Member-only story
Cultural Rigidity
I just read an admonition to women that suggested that loving beards on men doesn’t give women permission to refuse to shave their armpits. I was honestly taken aback. Beyond the fact that this obsession with women having hairless bodies is decidedly not universal, I really thought we had at least moved past the need to tell women what to do with their own bodies (anal retentive male politicians aside).
The narrow definition of beauty is decried everywhere when it focuses on “fat shaming” at the same time that the majority of people continue to do it. (Witness morning “news” programs that segue between stories lauding people who do NOT look like the stick-thin media-shaped norm and stories about how easy and desirable it is to fit that norm.) That narrowness is also expressed in thoughtless deference to the (to me) weird hairlessness that is held up as the ideal. I’m even more nonplussed that hairlessness has become a goal for men.
It’s easy to blame the media for this narrow mindedness. But things have changed with the interwebs and blogging. We ARE the media. We have no idea whether or how much we are influencing the thinking and self-esteem of anonymous readers. I absolutely believe in free speech, and I would not suggest that the person who posted the line that started me down this trail of thought not be PERMITTED to post it. However, I would plead for more thoughtfulness about…
