So I have to shave my neck and sideburns every few or couple of days if I want to look “clean”, but sometimes I just don’t feel like it. Why do I have to conform to society’s standards for beauty?
To clarify, I am a female, but I have not been diagnosed pcos or hirsutism. It is genetic, though I seem to have it worse than my mom or my grandma did at this age.
A part of me is curious about what I’d look like with a beard, and the scientist in me wants to document how long it would take to grow. I’m not a “girly girl” by any means; I don’t wear dresses or skirts or makeup, I workout and enjoy being stronger than some guys I know, love to fish, hike, just be outdoors, etc. So I’m not concerned with people calling me masculine…becuase honestly I am.
Now I am not trans, nor do I want to be, but with all the LGBTQ+ pride going on lately, I wonder if society’s standards for women can be changed too. Granted, they’ve changed quite a lot in the past 50 years, but females are still expected to shave and are considered gross if they don’t.
Why is it though we’re expected to shave? Unlike divers, swimmers, and other sports, we normally don’t need to be aerodynamic. And you sweat regardless, though hair tends to feel a bit gross, but that doesn’t deter guys from getting sweaty.
Honestly I don’t get why I need to spend so much time shaving my body if it doesn’t make me any happier than before. You may ask who I do it for, and that would be my family, because I like having a roof over my head, and to be accepted at my school I suppose (I’ve heard plenty of judging at my school when a girl hadn’t shaved her legs in a while, enough to keep me shaving) because I swear Christians are some of the judgyest people I’ve met.
I guess the peer pressure gets to me, whether it be from my environment (conservative Christians) or general standards of beauty. People try to encourage you to “be yourself” but the social anxiety that accompanies it is terrifying. Especially in my environment, criticism to people who break social norms tends to be heavy.
I suppose I have a year till I graduate and go on to university, where I’d like to hope I can safely stretch my wings. But I’d rather not have to wait to figure myself out. For now I guess I’ll keep on shaving, though I’d love to have a teacher stop me and be like “Um, you need to shave” like they do to the guys (it’s school code to be clean shaven, private school) just to see their reaction.
