I would have gone with Captain Condescending, has a nice ring to it.

I love you Boo. Let's get married (I had a skin head before and it looked toally awesome!).

Actually, when I sat and thought about it, the more pressing issues for me, with the gender arguement is more about families, childbirth, women + careers, etc... Which are serious topics, but I'm too drunk to go into (it was a special occassion, detox totally failed tonight!). BUT yeah, this was my main point. How the f*ck has shaving legs become the most prominent issue on a discussion between genders?????

that was mean

i genuinely dislike relating to people sexually, i feel it keeps me from being able to love everyone in the same way, or even really know what that means

The reason I feel the issue of women shaving their leg and underarm hair is an important gender issue, Tea, is that the pressure on women to remove much of their "unsightly" body hair is one of many sexist ways people treat women around the world, in which women are often judged and valued based more on appearance and sexuality rather than on their capabilities as human beings.

In this thread, girls/women have mentioned that they like BEING female, but they dislike the social issues they face. So, I feel it is important to challenge all the social issues that make being a woman difficult.

I feel that women and men should have equal rights, opportunities and treatment, which is the basis of feminism. It is simply unfair that men can have their body hair showing with no one chastising them, while women face ridicule for showing *their* hair.

Imagine that instead of women shaving we were talking about black people. If our culture told black people, "Sorry, your leg hair is ugly, so you should either wear trousers outside or shave your hair," while white people could go outside without any concern or feeling of self-consciousnes at all, would you be comforable with that? I doubt it.

If it would bother you if BLACK people were told that their body hair is ugly and they should shave it off, cover themselves up, or suffer the consequences, why doesn't it bother you when people tell this to WOMEN?

Just as the sexist view of women's body hair is unfair, it is also unfair that around the world women are often considered property, transferred to husbands, expected to bear many children and not receive a good education, forced to wear coverings over their hair or burkas, not allowed to drive cars, etc., while men face NONE of these socially-created problems. These issues, including body shaving, are all related because all involve women being treated as not deserving of the same social and legal rights as men.

I recommend the short video "Shackled Women" to see examples of how the emphasis on women's beauty confines women's lives around the globe, since it's probably a topic in which you and I are both interested: Shackled Women

Women finally being able to wear pants without social derision *was* liberating...and it took several generations of strong women facing private and public ridicule to finally "earn" cultural acceptance of wearing manly pants. This step forward toward equality for women doesn't mean we should just accept one step back with regards to women's body image issues. There should never be any reason for women to be embarrassed by their own bodies, boo boo! Including their shaved heads! ;)

Raising girls such that they are embarrassed by their own bodies is not part of our environment that I accept. I think it should be obvious why treating girls...treating anyone...this way is a bad thing. It is an issue of human rights and dignity.

Yes, women around the world in many cultures shave or wax/sugar their body hair (and in many of those places women have lower status than men). However, the U.S., Canada, Britain, and Australia started the practice in the 1900s, before which women in the Western world sometimes just shaved their necks...the parts of the bodies that were showing...but *not* their underarms and legs. The recent origin of shaving in Western society is unique because it was so sudden.

The hairlessness norm for women is only getting stronger, too, with the Brazilian wax becoming more common...a painful process of ripping out all your pubic hair. When women feel so much pressure or desire to "look attractive" that they are willing to undergo painful procedures, I feel it's important to try to stop those pressures.

Urban, you can choose to have a beard or not, and no one will ridicule you. They'll probably think you look nice both ways. THAT is a choice. It is a choice between different but equivalent results: "Do I want to look good without my beard, or do I want to look good with my beard?"

If you were a woman, your choice would be slightly different: "Do I shave, or do I want to face public humiliation because my underarm hair and leg hair grew darker during puberty?" That is not a fair, equal choice. That IS curtailing women's right to enjoy and experience their own bodies in the same way that men can enjoy and experience their own bodies.

This issue is related to gay rights, actually, as I think adidasss understands: people should not be made to feel bad about how their bodies naturally are.

That's not entirely true. People—at least in the US and I'm guessing the UK as well—are reluctant to put people with beards in positions of power for whatever reason. Facial hair is very rare among politicians and for good reason, there have actually been studies done that indicate people are far less likely to vote for a guy with a beard.

I have a mate and if he goes into work with a beard, they make him go to the bathroom and make him shave it. I bet if a woman goes into work with hairy legs and armpit hair they don't get that treatment.

Being a man is tough :(

That's a good point. So then, are we in agreement that we should support both women keeping their body hair, and men keeping their facial hair, if they want to?

Some women have been fired from their jobs because they had underarm hair or leg hair. I agree with you that men should not be made to shave for work.

I think people should be able to do whatever they want. Why should I care whether they shave or not?

For what it's worth, I'd love to be able to wear sandals and sleeveless shirts around the office in the summer the way women are allowed to.

Surely it can't be as simple as that? The ex-employee could take their former employee to the cleaners on them grounds. Maybe 3 warnings or something would be more plausible and if by your third warning you prefer having unsightly hair over earning a living then you don't deserve your job. Same with men, so it's not a feminist issue or anything. If I had to shave for my job, and I was on my second warning. I'd make sure I'd shave, just because I value earning a living than some silly belief that shaving is conforming to society or whatever.

Both men and women get treated the same for their body hair. Although I still don't get how women can be fired for having unsightly hair. If they work in an office, they can wear pants and a top that doesn't show their under arms.

As much as I agree that it is an issue, my main point was that, to me, it seems trivial compared to other social issues that women may have to deal with, such as equality in work, debates over stay at home Mums vs Career Women, etc. These are social concerns that I feel are important to women, which far outshines the issue of having body hair.

Thanks for that video - I will watch it a little later. Once I've got rid of this wretched hangover :(