“You know, she doesn’t shave her legs…”
“Asa!”
“What? I just wanted him to know what he’s getting into…”
This conversation happened just after my first official date with the man who became my husband roughly 6 months later. Needless to say, I was mortified.
In a way, I still am. Why is the state of my leg hair of such critical importance?
Because it is. In American culture, female hair is a really big deal. Just stop, for one moment, and think about just how much money and time goes into managing, or removing hair from various parts of the female anatomy. Mind-boggling, isn’t it?
Leg hair, as it turns out, is a big deal to me. A really big deal. God put it on me. Why should I be expected to remove it? But then, those Barbies I played with as a child had long, slender, monochromatic limbs, free from messy little growths. They shone. They were beautiful.
I have long, slender legs. With a good tan, they used to look quite a bit like Barbie legs. Now that I’m in my thirties, I am beginning to notice irritating imperfections, like stretch marks and little purple spider veins.
Wait a minute. Why am I even LOOKING at my legs? Ugh.
Because we all do. I watched a children’s movie tonight with my family, and I was stunned by the number of shots of women’s LEGS, smooth, hairless, slender, toned legs, that were displayed. Did I mention that this was a CHILDREN’s movie? Oh, how effectively my offspring are being indoctrinated.
It makes me angry.
Asa was right. When I met my husband, I didn’t shave my legs. My relationship with hair removal has been on-again, off-again. Literally.
At the ripe old age of 12, I started begging for the “right” to shave my legs. It was the way things were, according to the fashion magazines I read, the puckered and plucked women I saw on TV, and the pretty, popular girls in school.
But there were always the women who didn’t. And they fascinated me. How could a woman walk around, especially in a bathing suit, as I saw some do, with clearly visible leg and armpit hair? Where did they get such confidence? Where did they get such a counter-cultural self-image? Were they dirty? Didn’t they notice “everyone” staring?
When I left my hometown, I generally stopped seeing “hairy” women. And, over the years, I noticed that, when I was least confident, I was most groomed. During my most abusive dating relationship, I found myself obsessively concerned with always presenting a perfectly groomed, nearly hairless physique. It gave me pause. My feelings toward my leg and body hair reflected my feelings toward myself. By the time Aaron and I began dating, I had laid down my razor, and promised myself a level of self-acceptance that I was, frankly, incapable of maintaining.
You see, I was raised on Barbie, and 17 magazine. (I begged for them.) I grew up listening to completely sexualizing music. I wanted to see myself as something amazing, but deep down, a picture of myself as a mere sex object reigned.
So, when it was time to get married, I got out the wax. If I wax my legs, I’m not shaving, right? After wax, I tried an old-school, metal coil epilator, those little sandpaper pads that abrade hair off of your body, sugaring, harsh chemicals that burned the hair off, and more. I guess I was pretty worried about not being “enough.” You see, my husband was raised on those same images of femininity, the ones that demand a perfectly sculpted figure, smooth, flawless skin, and dear god, don’t grow hair anywhere but the top of your head, and your eyelashes. For those, absurdly long and thick would be best.
So, for the last 14 years or so, I’ve shaved, waxed, and plucked my way through life. My irritation with the entire concept of hair removal regularly rears its head, and my husband is stuck trying to snuggle up to a very prickly woman, as I let the shaving of my legs slip, again and again.
Recently, my family and I moved back to my hometown. And I am seeing hairy women, again. I see women with leg hair. I see women with armpit hair. I see women who are aging gracefully, with long, thick braids of hair, in their natural colors, shot through with white. I see fit, shapely, happy women, who are unashamed of the way their body was designed to behave.
I stare at them.
I stare at their legs, and try to decide if they’re beautiful, or horrifying. I stare at their armpits, and wonder, if I let mine go, how much would my own armpit hair show? And, would I get terrible body odor?
I stare at these women, and pray they don’t notice. I watch them with a fascination that might make some doubt my sexual orientation.
I don’t want to have sex with these women. I want to be one of them. But I’m afraid of the stares, probably of women like me. Women who are envious. Women whose addiction to a razor feels like a compromise of their true selves. Why should I have to spend hours a week removing the hair God put on my body?
And, what if I stop?
I am angry. This anger burns in me, feels like a lump in my throat, and a tremble in my core. I want to pick up the phone, and make a man cry. I want to make him sob with remorse. But he won’t. Calling him out on his lies will simply confirm his fear and hatred of women. He will wonder how my husband let me get so out of control.
He’s a liar, and a cheat. He’s an abuser, and an enabler. Tonight, I sincerely hate him, and I want to pray Psalms of vengeance at him. But I realize that this one man, this one Pastor, is just one of so very many. My anger at him is misdirected. He is WRONG, and I think he may, in fact, be evil. But he’s just a pawn. He believes his own lies. At least, Dear God in Heaven, I hope that he does, or his Evil is beyond my ability to understand.
In the Messiah’s time, Pastors were called Teachers of the law, or Pharisees. About them, he said:
For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. –Matthew 23:4
I’ve never met this man. I do not know his name. It’s better for us both, this way.
I do know that women come to his church, and are bound in strips of legalism that tear their skin, that make them bleed until they are shells. I have watched one, vibrant woman slowly die before my eyes, assisted by her husband, supported by their pastor. I met another woman this past week into whom this pastor had just sunk his talons. Thanks to his influence, she had nearly violated her own restraining order against a dangerous man. I pray to God that I set her free. Please, dear God, don’t ever let her go back to that church!
Psalm 94 says:
20 Can a corrupt throne be allied with you—
one that brings on misery by its decrees?
These men, these pastors. Their teaching is corrupt. And I have watched them make women miserable all of my life!
Dear God! These men are why I can no longer call myself a Christian.
You brood of vipers! I will not identify myself with you! I will not follow your rules! I will NOT BE SILENT WHILE YOU CRUSH WOMEN’S SOULS!
Damn you.
Or in the words of Psalm 94, again:
1 O LORD, the God who avenges,
O God who avenges, shine forth.
2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth;
pay back to the proud what they deserve.
3 How long will the wicked, O LORD,
how long will the wicked be jubilant?
4 They pour out arrogant words;
all the evildoers are full of boasting.
5 They crush your people, O LORD;
they oppress your inheritance.
6 They slay the widow and the alien;
they murder the fatherless.
I do, I must hope and believe that there is a change on the horizon. That the men who beat women down, and bind them in self-hatred and fear for all of their lives will, finally, be exposed for the charlatans they don’t know that they are.
Judgment will again be founded on righteousness,
and all the upright in heart will follow it.–Psalm 94:15
But I cannot fight this battle by myself. I know that there are others, somewhere, who see this evil. Women who, like me, have seen the rampant infidelity rates among the clergy. Or, perhaps we should discuss the molestation?
Tonight, I’m mad because all of my life, I have watched and listened to Christian clergy support and enable abusive men. I have listened to them accuse and manipulate women into believing that they deserve to be abused, that they are Eve.
We are NOT EVE! We are Chavah! And I know, dear men in religious power, that your power is an addiction, and you’re afraid to let it go. That’s okay. Just keep telling abused women to go back to violent men. Keep lying to women about what scripture teaches, in order to secure your own, superior position in their eyes. Keep abusing that position. Just keep telling young girls that they are stumbling blocks. Make them ashamed of their beautiful curves. Just keep right on cheating on your wives, and convincing them it’s for their own good. I dare you. You have been given plenty of rope, and the noose has been forming for millennia.
I will tell them the truth. And we will rise. And Chavah will be revealed. The image of God was made flesh in TWO parts, male and FEMALE. Your religion is crippled, because you’re missing half of the picture. You’ve abandoned the Breasted one, the All-Sufficient, El Shaddai. She will be reflected. Women will see the image of God in the mirror, once again.
You can peddle your andro-centric view of Divinity for a little while longer, because this war is too big for me to win, alone.
Meanwhile, I wonder if anyone else sees. Even better, I wonder if anyone else is willing to fight. And I wonder, where are the true, courageous, good men, who could stand with us, and put a stop to the lies, once and for all?
Who will rise up for me against the wicked?
Who will take a stand for me against evildoers?—from Psalm 94
“Then ____________ was the best Christian, because he said that God just came and fixed it.”
This comment by my daughter, as we drove home from an “us girls” only shopping trip to the Paper factory, BOTHERED ME!!! She was telling me about a story that she and her classmates in a Drama class had made up, that day. She felt less spiritual than another child, because HE believed that God could just come and “Fix it.”
He’s the best Christian because he said that God just came and FIXED IT???? Excuse me?!?
So, I took a deep breath, counted to 10, and initiated a little talk.
“Shalom, saying that didn’t make him the best Christian.”
“It didn’t?”
“No, honey. You see, God CAN just come and fix things, but usually, he asks us to do it.”
“He does?”
“Yes, honey. God can be the hero, anytime He wants. But God likes to let us be the heroes.”
“Is that why, in movies, they always show PEOPLE being the heroes?”
“That’s right! God being the hero, and a person being the hero is the same thing. God likes to make us the heroes.”
“That’s like Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, and those nice people, who hid those men.”
“You mean Rahab, honey. Rahab hid the Israelite spies, and it saved her life.”
“Yeah, HER!”
“Shalom, do you believe that God could have hidden those spies by Himself?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, he could. But what would have happened to Rahab, if God hid the spies?”
“She would have died, like everyone else…. And Joshua won the battle, and so did God.”
“Right. God is the hero, and so are we, when we obey Him. Why do you think God lets us be the heroes?”
“He loves us.”
He loves us, indeed.
I LIVE for conversations like this one.
My daughter has just been empowered. She sees herself as an instrument of God’s will. She believes that she is a blessing, and can be the hero. She will not sit back, allow Evil to triumph in her life, and wait for God to come and save her. I am teaching this precious woman of God how to bring the Glory of God’s Love and Will to bear in her own life, and by extension, in the world.
I will, I must empower women. I will release the feminine side of the Divine Image upon a desperate world that needs us. I will start with my daughters.
