agony to such an extent that I could do nothing. I bled so heavily that I would need to change sanitary towel every hour to begin with, I couldn’t get through the night without leakage and I would have to postpone any social activity that coincided, which was difficult given my periods were so irregular. As I was due to go to university, I needed something that would make my monthly experience tolerable and a Google search indicated a GP may prescribe the pill. After a short appointment where I explained my problem, that was indeed what happened.

The first pill I was put on was, like Faye, Microgynon. It was a miracle cure! I immediately went to four-weekly cycles, absolutely no pain and a manageable amount of bleeding. I only wished I had done something sooner. This pill worked for five years without a problem. Occasionally I would experience a little bleeding mid-cycle, but I was assured that this was okay. However, after those five years, Microgynon was no longer effective. I started to bleed a couple of weeks before I should have and for far longer than usual. My GP told me to keep an eye on it, but indicated that Microgynon is usually prescribed to people early on and it may be that I required something with a stronger dose of hormones. After three or so months of continued problems, I asked for my pill to be changed.

I can’t remember what the next pill I was prescribed was or, indeed, the one after that. Changing my pill a couple of times failed to ease the problem of bleeding too early and I was growing worried that there was something sinister happening in my body. However, I was then prescribed my current pill, which is Lucette. I take this for three weeks and then have a week’s break before starting again. It is in this break, theoretically, that I bleed. I have had a couple more occasions of bleeding early, though to a lesser degree than with previous pills. When I mentioned it to my GP she said that wasn’t the norm, but it does happen and it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong, which was a relief to hear. As long as my periods are fairly regular and lack the immense pain and heaviness of before, I’m grateful. Taking the pill really has made a difference.

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You're Amazing. Just The Way You Are.

I can’t remember the last time I felt beautiful. I can’t remember the last time someone told me I look beautiful. But I can remember the last time I felt ugly (about two minutes ago standing in front of the bathroom mirror naked). And I can remember the last time someone told me there was something wrong with my body.

In fact when I think back over my life so far, there are very, very few times in my life when I’ve felt beautiful. Even as a teenager I felt ugly and disgusting compared to everyone around me.  I vividly remember having to try and find a dress for our sixth form leaver’s ball… It was a chance for all the girls to dress up in floating gowns and for the boys to don a suit. However the dress searching resulted in me cowering in the corner of my then boyfriend’s bedroom, hiding from the mirror in a flood of tears, crying out that I felt ugly and that I’d look so awful compared to everyone else there. Luckily he was gentlemanly enough to hug me and tell me that I was beautiful but even on the night of the ball itself I felt ashamed and just wanted to cover myself in a huge blanket so no one could see me. I had honestly never felt so ashamed of how I looked in my life.

I guess my body loathing started at secondary school where I imagine it probably starts for most people. I was called ugly; I was teased about my bushy, frizzy hair and thick eyebrows. I felt incredibly self-aware when I was getting changed for P.E that I didn’t have big boobs encased in lacy bras and I certainly didn’t have a thong on (it was cotton knickers all the way for me.) I felt ashamed that I had a thin trail of hair down my stomach because everyone else had such smooth, hairless tummies. I was made to feel bad by ‘friends’ for not wearing make-up. And, one of these ‘friends’ once said, particularly loudly in front of my crush at the time, ‘don’t you think it’s gross when girls have hair on their tummies?’ To which I flamed like a tomato and as soon as I got home that evening shaved it all off. And don’t get me started on that time I realised I was supposed to shave my pubic hair. For some bizarre reason I thought it was natural and was supposed to be there but duhhhhh you have to shave it all off because…you just do?

So, really, I was sort of handed a whole barrage of insults on a plate that my mind quickly digested and started shouting at me every time I looked in the mirror.

‘You’re fat’

‘You’re ugly’

‘You’ll never be beautiful’

‘You’re too hairy for a woman’

‘No one will ever look at your body and think they’ve got lucky’

And for the last ten years I’ve been in a vicious cycle of self-loathing. Even now when I look in the mirror I feel my heart sink and my stomach turn over uncomfortably. Why do I look so vile? Why have I got such large thighs? Why do I have stretch marks and cellulite on my legs and hips? WHY AM I SO HAIRY? Why do my boobs look so bored of life? Why have I got a tummy that sticks out and rolls over when I sit down?

The simple answer is because I do. Because this is the body I have; the body I will always have.

Yes, my unhealthy relationship with food has certainly contributed to the fact I’m bigger than I want to be and weigh more than I want to (but that’s an entirely different topic.) And yes my lack of physical exercise every day definitely contributes to the flab and dullness of my body. But I just wish I could stop hating it.

In the past when I’ve come up with epic plans to lose weight, eat healthier and get back to a more comfortable and ‘happy’ size I’ve always ended up thinking ‘what’s the point?’ I’ll still have the same face, the same hairiness, the same stretch marks, the same everything… it might all just look a little bit smaller that’s all. I still won’t be beautiful.

For a long time my fear and hatred of myself was due to my perception of how other people would see my body, namely men. I felt that no man would like my body because it looks nothing like a woman apparently should look like. It’s not tanned, my boobs don’t touch my chin, it all wobbles, it’s hairy etc. And so many times I tried to drill it into my head that any man who didn’t appreciate my body wasn’t worthy of my time. Beauty is more than just looks…right? But why do I still feel compelled to see my body through other people’s eyes? Why is it when I look at photographs of myself I just see a dumpy potato and criticise everything I hate about it instead of looking at what I like about it? I used to take selfies quite often; it was a thing that made me feel better if I could just get the right filter and lighting. I haven’t dared take a photo of myself in at least half a year…I don’t even like looking at my face in the mirror. Let alone on a camera. All the photos I use for social media are old; some even from 2014…

I keep trying to ask myself WHY I feel such hatred towards my own body. Is it because I genuinely hate it? No, I don’t think so. Is it because society and those around me tell me I should hate it? Yes. My family tell me I’m a bit on the ‘big side’ and my mum loves to make a joke about the size of my thighs or bum. Society tells me I should look a certain way and be a certain size; because that’s what’s attractive and what men want.

I hate that I hate myself. I wish I could look in the mirror and think damnnnn gurl, you looking fine. But I don’t. Instead I say fuck. Look at my double chin, my spots, my horrible hair, my bushy eyebrows, oh god, you can see a fat roll under my jumper etc. etc. I verbally abuse myself on a daily basis. I tell myself I’m not beautiful. I stand in front of the mirror, sigh and say, you so ugly. And then walk away. That’s not normal or healthy.

I don’t have people constantly telling me I’m beautiful or gorgeous or they think I look lovely. And to be honest, even if they did tell me that I’d probably just think they were saying it to make me feel better rather than actually meaning it. See? Vicious. Circle.

I fear so much for the younger generations of women. If I ever have a daughter I will do all I can to make her feel like she’s beautiful every day of her life. That’s she’s perfect just the way she is and she doesn’t need to rely on anyone else to love herself. I wish every woman felt that way. I wish every young girl felt that way. I wish there wasn’t such a divide between what people think is normal and what is actually normal. Women come in all shapes and sizes. Some thin, some fat, some short, some tall and that’s OK. It’s OK to be the way you are. It’s OK to look in the mirror and like what you see. It’s OK to think you’re looking hawwwwt.

It’s OK to love yourself.

I wish I could go back in time and hug that sixteen year old me as she sat crying on her boyfriend’s bedroom floor. I wish I could tell her to wear whatever damn dress made her feel beautiful and screw what anyone else thought. I wish I could go back and speak to thirteen year old me and tell her that she doesn’t need to shave anything off and that cotton knickers kick ass and, most importantly, that real friends aren’t critical of your body. I wish I could go back to all the nights that I’ve cried in front of the mirror and just give myself a big hug.

I hope as I grow older I can learn to love my body…I want to look in the mirror one day and think ‘you are so beautiful.’

And I want that for every woman. I want every woman to look in the mirror every single day and realise just how gorgeous they are. We are all beautiful. Whatever our shape, whatever our size, whatever our height, our skin colour, our ethnicity, our religion, our age: We. Are. Beautiful. 

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Hair Today - And Probably For Good

In June last year, I read Girls Will Be Girls: Dressing Up, Playing Parts and Daring to Act Differently by Emer O’Toole, non-fic on feminism recommended to me by numerous people as a book to help me along my newbie feminist journey. It’s a book that talks about the role of Woman, how we act out that role and the costumes we wear as we perform our gender. Not only is Girls Will Be Girls absolutely fascinating and educational, it’s also a book that got me thinking about how I, personally, follow the script of Womanhood, and why.

There is one chapter in particular that really had me asking questions of myself: Oh Hair Lair Dahling! – a whole chapter devoted to body hair. O’Toole discusses the triggers that led her to stop shaving all together, and society’s idea of a hairless female body as feminine.

‘Hair became a symbol of all the crap about gender, femininity and what’s normal that we just accept as common sense when it’s clearly misogynistic. Body hair became a symbol of the extent to which the pressure on us to modify our bodies – merely to be considered appropriately feminine – was getting so much more extreme.’ (p138)

I finished this chapter full of questions. Shaving had become a beauty ritual that, until this point, I didn’t really think about. It was automatic: hair grew, I shaved, and so on it went. But O’Toole now had me questioning my personal grooming. Why did I shave? Who was I shaving for? At the time, I was shaving every day; shaving my legs, my underarms, my pubic area every day. I used to shave every three days, but shaving felt like such a chore every time, so when I saw someone say on a TV show that they shaved every day so they were always smooth, I thought I’d give it a go. And shaving became much quicker! You don’t have to be so careful when you’re shaving every day. Any hair you might accidentally miss will be taken care of tomorrow. Shaving every day was just easier. But why did I shave in the first place?

I decided I would conduct an experiment; I would change my shaving habits once it got cooler (because no-one wants to deal with the itch of regrowth in the height of summer), and really think about why I shaved. Although the removal of female body hair has happened for centuries, it only became what it is today fairly recently; check out this article by Renae Regehr on Everyday Feminism about the history of pubic hair removal. Not only does this article talk about the removal of pubic hair over time, but it also has some fascinating and shocking (at least to me) statistics about the number of women shaving today, and their reasons why – some of which, looking back on my own my own shaving history, used to be my own.

Once I hit puberty, I started shaving my legs and my underarms because that’s just what you did. Women didn’t have hairy legs or hairy armpits. I knew this because my mum shaved, and adverts for shaving and waxing products were all over the TV. Women had “silky smooth” legs. It was the done thing. When I bought my first razor, I felt like such a grown up! It was part of the rite of passage; I had started my period, my boobs were growing, and I now had a razor and was shaving – I was becoming a woman!

It was a little while before I started shaving my bikini line, and that only started once I noticed hair start poking out the side of my underwear. I was about 14 then, and this coincided with me reading my friends’ women’s magazines, which kept mentioning the landing strip. They were all talking about that style, and so, to my mind, it was “normal” to having a landing strip. It was sexy, it was feminine. I wanted to be normal, and so I complied. Really, women’s magazines have a lot to answer for.

I started shaving too soon, though, because I soon started believing that shaving caused more hair to grow; rather than just having a triangle of hair over my pubic bone that grew once I hit puberty, hair had now started to grow underneath, and what the hell?! No, no, no. I had never heard of any woman having hair underneath. I didn’t ask about it, I just got rid of it. It shouldn’t be there, it needs to go, now. This, of course, is completely ridiculous, but I was so ashamed and embarrassed of having hair grow in the “wrong” places, it just had to go.

Skip several years to my late teens when I a guy I was completely infatuated with mentioned that he liked the bare, completely shaved look. Now, at the time I knew there was no-way he would be getting any where near my naked body any time soon, so there was no way he’d know whether I had pubic hair or not. But knowing that he liked women to have bare pubic areas, and the thought that if he was to see my pubic area he might be turned off... well. I guess I don’t really need to tell you that off it came. Let’s just take a second to really let that sink in.

I changed my body to be more attractive to a guy.

Are you as appalled as I am? Because... wow.

That guy ended up being not such a nice guy. He hurt me, and I was so angry. And it hit me that, for all intents and purposes, I had starting shaving off my pubic hair for a guy. Not for me, but for a guy. It was so bloody ridiculous! I was so angry with myself! I decided I wasn’t going to shave my pubic area to suit some guy (who, to be honest, didn’t even know about it; he never got that far) again. Back came the landing strip.

Only this time round, I found I wasn’t very good at keeping it tidy. I almost felt like I wanted a ruler to keep the lines straight. I was always trying to perfect the edges; I missed a bit there, but while trying to correct it, I shaved off more than necessary, so now there was a weird patch, so I need to straighten it out again and... it just got thinner and thinner. I had this wispy little line that wasn’t really worth so much agro, so in frustration, I shaved it all off again.

And this was the point I was at when I read Girls Will Be Girls. Completely bald and shaving every day. Once it started to get cooler in August, my experiment began. Baby steps at first, I decided to stop shaving my thighs, and tried to grow back my landing strip. My thinking was, it was winter and no-one is going to see my thighs; even if I wore a dress, I’d be wearing tights, so no-one would notice, like they might do my calves. That way, I could privately work out what exactly I thought of my leg hair once it grew, just for myself. Before my landing strip really grew too much of anything, I stopped and asked myself why a landing strip? If this experiment was about seeing what I thought of my body hair and why I shaved it off, surely there should be a fair amount of it there to base my opinions on. And so, aside from keeping a tidy bikini line, I grew it all back. I decided not to stop shaving my underarms, because I know I have ever liked the look of. Soon after starting this experiment, I read an article by YA author Louise O’Neill in which she talks body hair, and how a teenage girl she knew was insulted by a guy for having pubic hair. It had me so raging, and even more determined to go through with my experiment.

I am now over four months into my new shaving regime. I say “regime”, but it’s not, really. Although I’ve only stopped shaving my thighs, I can go several days to well over a week without shaving my calves without worrying about it. And what do I think of my body hair now? The hair on my thighs is nothing. It’s no worse than the hair on my arms. In fact, it’s better; my leg hair is almost colourless, so it’s only really noticeable if you’re looking for it, and it’s also softer than the hair on my arms – which I have never had a problem with. If my leg hair wasn’t practically colourless would my views be different? Maybe, but I couldn’t say as I’m ginger and have never had really dark leg hair. As things stand, it’s just there, and I’m completely indifferent to it. At the moment, I’m undecided as to whether or not I would stop shaving my calves altogether; on the one hand, I don’t think it would bother me to let it grow, but on the other, I actually like the feel of having soft, smooth, hairless calves. As I said, I don’t worry about shaving my calves all that regularly anyway, so it might be something I stop altogether at some point.

As for my pubic hair, I’ve kind of fallen in love with it – and this is mostly down to the fact that in the last few years I’ve come to really like my pale-skin-and-ginger-hair colouring. I’m liking this shock of colour below the expanse of my pale stomach. (Before you ask, no, it doesn’t look like copper wire. I had enough of those remarks at school, thank you.) In regards to the hair itself, I don’t dislike it. I have started shaving underneath again because I simply don’t like it there, but that’s my personal preference, it’s not for anyone else or for society. But the hair on my pubic bone, now it’s passed the itchy phase, doesn’t bother me. I don’t find it unsightly; on the contrary, I think it’s sexy.

It’s like choosing to let go of the crap society bashes us over the head with about how a woman should look, and giving up trying to conform to that, has lifted a weight off my shoulders, and coming to accept my body’s natural way of being (with a few adjustments for personal preference) has made me love my body more. I have my neat and tidy little lady garden, and I feel sexier and more womanly. Society might say it’s more feminine to be hairless, but I feel more so for embracing my body, as is.

No longer will I let society dictate to me how I should look, and I have Emer O’Toole to thank for that.

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I asked a few ladies to join the discussion and share with us their shaving habits and their reasons.

Ailsa, 24:

"I only really shave when that area of the body is going to be visible. So I shave my armpits fairly regularly because I wear sleeveless dresses at work, but I really don’t shave my legs through the winter very often. If I’m going swimming though I will shave my bikini line so nothing peeks out from my swimsuit - I don’t really care about strangers seeing leg hair but I’m much more embarrassed about pubic hair showing - I think because it’s quite intimate, in a way? However in the summer if I’m on holiday somewhere with an outdoor pool where I might be sunbathing, rather than swimming for exercise, I will shave my legs, and I know I’m definitely doing that to ‘fit in’.
I do feel like I should [shave] for certain situations (like sunbathing by the pool) because that’s our cultural norm, for women to have shaved legs, no visible body hair. If I’m in a relationship then I shave my legs more often, and I do groom my bikini line back a lot more than if I’m just trying to keep everything covered by a swimsuit. That’s something that’s changed as I’ve got older - I had my first intimate relationship when I was 18 and I don’t think I ever ‘tidied up’ then."

Hayley, 19:

"I only started shaving because it makes me itch. That's it really. I can go a couple of months without shaving my legs. Armpits and pubic hair, not as long because of the itchiness. There's no time limit for me as such, I just do it when I feel it's necessary for me. But, at the end of the day, my body = my rules!"

Tanya, 39:

"I shave because I much prefer how it looks and feels, personally, but I don't do it nearly as often as previously because I have a partner who values every single hair on my body and, because he's not bothered, I force myself to allow the growth to be a bit more natural.
I would absolutely give [shaving] up completely tomorrow if I had a young daughter. I would be worried about her sense of self in society and would want, through example, to make it perfectly clear that it's entirely unnecessary to shave/remove hair from any part of one's body. It should only be internal desire that influences hair removal choices and, should my daughter express such desires, I would be sure to discuss the matter at length to explore why she felt the need, the subconscious societal pressure from the media and peers in an effort to educate her about her own choices and healthy body image."

Thank you to the women who contributed their own thoughts about their body hair and shaving habits. How about you? Why do you shave/wax? Would you ever try giving up the razor?



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