One day a few years ago I was sitting on the floor in the Nursery at church, playing with one of the 3 year olds. I was wearing a knee-length skirt and had my bare legs stretched out in front of me. This innocent angel asked me, "Why do you have hair on your legs?" My reply was, "Because I'm a mammal." This prompted giggles from the other ladies in the room and a follow-up question of, "What's a mammal?" from my little friend.
I had decided a few years before this incident that I was done with buying into our culture's obsession with female hairlessness. Shaving was never something that I enjoyed doing or was totally convinced was worth it. Sure, silky smooth legs feel amazing between clean bed sheets, but is that fleeting feeling (stubble! grrr!) worth the time, money, and risk of cuts and infection? For me, the answer was often "no."
Then in college I took a Women's History class. One section was spent studying old advertising, and I realized that there was a whole billion-dollar "beauty" industry that made more money when it could convince me that I wasn't beautiful the way God made me. That made me sick. (And don't even get me started on the absurd double standard that a man with his natural body hair is fine but a woman with her natural body hair is disgusting!) This was big in convincing me to ditch my makeup (another thing that I didn't do because I enjoyed it) and razor for good. I've talked about this before in this post.
It did take me a while longer to ignore social pressure and quit being embarrassed about choosing to let my body hair grow the way it was designed to.
If you're a woman (or man) who loves to be hairless for whatever reason, then that's fine. You do you. My point is that both are valid options.
Here's some good articles on the subject, written by people that are more knowledgeable and eloquent than myself:
Why I Will Never Shave My Legs Again by Suzanne Weiss
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