Grooming and Feminism

There was this one time in college, when I had put a facepack on and one of my feminist friends ridiculed me for doing it. Other than feeling embarrassed, I considered it anti feminist to be told what I needed to do as a girl to uplift myself. If she were a true feminist, she should have let me indulge in my pleasures, celebrate my femininity without worrying about what the world thinks about it. I still stand by it that one is free to whatever he/she pleases but aren’t some of these thrust down on us by the world as bare necessities? I mean, of this huge world population of 7 billion, isn’t it surprising that one entire gender goes one extra mile beyond looking presentable and removes hair from their hands/legs/eyebrows/armpits/upper lips while it isn’t as popular among males. If it represented basic cleanliness, the entire human kind should have done it and if it not, why is it particularly trending in one specific gender. Yes there is still a personal choice and you are free to exercise it but talk about ratios. It is definitely more trending among girls than boys. Why is nail polish, lipstick and makeup female-specific. I wouldn’t have said why don’t men wear bras, they don’t have boobs, but men have lips and nails yet it is an activity more popular in women. You can even call it a privilege because I know some of my guy friends who really want to apply make up in public but cant do so- why is the privilege only reserved for women? On one side, it is a shameful thing to do by men yet so popular in the other gender that men get repelled by unshaven legs. It may still be your personal choice to not do it, I am not talking about you specifically, I do it, but why do women as an entire lot consider this necessary. Nobody forced me to do it, but I started doing it when I saw all my girl-friends doing it. When I found it too cumbersome to get my hands and legs hairfree, a guy actually commented that it seems like I haven’t shaved in a while. And for some reason, I felt embarrassed, like I was supposed to. I should have just glanced at his legs and said pretty much like you. When was the last time you shaved it? Grooming has been accepted almost like a norm, a sea-wave by girls and guys want it so; they like hairless girls, because it is more common to see hairless girls that a hairy girl stands out. It is more like it is expected out of girls and at the same time, expected from guys to not do it. You may or may not do it but the fact still remains that the ratio of those doing it is way more in women than guys. Guys don’t bikini wax their balls, they might shave, so can we. Why do we bother to go for bikini wax? Again, you can call it privilege but how I see it is that when during evolution, women looked after the offspring and men took over the physical work, we evolved to have lesser strength because it wasn’t needn’t anymore. Like how if you continuously work out, you build your muscles, the males evolved to have more physical strength than women. And since in that age, where there was not much of brainy work required, they gradually got considered the better gender and we the lesser ones had to please them by dolling up fancy for them. But now we are evolving, we are doing the same work guys do, we need to give ourselves an equal chance without having the gender difference as a bias. If you are weak, don’t accept it is because you are a female; you are just a weaker person from others. Only then, generations later we could be equally strong, if the popular belief about our biological setup that males are physically stronger is true. We need to challenge our biological frames to evolve. Giraffes didn’t stop at their limitations of smaller necks when the trees kept growing. If it is true now, challenge it to change the dynamics in future. I am not giving a solution- I don’t have one. In this sea wave, it is very easy to get carried away by the flow and as a drop you can’t expect the sea to follow you just because you think it is the right direction. You cant change the sea waves to change direction but if you want to stay put, you just have to sink in your feet deeper in the sand. You can dress up as much you want, be a doll, be a tsunami- take the world by charge and start a new fashion trend! I, for myself have chosen to not care about shaving or threading if I don’t want to. If a guy can live and manage with unthreaded eyebrows and hairy armpits, so can I. If that’s too unattractive for the world with a majority of gracefully trimmed girls, the world isn’t ready for me yet. If you are a drop like me, join in, we can a make a small puddle of hairy girls at the shore. And yes, that doesn’t mean, I would be betraying myself I do wax or thread. I am just relieving myself from the idea that I have to do it as a societal necessity neither am I obligated to not shave for feminist confirmation.