What you have to accept though is that it has become a part of the environment.

Actually I'm pretty sure that this is only true for the popularity of pit shaving and explains why it's not as common in Europe but legshaving is popular all around the world, including Europe, and I'm pretty damn sure women were doing it before the 1900s, I doubt hairy legs on women were ever fashionable.

You'll be hard pressed to find me a painting from the Renaissance onwards of a female nude with hairy legs. Smooth legs has been part of the ideal of female beauty for a VERY VERY long time.

Leg hair removal goes WAY back, it was very popular custom in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Middle Eastern countries for women to do this, and often it was done by singing or plucking, far more painful methods than what's used today.

It's true that this was more common and accessible for women of higher class and it became less common in the middle ages. And the razor industry did make shaving more popular by making it accessible to lower class women in the United States.

But men prefereing hairless legs is not a new invention at all and the reason it's more popular now is because women now have the technology to do it in in a more accessible way and it's no longer something exclusive to the upper class, not to mention how much more time consuming and painful the older methods were. It's not because just a few guys decided that hairy legs weren't hot and somehow turned it into popular consensus, we probably always felt that way, it's just that the economic boom made beauty products more accessible to the not so privilaged.

You act like the US is the only place where women shave their legs. If this was just an American invention why do we not see hairy legged foreign chicks all the time?

Like I said women used to not remove leg hair because of how difficult it was but it was never an aesthetic preference because what did women do before legshaving? They didn't bare their legs at all, that's what. The roaring 1920s gave rise to short skirts and that's the REAL reason legshaving became more popular.

It's because of legshaving that women could show their legs without embarrassment, which I find more liberating than it is enslaving.

^Thank you. Like booboo said, the "evil western media" and the "conniving american corporations" aren't responsible for the widespread preference among women for having hairless legs. Its a cultural practice that dates back thousands of years and was prevalent all over the world, not just in north america.

I can't believe a debate on shaving legs has become the biggest gender issue on here :laughing:

Without trying to provoke anything else (though I'm really not sure how much else you could possibly squeeze out of this particular topic!), if I were to list my pressing issues of being a woman, 'having' to shave would be pretty low down.

Personally, I don't give a crap whether ancient Egyptians shaved their body hair or a fat Corporate Pig decided to make money out of it. For me it's a norm that I choose to enjoy like putting on make up for a night out and I'm pretty sure most women feel the same...

Never before have I had to read so deeply into what I considered such a trivial subject :laughing:

I wish we could get away from this ridiculous notion of some women not shaving under the impression that their making some grandiose statement about modern society and just admit that it's out of lazyness.

Nobody will think any less of you.

I've not washed or styled my hair today. I hardly think L'Oréal or Brylcreem are quaking in their boots at my 'political statement'.

I've not had a shave in a week. There's political statements flying around all over the place!

Down with the undignified practice of facial scraping curtailing our right to proper manhood !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm with you brother.

Come to think of it, I'm going to conform to society today and have a shave. Damn society, always making us shave. I blame the women, they have an image of how they want us to be and we just fall in line.

I have a beard, all you beardless are slaves to the woman.

Which is why I need to shave, I want to be a slave to the woman. :(

I prefer stubbly to a full on beard, 4 days without a shave just about does it. When it gets to 7 or 8 days I shave. Like I said, conforming to them b*stard wimmin!

I would look like Castaway if I had my choice, believe me.