How Un-Ladylike!

[ailbhe]

On Depilation:

Or, as I liked to call it in my last workplace, the ritual infantilisation of women. There were two boys there - both slightly older than I, come to think of it - who had never seen a woman with hairy legs before. I rolled up a trouser-leg to show 'em my ankles over cocktails one evening. They were amazed. They didn't know it was possible.

I say "over cocktails" - they were drinking cocktails. I was drinking neat whisky. And the day we went to a site visit, they couldn't go look at the installation, because theire fashionable shoes weren't up to trekking across a muddy field. I was fine, though.

Anyway - depilation. I don't do it. That is to say, I don't do it habitually, and I never have. I was appalled at puberty when hair arrived, and off it came at first, in deep secret, because my mother would have been appalled at a child my age shaving even her legs, but it never became a habit. Now I need to remember and make special effort to depilate, so it rarely happens.

Weddings are the big trigger, for me. When I was summoned to be my sister's bridesmaid, when I was 17, she instructed me to wax my feet, because I was wearing shoes that showed the bridge of my foot, and that's hairy. The regulation tights were pale cream, I believe. And for my own wedding, I paid a professional to wax my lower legs - not my feet - and my underarms (apparently, it's more polite to say underarms than armpits, who knew?) which took some of the pressure off. If I shave at 8 in the morning, I have stubble by 5 in the evening. It's a high-stress environment in my socks.

Generally, though, I'm comfortably hairy - physically comfortable, that is. I'm insecure enough about it that I trot out the "infantilisation of women" line a lot. It might even be true - it certainly sounds plausible - but I don't think it applies to a lot of the girls I knew at school, who all started plucking and shaving and waxing as a sign of how grown-up they were. My other best friend and my little sister have both plucked eyebrows to "burst into tears and pray for pencil" baldness before now. I haven't - I have so much eyebrow that it would take forever. But I did pluck the bit in the middle for a while, and either it hasn't grown back as strongly, or (as I suspect) it's less visible without adolescent hormones leaking into my eyes and soiling my mirror.

On dieting:

This was a bonding thing at my last workplace. Women bonded over discussions of either (a) how appalling men are, all of them, and stupid to boot, or (b) what diet they are on now, how much they have broken it, whether it works, and how incredibly fat they are (the skinnier the gossipper, the louder she talks about being fat, in my experience). Then they compare the diets they tried last week, then they decide who is going to get the McDonald's Breakfast Meals today and write out a complicated list and fiddle with exact change.

There was a guy working with us briefly who ate more than half the department chocolates at Christmas, and justified it by saying that we girls should be grateful to him for taking temptation to get fat out of our way.

I've never Been On A Diet. I'm not decisive enough. I don't care enough. When, during the early, sole-food-source days of breastfeeding, I noticed that I'd stopped eating food and started eating 10 or more Fry's Chocolate Creams in a day, I started logging how many meals I ate and tried to eat three meals and two snacks a day, apart from chocolate. I felt better. When I noticed I was losing weight, a while later, I went back to that plan, made easier by the fact that that's what Linnea ate. I have a podgy post-baby tummy - loose skin flopping around. I dunno whether diet would help. I dunno whether exercise would help. And I really don't know how comparing notes with other people over this would make me feel more comfortable with them.

Dieting has its place - all sorts of health reasons, mental and physical, to diet. Yeah. But as a hobby, it strikes me as kind of odd.

And finally:

A man I met in a hostel in Dingle, Co. Kerry, told me it was unladylike to admit that I snored. I put my Doc Marten boots up on a chair so he could see my rainsoaked combat trousers, flicked my mud-soaked hair out of my eyes, and lit a cigar.

Then I went home, had a shower, and painted my fingernails and toenails bright blue and bright pink, alternating nails.

Comments

[rosefox]

A man I met in a hostel in Dingle, Co. Kerry, told me it was unladylike to admit that I snored. I put my Doc Marten boots up on a chair so he could see my rainsoaked combat trousers, flicked my mud-soaked hair out of my eyes, and lit a cigar.

Then I went home, had a shower, and painted my fingernails and toenails bright blue and bright pink, alternating nails.

If you weren't monogamously married, I would be asking sinboy if he minded me proposing to you.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Only time in my life I had my mother approving of me drinking pints was when I told her a couple of men had informed me it was "unladylike".

Despite her believing the same thing, she was so furious that anyone had dared try to define ladylike behaviour to a woman, especially one of her daughters, that she said something along the lines of "I hope you told them where to go".

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

At one stage last year I was the only person in my team not on a diet. One of them was on a 600 cals a day crash thing. It was horrible.

Any new work environment women try to bond with me by discussing diets (I'm fat, I must alays be on a diet) and refuse to believe me when I explain I've never been on one.

[miss-corinne.livejournal.com]

A rousing account of the "just be who you are" lifestyle programme. Nice!

[hartleyhare.livejournal.com]

There's a set of bathroom scales in the ladies' toilets at work. I don't know who put them there. When they first appeared, I was furious, and had a big long rant about it. I hate the whole bonding-over-dieting thing, because of the pressure it puts on people who aren't dieting and don't need to. Thank you for writing this.

[firecat]

Wouldn't it be too bad if something HAPPENED to that bathroom scale?

[*Hands you a sledgehammer*]

[hartleyhare.livejournal.com]

hehheh...

*sorely tempted!*

[ailbhe]

But - bathroom scales are useful! How else would I know how long my Christmas turkey needs to cook?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

/me has hysterical image of school cooks taking turkey into the ladies' loos to weigh it...

We own three sets of bathroom scales and they're all broken. And unsurprisingly we aren't in a hurry to get another set. I've dieted seriously twice in my life (neither of them for a specific goal) and I will probably restart WeightWatchers again next month but it's because I'm fed up with my back problems. They won't magically go away but they will be considerably lessened if I can lose another two stone. That is the kind of reason I can get behind when others diet, too. Mum cut dairy and wheat out of her diet and lost a load of weight and she hasn't felt so healthy in years; but that's also because of those pesky intolerances going away.

[elissaann.livejournal.com]

I have one so that I can weigh the cat.

[brooksmoses]

I got here from a link from lilairen, and had commented on the dieting-as-bonding thing even before reading it and all the comments.

Thing is, as best I can tell, the bonding-over-dieting thing also puts pressure on people who are trying to very seriously diet because they need to.

The impression I get from my wife is that the bonding amounts (in significant part) to an assumption that any given woman (a) will be currently on a diet of some sort such that she "shouldn't" eat the birthday cake brought in for the party, and (b) will be perfectly happy to break that diet if an appropriate excuse is provided. And thus there seems to be this whole cultural ritual of providing each other with flimsy excuses.

Thus, it took her quite a lot of effort to train them to accept "no, I can't" to mean "NO." when they offer her some of the cake, or various other workplace snacks.

And, beyond that, it seems that the whole chatting about dieting starts to be far less interesting when one has no choice in the matter, and has to stick to the diet for far longer than it takes for the novelty factor to wear off and stop outweighing the terrific dreariness of knowing that there are foods one loves and will never be able to eat again.

[ailbhe]

I LOATHE being given responsibility for other people's weight-loss - if I offer cake, the dieter should say "No," which I will respect, and not then "Oh, I shouldn't, but you've tempted me beyond the point of possible resistance," followed by "Oh, Jim, Ailbhe made me eat her cake, it's sooo chocolately I couldn't resist," or whatever.

ARGH.

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

You go, girl.

[pauamma]

A man I met in a hostel in Dingle, Co. Kerry, told me it was unladylike to admit that I snored. I put my Doc Marten boots up on a chair so he could see my rainsoaked combat trousers, flicked my mud-soaked hair out of my eyes, and lit a cigar.

Then I went home, had a shower, and painted my fingernails and toenails bright blue and bright pink, alternating nails.

You owe me a keyboard.

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

Love that 'and finally' bit.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Were we separated at birth?

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Have I told you recently that I adore you? Because I do.

[ailbhe]

Adoring is very ladylike. Even girlish. Woo.

*beam*

lol! - atta girl! (" A man I met.. ..and bright pink, alternating nails." (+ bits'n'pieces)

[feetnotes.livejournal.com]

thanks for relating that. *chuckle* *vbg* *smile*

"it might even be true" - oh, yes; it may sometimes be other things as well [a], when it's by your own choice, but infantilisation of women it most definitely is [b].

not as extreme as the total depilation of bodyhair [c] by arab [d] women for their wedding days [e], but unless you're from a naturally no-visible-bodyhair strain of humanity, it is utterly ridiculous that a social custom that makes all women feel inadequate, or taken for socially inadequate, persists.

"apparently, it's more polite to say underarms than armpits, who knew?" - yup; and woe betide any girl who commits the grossly coarse error of referring (in fact, quite correctly) in "genteel company" to this area as the crotch of her/the arm(s)... - bloody stupid, isn't it?

"comfortably hairy" - yes indeed; quite aside from its role in sexual signalling, some bodyhair has definite practical benefit.

"I have a podgy, post-baby tummy, loose skin flopping around. I dunno know whether diet would help. I dunno whether exercise would help." - diet, no; not unless you're gaining weight, putting on fat & refilling this loose skin; exercise, yes, some - and it be of the particular muscles that help hold your tummy in (mainly or solely the diaphragm? i disremember - look it up on relevant websites &/or ask professional advice, and you feel ready to start doing aught about it)

"But as a hobby, it struck me as kind of odd." - lol! - ita est!

"and bright pink, alternating nails." (reprise) - *chuckle* *smile* - i bet you own at least one pair of bright, multi-coloured, candy-striped, individual toe-socks, with each toe in a different one of the candy-stripes' colours, too, don't you? confess!

[a] - or possibly instead (i'll happily take either side of the debate :-) )
[b] - or can be.
[c] - all but head, eyelashes and some eyebrow hair, i.e.
[d] - i believe formerly all arab women; i do not think it a general muslim custom
[e] - i do not know the custom is still widespread, or how widespread it may yet be; but i suspect it persists

Re: lol! - atta girl! (" A man I met.. ..and bright pink, alternating nails." (+ bits'n'pieces)

[ailbhe]

i bet you own at least one pair of bright, multi-coloured, candy-striped, individual toe-socks, with each toe in a different one of the candy-stripes' colours, too, don't you? confess!

Not any more; they weren't comfy enough.

[megpie71.livejournal.com]

Have I mentioned lately that I absolutely love you to bits and pieces. Or indeed that you are pretty much me?

I'm of the (rare) breed of Australian women who has free range legs and armpits. My favourite term for same comes from Kaz Cooke - "Furry Princess". I also don't diet, and I don't talk diet talk, celebrities, or any of the other topics so beloved of the supermarket tabloid "women's magazines".

In part, this is a a reaction to a "Feminine" culture which essentially said it didn't want to know me if I wasn't prepared to "put in the effort" to belong. Well, I tried - for ten years, I dieted, and I tried to fit in, and I wasn't accepted. So after those ten years, I decided to give it all up, and since then I haven't looked back. I'm female, fat, furry, and profoundly unbothered by same. If I'm buying magazines at the newsagents, they're most likely to be magazines about organic gardening - and they come out about once every two or three months. I don't join in the female bonding sessions at work about diets, and I won't talk diets to anyone else either. About the only hair I remove (by plucking) are the few under my chin which are growing in strong and dark - hormonal imbalances are so much fun.

Oh, and for those women who wish to revert to being furry princesses but are worried about the "stubble" or "regrowth" problem - after about the first three weeks, you don't have to worry about it. If you feel conspicuous, try trousers or opaque tights.

[ahruman.livejournal.com]

Can we bond over not dieting instead?

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

Thank you, both for the non-dieting camaraderie and the final story.

At my workplace, most of the people in the office (10 women, 2 men) eat lunch together. Scarcely a day goes by without one of the women commenting "we're all on Weight Watchers now!" (half were on Atkins when I started, three months ago) and somebody else--usually my [male] supervisor--saying, "Well, almost all," with a Very Pointed Look at my lunch.

(I'm a size 24 currently; they range from, at a guess, 18 to 6.)

It's beginning to feel like I'll get fired if I don't announce within a few weeks that I've joined Weight Watchers too. (As for the hair: I wear pants every day so that they won't see my legs. When it gets warmer, I'll have to give in and shave--I'm sure that would be even more of a firing offense. I'm dark-haired, and very hairy.)

Why, for heaven's sake, does it matter to them?

[radegund.livejournal.com]

:-)

Yup!

[amaliedageek.livejournal.com]

I depilate my legs because I am very physically active and a klutz; it's easier for me to clean out road rash if I don't have to worry about hair in the wound. The last diet I was on was to increase caloric intake to support my weightlifting habit, and the only person, IMHO, who needed to hear about it was my trainer: I didn't want to listen to anyone's envious/cheerful "Oh, how lucky you are to eat whatever you want!" and try to explain that it didn't mean anything of the sort.

The last person to accuse me of unladylike behavior was politely told that while I might not be their concept of a lady, that didn't make their preconceptions my problem. And then I went on with my deadlifts.