This might be a difficult topic to broach, especially in a world where everything connected with a woman is unclean. This is not to scandalize anyone, especially since it is really embarrassing for me to write and share this. So, if you as a reader, are not comfortable with ‘gross’ and ‘indecent’, it would be better if you stop reading right here and now.
My mother has imparted many pearls of wisdom to me and one of the most womanly pieces of wisdom would be on reproductive health. Since I ‘became a woman’ when I was a kid, it was necessary that I knew exactly how to take care of myself. Within the ambit was shaving my pubic hair. There! I said it. An Indian girl talking about pubic in public.
For years I had thought it was something I had to do because my mother told me, then for years I did it because it was cleaner and more hygienic, at least for me. But the crux of the matter lies not in the phenomenon, but in the tool. The ever so holy razor! Guys might frown at this. After all, there are so many brands and range of products to shave. But truly, is there? What you are offered is close shave, smooth and smoothest. What we want is safe and without the issue of ingrown hairs arising later. At times, I would have to endure not shaving because it was hard to find the exact razor that I want, when I want. Each shave would leave my skin tender and raw. As opposed to after shave lotions, we apply moisturizers and heaven help us if it is not the right one. For a girl in our very conservative society, these are things really hard to come by. We don’t see the products on TV. We don’t read about them in magazines. After all, feminine products are limited to sanitary pads (well, we simply can’t keep cleaning blood off our thighs, can we now? That would be gross.) and cosmetics. We get to know of the products from shop keepers and friends. A whole lot of women at the mercy of strangers.
Then, last month, I asked my brother to get me a razor when he went shopping. The guy bought me an ultra costly razor. My usual brand, but a different product. He told me that the other product wasn’t available in that shop and this looked better. I didn’t even know such a product existed. I didn’t know what specifications would give me a nick free, safe, smooth shave. He did. He understood how the design works exclusively for women. It took a man to find the right product for a woman. A part of me felt offended that I hadn’t seen this first. A part of me felt happy that now I had a better alternative. But the largest part of me was wondering- why didn’t I find this razor before and why didn’t the system want me to?
Both the questions are interrelated. Answer number one is quite simple yet enlightening -because I didn’t know what I was looking for. Incredulous to imagine that. After all, women were gatherers predominantly. We could cherry pick the life out of the rainbow of fruits. I could dive into a pool of earrings and come out with the exact ones I want. Or go into a bookstore, browse the titles in one glance and know exactly which ones I should shortlist. But I didn’t know what products were available for my most sacred, intimate necessities. It was kept anointed in some corner among the men’s razors and forgotten. I was not targeted as the market for the product, because after all, shaving is a man’s arena. Women are meant to be born with silky smooth skin as they show in the advertisements and if they don’t, they have hair removers and waxing to take care of the detail. The removers, ladies, are in the other section, right next to the fairness cream.
The answer to question number two is even easier, though longer and convoluted unravels quite easily if you gut it the right way- because we are meant to have no choice. Women are invisible. Think about this. Everything except what a woman ‘needs’ to attract a man, is made for men exclusively. What women want is derived from those existing goods, like the good old Adam and Eve story. Only, in this society, it takes on a whole new meaning. Subjugation becomes so thoroughly ingrained in our being, that even we are programmed to shut reason off. I should have demanded my choices, instead of being satisfied with what they wanted me to find.On some level, the society has made sure that my body disgusts me, that I cannot ask for my share of TV space, that I should not be made the target audience of brands, that I should go around like a criminal for wanting to keep my genital area clean.
I hardly think this is the just my case. I have some friends who are conflicted about same or similar issues, which on a broad scale can be summarized as the apathy and indifference of a morally perverted institution when it comes to women’s needs. Not the kind of needs like how to make perfect sambhar or which washing powder gets the stains out of my husband’s shirt. But the real leaky, messy, smelly needs of a woman’s body without the accompanying cellulite dolls of the era. Whatever goes on in the parts of my body which the society cannot see is not its immediate concern, apparently. Then society should stop dictating the terms of my reproduction as well. It should also be quiet on how I want to utilise my body, including my brain. If it pretends it has the right and ownership over it, then every single cell of my body should be nurtured, my mind should be freed. But as long as it doesn’t happen, I am forced to hold a placard for my pubes.
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