As girls navigate the challenges of growing up, building personal grooming habits such as shaving regularly plays a pivotal role in their journey towards self-discipline, confidence, and societal acceptance. While girls are expected to build many different personal grooming habits, no expectation is as commonly misunderstood as that of shaving. Whether it’s where to shave, how often to shave, or the aesthetic vs. practical reasons to shave- today, we’re going to cover it all.
So lets start with the basics. Where are girls expected to shave at all? Well, the three that everyone knows are the legs, armpits, and vagina; but some girls also grow hair on their face, chest, stomach, and butts, all of which also needs to be shaved if a girl grows hair there in the first place. One of the most highly debated topics about shaving is how frequently a girl needs to shave, but it’s really very simple. Generally speaking girls should never have visible body hair showing, so girls need to shave their body-hair before wearing anything that would show that hair. Even covered though, once the body hair starts to re-grow generally you want to shave it within one to two days to maintain the non-aesthetic effects of shaving.
Speaking of non-aesthetic benefits, yes- they do exist. In fact they might even be more important that the aesthetic ones. Firstly, all body-hair traps dirt which means a clean shave leads to a cleaner body. That’s especially important when it comes to pubic hair which traps urine and menstrual blood leading to oder and increasing risk of infection. Shaving both armpit and pubic hair will also lead to a reduction in body oder. Smooth legs are both more pleasant to touch and cause less chafing and skin irritation when they rub together, and finally a shaved vagina is less likely to tear a condom and less likely to contract a sexually transmitted infection (STI).
As you can see, there are many reasons to shave outside of how others will perceive you, and those perceptions aren’t purely aesthetic either. To all my young girls out there, I just want you to know that you should shave- not just because of how it looks or how others will judge you if you don’t, but because it will increase your own comfort, decrease your risk of infection, and decrease your body-oder (which is good for you and everyone around you); and for the parents out there I want you to understand that shaving isn’t by nature sexual in any way. The only impact shaving has on sex is increasing the efficacy of condoms and decreasing the risk of STI- both thing’s I hope you’d want for your daughter.
What are the expectations?
From a young age, girls are often encouraged to maintain certain standards of hygiene and appearance – washing and brushing hair, brushing teeth, and shaving are some of the most universal, but unlike washing hair or brushing teeth where the expectation is basically 100% (wash all your hair, brush all your teeth, etc.) the expectations around shaving are less well-known.
For nearly all girls, regular shaving of legs, armpits, and vagina are required, but some girls also grow hair on their chest, stomach, butt, feet, and face. For these girls, they must also shave their affected area’s in order to meet expectations. Generally speaking, girls are expected to keep all of these areas smooth by shaving hair within a day or two of regrowth, and any area’s that aren’t clean-shaven are expected to be covered. Finally, girls are expected to ensure all these areas are clean-shaven, especially the vagina, before engaging in sexual activities.
Why are girls expected to shave?
More often than not, expectations come from one of four sources: increased safety, increased observability / measurability, increased productivity, or increased comfort. So when someone is expected to do something it’s usually because:
- It makes them or the people around them safer.
- It provides an easier way for people to determine something about them.
- It allows them or the people around them to be more productive.
- It makes them or the people around them more comfortable.
In the case of shaving expectations for girls, there are reasons that would fall into all four categories, so lets go through each category individually and explain the reasons girls are expected to shave related to safety, observation, productivity, and comfort.
Safety
First off, contaminants like liquids and dirt have a harder time sticking to smooth skin than they do to body-hair. This means that shaving decreases a girls risk of infections. While this can help prevent staff infections in your armpits from too much moisture, it especially helps prevent UTIs and yeast infections. Both of those infections are primarily caused by urine, vaginal discharge, and menstrual blood creating a warm humid environment around a girls vagina. Those liquids have a much easier time evaporating or drying on smooth skin than they do on hair, so shaving your vagina significantly decreases your risk of UTI and yeast infections.
Shaving your vagina also helps to prevent sexually transmitted infections in much the same way as it prevents UTI’s and yeast infections. Most STIs are transmitted through bodily fluids, and it’s far more difficult to clean bodily fluids out of hair than off of smooth skin, so for most STIs, shaving reduces the transmission potential to some degree. Crabs specifically can only survive in the event that the skin they are living on is un-shaved, so shaving reduces your risk of crabs to 0.
The last safety consideration is unlikely to factor into the rational behind the expectations for girls to shave, but is- depending on your situation- either a safety factor or a comfort factor; and that is the decreased risk of condoms breaking during penetrative sex. Because body hair (especially pubic hair) is quite sharp, it’s not only quite uncomfortable for anyone with a penis as the hair continually stabs into the penis, but that sharp hair also has the potential to put tiny holes in the condom which combined with the friction of penetration can lead to the condom breaking. This likely doesn’t directly contribute to the expectation of shaving, but it is a good piece of information to have.
Observation / Measurement
This is likely the most confusing of the categories. It essentially means the the expectation exists so other people can observe whether or not you meet the expectation and use that to make determinations about you. Occasionally these are conscious determinations, but more often than not these determinations are completely unconscious. This is the category into which beauty standards fit, because people who conform to beauty standards are considered by our subconscious ape-brains to be more likely to play well with others and more suitable for procreation.
And yes, while it’s certainly not the only (or even the primary reason) girls are expected to shave, girls who have body hair are perceived to be less attractive. People typically think of attractiveness as an indicator to others of how good someone is to have children with, but studies have shown that it plays into many more decisions than that. People who are more attractive are considered to be: more reliable, more trustworthy, more of a team-player, more qualified and more capable than those who are perceived to be less attractive. This is also applied more strongly to girls than to guys which is sometimes seen as a bad thing, but your attractiveness is far more able to be controlled than your voice which is the primary other indicator for men.
And yes, while it’s certainly not the only (or even the primary reason) girls are expected to shave, girls who have body hair are perceived to be less attractive. People typically think of attractiveness as an indicator to others of how good someone is to have children with, but studies have shown that it plays into many more decisions than that. People who are more attractive are considered to be: more reliable, more trustworthy, more of a team-player, more qualified and more capable than those who are perceived to be less attractive.
This is also applied more strongly to girls than to guys which is sometimes seen as a bad thing, but your attractiveness is far more able to be controlled than your voice which is the primary other indicator for men.
Productivity
Because smooth skin is far easier to clean, shaving saves you time in the shower washing your body hair, and for most girls it saves them time overall despite the fact that shaving itself takes time. Most girls find that the time it takes to shave is less than the time body-hair adds to the wash process.
Comfort
Finally we’ve made it to comfort, which has probably the most reasons for girls to shave. Lets start off with Oder Control which affects the comfort of both you and the people around you. One of the primary functions of body hair is to spread body oder over a longer distance. When a girl doesn’t shave, especially her armpits and vagina, her body is far more able to produce and disperse body oder which can be quite an offensive smell to those around her.
In addition to normal body oder, the tendency for liquids to cling to body-hair also increases the oder caused from urine, menstruation, and orders you might have picked up from your surroundings. Smooth skin will have a harder time collecting oder-emiting liquids like these and even when they do collect, they don’t stay attached for nearly as long.
On top of oder, as we’ve discussed previously, body-hair is sharp and poky, which means unshaved body hair pokes into the skin anywhere they come into contact. Not only does the increased liquid retention have the potential to cause rashes, irritation, and itching, but the sharp ends of the body-hair have much of the same effect. This is most obvious in the armpits and on the upper thighs where they contact the vagina. In both these places there is a ton of movement, which causes rubbing up against the hairs leading to chafing.
There are many reasons girls are expected to shave: to lower their own risk of infection, save time and effort while cleaning themselves in the shower, help make themselves and those around them more comfortable, and yes- show the world that they are responsible enough to take care of their bodies. Shaving is just another part of growing up when you’re a girl; but it’s not something to be taken lightly. Shaving is one of the most important parts of taking care of yourself, and it’s one of the core elements that make up a girls femininity.
To all of the mothers out there, please remember that you play a critical role in your daughter being able to meet the expectations for girls. Not just shaving, but in every aspect of her femininity. You are the one who teaches her what the expectations are by both setting a good example at home, and explaining the expectations to her. You are the one who teaches her how to meet those expectations. You are the one guiding your daughter’s development, both developing maturity, and femininity- but that can only happen with an open dialogue and a guiding hand.
I encourage all the mothers out there to be open and honest with your daughter’s about the expectations around shaving, and all the other expectations placed on them. I encourage you to teach your daughters how to shave whenever they are able to start, and I encourage you to provide that guiding hand that pushes them to create strong routines around self-care be it showering, shaving, or brushing their teeth.
