Comments on: My Story [Loving Our Bodies, Part 2]

By: FAQ: Aren’t feminists just hairy-legged makeup haters? « Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 06:37:27 +0000

[...] Is there any day where I slap on my skirt in my hairy-legged glory that I don’t feel any anxiety, or any shame? No. I will most likely live and die with those feelings, thanks to the way we are socialized from young girls to feel that our natural bodies aren’t good enough. But I can’t let shame or fear run my life. I won’t let it. [tekanji (The Official Shrub.com Blog): My Story [Loving Our Bodies, Part 2].] [...]

By: John

John — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:55:50 +0000

Here in California, especially among the dancer and spiritually-conscientious kinds of communities, it’s common for women not to shave. And you know what? Often it’s more appealing/attractive/sexy than shaving (though this is definitely a case-by-case thing!)

By: Calfaile

Calfaile — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 20:08:27 +0000

. . . The fact that most of the time, I can’t *find* one?

By: Kristy

Kristy — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:09:28 +0000

I know this is an old thread but I would love to hear more about the bra wearing issues. I mean there are many reasons why not to wear a bra, just wondering which one motivates you the most.

By: becki

becki — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:16:51 +0000

I’ve let my leg hair grow in the winter since I was 15, I’ve let my armpit hair grow in the winter, until I had to wear a short-sleeved shirt, for the past few years. This is my first year that I’ve decided to leave it alone. As spring approaches, I have more and more moments where I want to shave it all off just so I don’t have to hear my family tell me how weird I am, but I hate shaving. I hate the time it takes, I hate the chemicals I have to put on my body to prevent chafing or cutting myself, I hate the feeling when it starts to grow back and most of all, I hate that I’m expected to.

I gave in about a week ago and chemically removed my armpit hair. While talking to my mom about my grades and the fact that I believe I’m getting A’s in both the classes I’m taking right now, she noticed that the hair was gone. She congratulated me on shaving my armpits, but was completely uninterested in my grades, except to say that she wishes she’d gotten A’s when she was in school. I was ashamed that I had given in and with her comment, I’m more resolved than ever to let the hair grow.

By: Kevin Li

Kevin Li — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 12:13:21 +0000

One more thing:

http://www.mentornet.net

Mentor network for professionals / researchers. Mostly for women in engineering and technical fields to find strong female role models in industry. They’ve got some heavy hitters in the consulting / ibanking / tech business.

Always good to get in contact with people that have “been there and done that”.

Enjoy!

By: Kevin Li

Kevin Li — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 12:07:46 +0000

Woah this is really high level stuff. I’m going to need help breaking this down :-).

Still a bit confused, you’re basically saying that while you are able to control your anger, other still have power over you and make it harder to break into “male-oriented” fields.

I don’t think I understand what you mean by “power dynamics”. I thought it was just like 7 habits, or am I trying to stretch it too far? Internal vs external control?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you want to get into business / entrepreneurship right? I always thought that in a truly capitalistic market place, if you’re the best at what you do and “bring home the bear” who cares what sex, race, sexual orientation you are. I just like people that succeed and are driven to help me succeed. Okyakusama wa kamisama desu ne? Ok, so I just finished Atlas Shrugged and am a bit idealistic.

Wow, the social power comment is way over my head. I think I better go back to expanding my network on LinkedIn…

By: arielladrake

arielladrake — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 05:57:41 +0000

Kevin, tekanji. My partner and I had this sort of discussion a couple of months ago. At this point he’d been doing a lot more feminist reading and such-like than in the past, and one day he turned to me and said (paraphrasing here) “Okay, I might be wrong here, but is it a function of privilege that I have the kind of social status that allows me to not have to care what other people think?” I’d been having trouble articulating why his confusion about why I got upset was kinda frustrating for me, and then he said this and I was like “YES. That’s it.” And that’s really what it comes down to. Because part of privilege is knowing that it’s highly likely that the people making judgements about you don’t matter as much as you, within the current social structure. Being non-privileged means being painfully aware of the fact that it’s usually likely that the people judging you matter as much as, and often more than you do, again, within the current social structure.

Also, I think tekanji’s right that boiling it down to ‘not caring what people think’ is a bit of an oversimplification. I mean, there’s not caring what those with social power think of whatever subversive choices you’ve made, and there’s not caring when you are the one in that situation with social power. They’re different dynamics, though on the surface the action might seem the same.

By: tekanji

tekanji — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:29:13 +0000

But that’s just it, Kevin, for women it’s not normal. The amount to which I don’t care what others think has been a hard earned battle, and I continue to struggle every day against the pressures I continue to face. Women are seen first and foremost by their looks (even powerful politicians don’t get away from it).

Like the old saying: â€œNobody can make you mad. You make yourself mad.â€

That strikes me as very minimizing and ignorant of power dynamics. Can I choose not to get angry when people try to leave comments on my blog to the effect of that I’m a bitch, whore, need to suck their cock? Sure. But that doesn’t erase their power, doesn’t change the fact that those kinds of comments are common in most popular forums (mostly online, but these guys do say the same shit offline), doesn’t change the fact that because it’s okay to verbally abuse women it’s that much harder for us to break into male-dominated fields (see my recent post on Kotaku).

I don’t “make” myself mad, because I don’t fabricate the hurdles in my way. I allow myself to deal healthily with the maddening injustices of the world because, if I didn’t, the hurt and the bad feelings wouldn’t go away, they would just sit around unacknowledged and make me wonder why I was so unhappy all of the time.

By: Kevin Li

Kevin Li — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:20:05 +0000

Isn’t it normal to not care what people think? I mean it’s one thing to know, but it’s another to act on it.

Like the old saying: “Nobody can make you mad. You make yourself mad.”

Frames of control right? Did I tell you about the time I dyed my hair blonde and shaved everything except 2 strands at the front? I get a kick out of seeing people’s weird reactions. You gotta try forcing Japanese people to go on a date. You get the most interesting facial expressions. To me, it’s abstracted to a sales process, there is no rejection no fear no pain, just a pursuit of information.