I Shaved My Legs for THIS?

Photo from Canva

I can already hear you hollering “TOO MUCH INFORMATION!” Bear with me.

I’ve always approached shaving my legs the way I approach housework: do it on schedule, not for company. If you clean your house every Saturday simply because it’s Saturday, you’ll never need to go into a full-on panic when unexpected company appears at the door.

With leg shaving, I’ve found every third day, all year around, means I’ll never need to go at my legs with a gas-powered hedge trimmer in preparation for a summer wedding. Not to mention that the task itself provides a bit of a yoga workout.

Naturally, as I thought about writing this column, Deana Carter’s 1995 country hit, “Did I Shave My Legs for This?” has been running through my head. I decided to dig into the history of leg-shaving and see how the practice began.

Turns out we’ve all been duped, ladies.

According to Wikipedia, until the early 20th century, body hair removal was unheard of for women. The convergence of several factors changed all that. A higher population of women and a rise in women’s literacy led to an increase in women’s magazines. Fashion began to dictate sheerer fabric, shorter sleeves, and higher hemlines.

When Gillette introduced disposable safety razors for men for home use in 1903 and quickly sold 90,000, manufacturers soon realized they were missing half the American market. First, of course, they needed to create that market. Cyrus Curtis, the male publisher of the Ladies Home Journal, told advertisers the purpose of the magazine was not for the benefit of American women, but to give manufacturers a way to market their products to women. The goal of advertisers was to not only fulfill women’s needs but to create new ones.

Not so subtly, advertisers began to convince women that underarm hair was unfeminine, objectionable, unwelcome, embarrassing, unsightly, and unclean. Targeting upper-class women, a 1915 advertisement in Harper’s Bazaar for a depilatory powder called "X Bazin" shows an image of a woman in a sleeveless gown with her arm raised. The caption reads, “Summer Dress and Modern Dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair.” The ad even claimed that the product had been “used by women of refinement for generations.”

Hair removal on legs (known as “limbs” in polite society) came next. Since women wore thick stockings even after hemlines shortened, it wasn’t until the rationing of silk and nylon during World War II that the shaving of legs took off. Women who wanted to appear to be wearing nylons began to shave their legs and draw “seams” down the back of their calves. When hosiery again became both readily available and sheer, the practice of shaving legs continued.

Whether it’s hair removal, hair dye, lash extensions, micro-blading, make-up, or an insurmountable number of cosmetic products and procedures, few of us are immune to the pressure of what advertising and culture tell us is acceptable and desirable. I suppose if we wanted to stay positive, we could view this tyranny as job creation and good for the economy. Given how each successive generation knows more than the previous one, you might think we’d have risen above the dictates of fashion by now, but it seems we’re more enslaved than ever.

If you’re someone who lets nature run its course over the winter months—or all the time—take no offense. They’re your limbs and you can do what you want. As for me, I guess I’ll keep shaving my legs for now and not complain. I’m just grateful they’re still there and they still work.

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” (Proverbs 31:30)