I have been avoiding writing this blog and watching myself come up with multiple excuses as to why I shouldn’t has been amusing. There hasn’t been much going on around the farm that is worth writing about. There has been no rain, nothing is really growing, the animals are all just doing what they do in their fields or woodland, so there is little to report. The weather however has been notable and the relentless warm, dry spell has given rise to a personal dilemma, one that has brought up an inner debate to which I haven’t yet found an answer with which I am comfortable. As the increase in temperature continues to climb, I will be forced out of my favourite harem style trousers, and into a pair of shorts. In most years, this is a short lived period and whilst I don’t like shorts much, I wear them for practicality and I have never much thought about it. This year however it has brought into light something which has become interesting to me as a societal question. I can feel myself dragging this out: I still don’t want to commit this to paper, much less, the internet.

Out with it… I have the added dilemma this year of not wanting to shave my legs and this brings on a whole new perspective of society’s view of women and what is acceptable and what is not. I am perplexed by this new, personal and ethical conundrum: I am on a personal journey to accept myself wholly – the “good” bits as well as the “bad” so how does it make sense that I have to adapt my body’s natural look to what has become socially required of the female body? Leaving them visible and unshaven is most definitely not something I am comfortable with, but I feel that I should be. What kind of society makes us women, as men clearly don’t have a need unless they’re elite cyclists or swimmers trying to knock a few milliseconds off their PB, have to adapt themselves in order to be perceived as more beautiful, or even, socially acceptable. Maybe no one cares and no one would notice or comment, but my own inner critic isn’t convinced. I have never seen a woman in the UK with hairy legs, but I am also mega unobservant so it is possible there are plenty and I just haven’t noticed. Perhaps it is like men with beards: there are some who have one, and some who don’t and no one really gives a hoot one way or the other. At least it is socially acceptable for men to be either bearded or not as far as I know.
It does however for me, bring up a wider question: if it isn’t feminine to leave one’s leg hairs in place, then why do we (women) go along with that? Why do we feel the need to define being feminine as ‘altered from one’s natural state’? Should we not actually accept ourselves as we are? Is this part of the female’s typical reaction in this society ‘that there is something wrong with me and how do I become more acceptable to my peers and to anyone I am trying to attract’ – (not relevant in my case, as long as my husband is happy I should not care if I am attractive to others bearing in mind I don’t want to attract anyone else anyway). But it seems an interesting point and I am turning myself in circles trying to work it out.

In recent history, it began with the introduction of ‘nylons’, or stockings, in the war. For them to look smooth, one shaved to give them a silky flat appearance, which was considered to give women a touch of class at the time. Long gone are the days of stockings for most of us, so why has the act of shaving one’s legs continued to define part of what it is to be feminine? I think my lack of comfort with the idea stems partly from my inner schoolgirl who was teased aged about 11 or 12 for still not shaving. It wasn’t cool, and certainly not grown up. So at 12, stealing my mother’s razor, the ritual began. 36 years later, I question whether this practise still serves me, but to be shunned or not accepted into the female group is as uncomfortable for me as it is anyone. I neither want to, nor feel I should, but I am not sure I am brave enough to be so publicly outlandish. Perhaps, no one else cares what I do about this and it is in fact really all about whether I do actually accept myself or whether I am not quite there yet.
To conform or not to conform: that is the question!