When did it become the common thing to do for women to shave their legs? Why? Armpits? Why not arm hair? Why not everywhere? Where do you determine where your leg ends, and your butt begins, when shaving the back of your legs? Why shave thighs, but not pubic area? Why shave anything at all? What’s the point? Enlighten me ladies!
Blame advertising! Shaving was rare until the start of the 20th Century. Then short dresses, as well as sleeveless, came into style. As to why remove arm, thigh and pubic hair? Darned if I know!
Some women do shave their pubic hair, though the very idea gives me the willies. :eek:
In America at least, shaving the underarms and legs became the fashion during the age of the flappers, with the onset of short sleeveless dresses. The preferred look was sleek–hence women not only shaved, they bound down their breasts and wore short, sleek hairstyles.
In a few decades it wasn’t just the style to shave, it was de rigeur.
Not a lady, but I have known a few in my days (and by force of being a heap of useless knowledge, retained some pieces of relevant fashion history as well).
Shaving was not at all rare until the twentieth century. For instance there is a long tradition that goes back many hundreds of years to shave of ALL body hair for both sexes in most of North Africa and parts of the Middle East, as far as I know this should go back very long, my experience from hamams and other instances of more private nature confirms that the tradition is well and alive for both sexes.
In Europe the fashion has fluctuated. Just a a couple of examples; in the 15th it was comme il faut to shave most everything, including plucking the hair of the forehead to move back the hairline for women, resulting in a semi bald look. Imperial times saw a ‘shaving craze’ in some parts while the late Victorian times were quite hairy.
I can’t say for sure for America but my suspicion is that it is as earlier stated shaving experienced renewed fashion with the event of revealing skirt lengths and what-not. On which note I humbly thank the high cut bikini fashion for its contribution to nude esthetics.
Personally I am all for it, take it all away, as much as you dare anyway – and I mean both sexes, although for me personally I couldn’t give a squash’s skin for what you other boys chose to do.
Why? It feels good and it feels more hygienic, then there is looks of course. I guess it’s all a matter of taste and habit.
Sparc
Who decided women should shave their legs and underarms?
Citing a 1982 article from the Journal of American Culture, Cecil states:
I am sure that Cecil is right regarding America, I mean he does gives a cite and all.
However, as regards the rest of Europe at least and as I have earlier mention NA and ME he is dead wrong and being a tad bit culturally prejudiced, albeit in a humorous tone.
Hmmm. I’ll dig for cites, I do say I must when the honor of generations of non-Anglo Saxon women are at stake.
I know his used to be a pretty widespread cliché only 15 years ago, and I couldn’t find a date on that article…
I’ll be back in a little
Sparc
Underlying factors as to maybe why:
Most of the things that women do are to attract males. These things fall into three catagories: displaying youth, displaying health, or displaying sexual arrousal.
Lipstick is an interesting example, men know (unconciously or not) that womens lips engorge with blood, becoming redder and bigger when they are sexually excited. Lipstick is to present the same signal.
Blush is pretty much the same.
Smooth (unwrinkled) and fairly hairless skin are clear signs of youth. Can we see where shaving may come in?
OK, it’s like I thought… the net is chock full of the history of shaving, and I am afraid I don’t quite have the time to go through it and find what is serious enough to use as a cite, but anyone who wants to read some un-cited trivia on the matter had only google the most obvious search words.
My impression is that it seems pretty much accepted that body shaving for women has been the norm through the ages with varying levels of body baldness being in fashion, but I base that on conjecture and fast impressions. I would surmise that it has varied pretty dramatically over geography and time.
Meanwhile I did dig up an early cite regarding shaving body hair amongst the ancient Egyptians.
This is ritual shaving of course, but I have seen lots of stuff over the years on uncovered proof of habits in both Egypt, Greece and Rome that indicate that women removed body hair using a variety of methods already then.
As for a cite refuting that non-Anglo Saxon girls take their shaving lightly… you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that in the last 15 years or so at least a portion of the women in these other parts have been shaving various parts of their body quite rigorously (although I will agree that there is an overrepresentation of German girls that do not shave their armpits).
One debate article on a somewhat biased feminist site argued scotth’s proposed theory of female beauty standards as being universal and since time immemorial connected to shaving as means to emulate youth, they concluded that it was one of our oldest means of oppressing women. Call me silly if I might try to see some validity in the theory, but not the conclusion. If one believes in biological determinism I guess youth, as a universal beauty standard would have more to with reproduction. If one doesn’t it might have to do with the innocence that both men and women sometimes seek in the subject of our love, maybe men more so than women. But hey, maybe they’re right, chuck those razors and emancipate yourselves… wait a minute, didn’t the bra go that way for the very same reason but opposite reasoning just thirty years ago? Will they ever make up their minds!?!
I also found an article that takes off from a premise along the line of hairless beauty ideals and then present studies made to find out the reasons for today’s women in the US to shave out of a psychological and social perspective. It basically argues that since the esthetic standard is body hairlessness for women this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It also outlines the habits of women in this respect and when shaving starts, why and how the habits evolve through life. Further it obviously goes into the question why some women don’t shave. After having browsed over it only quickly the article seems well researched and has what my ridiculously limited knowledge in the field would guess to be solid bibliography.
‘Razor’ and ‘bald’ are such a cool words; they are strangely onomatopoeic, while not really of course.
Sparc
If you add “displaying/enhancing female traits,” you’ll arrive at an answer more easily.
Plus, during WWII, didn’t women paint or tan their legs and then draw seams up the backs to make it look like they were wearing stockings? (silk and nylon being in short supply)
It would be hard to do that with hairy legs.
I tried shaving my arms a couple of times when I was way younger.
Wow… did no one else cringe at this? I dunno about you, but most of the things I do are to make my career go where I want it to.
On another note, perhaps it’s just me, but we may be on a (admittedly glacially slow) trend reversal. I don’t practice hair removal on a regular basis, but although I’m currently “furry” and – as hot as it’s been – wear shorts all the time, no one has commented and I’ve not seen anyone staring. And Americans by their nature are just not that polite. 
So I would guess that it makes sense that the trend fluctuates over the years/centuries…
It’s not just you, Kaio. I don’t shave my pits or legs and nobody comments. Oddly enough, I found I seem to have more body odor shaved than unshaved. I’ve asked my boyfriend (who’s 25) if he would prefer that I shave and he didn’t really care one way or the other.
Scotth, maybe most of things Texas women do are to attract men…the rest of us have better ways to occupy our time. 
Sparc, it may be more hygenic to shave in areas/times where the incidence of fleas and body lice is higher. Fortunately, that’s not North America in the 21st century. Does it look better? Not to me. Men don’t shave, and they look scrumptious. 
I overlooked scotth’s remark. I think it’s OK if it were changed to read: “Most of the things women do to attract males fall into three categories…” I don’t even think most of the things women do to their looks are aimed to attract men.
I, no doubt like a large percentage of men in the US, would absolutely cringe at a hairy woman. Disgusting.
BrandonR, fie!
I am one American man who loves hairy women. Nothing is more beautiful or sexy on a woman than her natural leg hair and arm hair. So fine, silky, soft, and feminine. Mmmmmmm… Love it.
I’m not the only one who feels this way. Women of America, please, please grow your hair! Men like me love you just the way Nature made you!
Once I was in a dentist’s office and the assistant was a plump young lady wearing a short skirt. She was wearing sheer hose which did not conceal the fact that she was too lazy to shave much above her knees. The hair on her thighs gave the impression of her wearing bike shorts made of hair. All right, that juxtaposition was unfortunate. If you’re going to do it, make sure you do it all the way; otherwise, don’t bother.
I knew girls who shaved their arms and bellies. Granted, this was in middle school, so it was probably because of the novelty of shaving. Also, that was when they first started realizing that body hair was “icky,” and maybe thought it applied to all body hair.
I also know women who shave their butts, so the butt/upper thigh divide isn’t an issue.
Why is a hairy woman more disgusting than a hairy man? Do you shave your armpits and legs?
Well, I don’t shave my butt, because it’s not hairy! I don’t shave the very top of my thighs because the hair there is so fine it would be pointless.
This screams “urban legend” to me. Anyone know if this really happened?
And I, no doubt like a large percentage of men in the US, would not really care. Not every man in the US has been brainwashed by the media’s portrayal of feminine beauty ideals. I hope…
I, as an American man, have no problems with a woman who is naturally unshaven. Calling such a woman “hairy” seems to be a little overboard unless she is hairier than average.
In fact, the level of self-awareness and vanity that is required for a woman to constantly be monitoring her body hair can be be a turnoff.