- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 0
- 4
-
Sparkle (2)
Bear (no pun intended) with me a moment while I ease into the topic. Just yesterday I had a lovely lunch with the fine authors of Laurie Writes and Citizen of the Month. One of the subjects that crossed our path of varied discussion was couponing. It seems that coupons are the biggest thing to hit the internet/blogosphere since Facebook or Twitter.
Or something. I mentioned my mother-in-law's coupon prowess. The woman makes money from coupons. Once she bought over 150 packets of Tide powder tablets because she made 15 cents on every purchase. Who cared that none of us use powder laundry cleaners? Which was also the case for the Venus razor she gave me. I'm pretty upfront about my lack of interest in shaving any part of my body, but she got the razor for free (or made money off it) and asked me if I wanted it. I took it and it has sat in its plastic package on the floor for months. (If and when I am compelled to shave legs and/or armpits so as not to horrify the masses too badly, I prefer men's razors. They are made much, much better, but I'm getting off topic when I just got here, so I'll move on.)
So I admire female celebrities who don't shave. Remember when Julia Roberts had the temerity to flash a hairy armpit on the red carpet a few years ago (and less famously, while in Hawaii on vacation in September 2010)? Linda and her Twaddles does, and she's waxing (yes, pun intended) poetic about the incident and shaving armpits and legs. I also recently enjoyed very much Jenny McCarthy's story about how she didn't shave her crotch before posing for Playboy. (That part starts 3 minutes, 20 seconds into the clip -- hilarious!)
This brings me to a serial unshaven "offender," Mo'Nique. I kind of love Mo'Nique for many reasons, and I didn't even know that she was a staunch advocate of leaving her legs alone. Oh, people hate, hate, hate when women ignore conventional beauty standards, and Mo'nique has a lot of violations in addition to her infamously hair legs. Until now.
Stop the presses -- MO'NIQUE SHAVED HER LEGS! I know! If this is not more important than the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, seriously, I do not know what is.
Now, some people might think that I am a bitter, angry, hairy legged feminist (which is true) who is going to lash out at Mo'Nique for giving in (which is not, as you will see in the next sentence, true). I actually couldn't care less. I hope that she didn't do it because she was constantly described as "gross, disgusting, and nasty," but I kind of don't think that Mo'Nique gives a shit about anonymous assholes on the internet criticizing her legs. If she cared that much, she'd have to lose weight too, as people really, really hate women who are not a size 4 or below.(Maybe it is one step at a time, since overweight hairy women are probably the worst insult to humanity since Vogue was invented.)
I think Mo'Nique probably shaved her legs because she felt like it. She seems to do a lot of things because they are right for her, which is why I like her. If that's the case, good for her. Her body is hers. If she wants to shave parts of it, she should. If she doesn't, she shouldn't. Who the hell is anyone to say that there is one way to look or not look?
As a woman who somewhat lives in conventional society, I can say that it is hard to have all those messages about what is feminine and what is not (and hence "disgusting"). Even as a kid, I got flack from my peers all the time. I clearly remember being in third grade in gym and a bunch of kids chanting at me that I had the hairiest arms (not
