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

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.