Thread: The Art of Womanlyness

Awww, thanks all. I have a lot of fun on the forums but I'm not shy about barging in and joining discussions. Yes, there is a ladies forum but not many use it. It could be that most of the female members are busy or most of us are lurking or there just aren't many of us. I would love to know the ratio of women to men in the membership but there isn't much way to tell unless everyone states their genders in their profiles. I would hate to think though that a woman would be shy about trying straights or safety razors because of a stereotype. There are lots of things concerning the genders that overlap. This is one of them.

Me personally I use nearly all the forums. There are good things to be learned in all of them. I've learned how to make my own brush. I've gotten insight into customizing blades to fit my needs which has been very useful. I've read the pros and cons of various items used by wet shavers. There are some really great pics of some very masculine vintage and custom razors in here. I think it could be inspirational to have pics of more feminine builds like the short razors I mentioned before. Maybe there could be a sticky folder in the ladies forum for pictures of specially made razors for women. Something to let female visitors to the SRP know that there really are women in here that enjoy straights just as much as the men. It would also help tear down the old stereotype.

Lori

A fascinating subject, which I am certain some ambitious graduate student either has or is writing a dissertation about. If not, then they should. It has certainly piqued my interest.

It makes me think, that the presence or absence of facial and bodily hair can not only be driven by gender considerations, but also by class or age stereotypes as well as by fashion or stereotypes about what constitutes being civilized at different periods of history and different societies' cultural mores concerning one's social standing. That is the removal of female bodily hair or men's facial hair might just as easily reflect a cultural bias that a civilized" and/or member of the upper class does not display hair as a gender bias or stereotype. Members of the upper class did not want to give the appearance of being barbarians--one of the reasons that ancient Romans of the patrician class were clean shaven from the face down. Of course such grooming took a lot of time in the past--time that many members of the working and lower classes didn't have a lot of.

By the 19th century, members of the bourgeois, such as Mr. Trumper, Truefitt, Hill, etc. were emulating the upper classes in western society and could actually profit from these cultural standards concerning facial and bodily hair by developing products (shaving soaps, creams, razors, etc.) for sale to or use by the upper classes and aspiring members of the middle class. Truefitt and Hill's label, for example states proudly, "Barbers to British Royalty Since 1805."

Before women's skirts became shorter in the early twentieth century, I wonder how many women actually shaved their legs? Was it gender driven or promoted as a hygiene and/or fashion imperative? I wonder. Of course, by the 1920s and women's dresses above the knee became fashionable, perhaps it became a fashion imperative for women to begin the task of hair removal on their legs to maintain their feminine appearance in modern western culture.

Age wise, I know that during 18th and 19th century slavery, older African male slaves were often shaved prior to sale to remove any grey hairs on their bodies and faces to make them appear to be more youthful than they actually were. That way they would fetch a higher price in the market.

Just my 2 cents.

Women have been shaving a very long time. In some cultures they didn't but in many they did. I know they made straights for women in the 19th century-called Boudoir razors. You don't see many of them these days but they are out there. Like everything else it's all about the culture you are in that will dictate who shaves and why.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Women have been shaving a very long time. In some cultures they didn't but in many they did. I know they made straights for women in the 19th century-called Boudoir razors. You don't see many of them these days but they are out there. Like everything else it's all about the culture you are in that will dictate who shaves and why.

bigspendur,

You make an excellent point.

I have no doubt that women have been shaving a very long time. What I was suggesting in my earlier post was that explanations, such as societal definitions and mores of femininity or culture, while certainly very good explanations may be insufficient to grasp fully the multiplicity of additional possible reason(s) for this phenomenon, such as social status and/or class, in different cultures and societies.

You forgot about the fact that straight shaving defoliates the skin very efficiently. Asia women have been using straights on the face for some time now.

Later,
Richard