Well, I’m not entirely sure what line of thought you ended up on, but if you have any more thoughts related to social justice issues, feel free to bring them up here. I appreciate your open-mindedness, I feel like you really consider what I say instead of just balking like a lot of people do when they disagree online.

I was born dirt-poor. White. Male. I never did anything to anybody, pretty much ever. Through my own fault(s), and then through a skewed perspective, I’ve always held the world-view that everybody is getting a helping hand out of situations like mine, while I languish in poverty, and despair. The irony is that I often resent people pointing to their status, whatever that may be, and demanding help. This has the appearance of every one benefitting from assistance, while poor, white, males are left to fend for themselves. Notice how I must identify a status in order to even define the observation. Yup. Irony.

Alright. Back to the drawing board.

I can say FGM without saying circumcision because FGM is the only one that supported the point I was making. Talking about male circumcision would have been a non sequitur. If I ever decide to talk about all forms of genital mutilation that are wrong, you can be sure I’ll include male circumcision on infants.

The ruling class here does not imprison itself at that ratio. The ruling class is, among other things, white, and it’s men of color who are imprisoned at ridiculous rates. I’m against that, as well as the draft.

Regarding patriarchy: first let’s establish that there’s no possible way you’re going to convince me that men and women are equally oppressed. I used to believe that, and I liked believing that, but alas. I’m not going to argue about that, but my blogroll has a few places that might help explain, like Feminism 101 (answers common questions) and Feministing (news on sexist stuff that’s happening). I’m happy to field specific questions, though.

Second, patriarchy doesn’t mean women are the only ones who suffer. I believe that patriarchy sets up strict gender roles in order to convince us that women and men are different enough to justify sexism. These gender roles are oppressive to both genders, simply because we are all demanded to fit them whether we naturally do or not. They can also be oppressive where the demands made on us are just unfair demands. So yeah, things like “real men don’t cry,” the draft, hyped-up expectations of knights in shining armor, unfairness to fathers in custody, that stuff hurts men and I’m totally against it. But I’m against it as a feminist, because I see their roots in patriarchy rather than in a fair fight with women on one side and men on the other. And patriarchy means that men are viewed more as the “norm” than women and that men have more power than women (before you factor in intersecting oppressions).

“One way in which men and women are eternally equal is that those who have their piece of the pie will surely defend it to the death.” I agree.

You made me realize with your response that my motivations weren’t exactly what I thought they were. In a sense, I see a human being complaining about things I simply think only exist in your head. But they don’t and you did good to make that clear. I suffer much more because of the way the birth-lottery worked out for me, and the beard only exacerbates this. The thing I would hope that you would take away from that is that neither sex has a lock on suffering, nor does either sex have a lock on oppression. I’m offended by the term Patriarchy coming from a woman living in a society where she has to neither register for the draft, nor endure the expectation of protecting women and children. Furthermore, look at the disparity between the sexes in our prison population. What ruling class in history, has ever imprisoned itself at a 5 to 1 ratio?

I’m picking at this, because there simply are no such clear cut conditions in the world anymore. For every way you feel oppressed, and made to suffer, as a woman, I can probably parallel that to a male experience. One way in which men and women are eternally equal is that those who have their piece of the pie will surely defend it to the death. Which usually involves pitting average folks, like you and I, against one and other so as to waste our energy.

Thanks for letting me rant. It’s been kool. Feel free to censor me, I really feel like I’m intruding. But, if you leave this up, that’d be kool too. Peace!

After my previous comment, I started to wonder if I had handled this the right way, because I’m against trying to weigh one type of oppression against another to see which is worse. So if I’m going to look at discrimination against beards as a real problem, I don’t want to try to figure out who it’s worse for. It’s clearly different. For instance, beards are more noticeable and considered more “public” and therefore easier to discriminate against, but beards CAN be seen positively, whereas female leg hair is pretty much NEVER seen positively except in a “yay you’re a feminist” way in limited groups. Apples and oranges, but both real problems.

The first thing I noticed was that the author of this post is defending it for not including mens issues. I agree with the author that it is perfectly alright for her to a) blog about anything she likes, and b) I don’t always consider women’s perspective when I write about mens’ issues. So, tit-for-tat, as far as I’m concerned. As we explore issues that face our own gender, it’s not always practical to couch every discussion so that it includes the perspectives of both sexes. The author is clearly talking about personal issues that face her as she sees it.

With that, I’d like to point out the issue of policy, and law. I’ve researched this quite extensively and there are so very few policies that require women to be clean shaven, while a significant body of policy is present requiring men to be so. When was the last time an employer touched your legs to make sure you shaved? When was the last time you were refused employment, because you were not clean shaven? The military’s grooming policy is written in law, and strictly forbids beards on men.

This also, the issue of public perception. I whole-heartedly disagree that there is significant pressure on women to shave their under-arms, or their legs. Much like breast-augmentation, I find this issue to be entirely a women’s issue. I would agree that women place a lot of pressure on each other to shave, and that this pressure is blamed on men; but I would not agree that the average guy has this expectation. I assert that you only think there is because other women, not men, have told you that.

One other angle I don’t see presented here, is that of sexuality. I am personally convinced this all has to do with the human-mammal’s predisposition toward preferring the nubile, to that of a more seasoned human-type-being, with regard to sexual attractiveness. I’m just rendering opinion here, not really interested in backing up any of my speculation. I think that shaving anything, for either sex, is an issue of maintaining that hairless, androgynous, look we all start out with.

Plus, a man’s beard hides facial features, especially bone-structure. Women being the more sensitive to appearance of the two sexes, I feel that a beard is much more of an issue to women, than leg-hair is to a man. Grotesque generalization, I realize, I’m just trying to discuss. Researchers have found that one of the most intense, and resource-demanding processes our brains deal with every day, is that of facial-recognition. Is it any wonder then that a beard short-circuits this process, and is therefore taboo?

My points are this. In both policy, and law, a man’s beard is discriminated against. The same is not true for women, and their leg, and under-arm hair. Socially, a man’s beard is every bit as, “frowned upon”, as female body-hair, if not more-so; and also can not be hidden. Lastly, this is a gender issue because men and women are treated differently. As a woman, when was the last time you were required to shave your face? Policies that distinguish between the sexes, and provide separate policy to be administered, is a clear example of a double-standard.

I’ve been keeping a journal for fourteen years now, regarding work. To date, I’ve been denied 346 job applications because of my beard. How many job-applications has the author of this entry been denied because of leg-hair?

Anyway, I mean no disrespect. You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, and your stance. I certainly am not here to tell you how to feel about your own personal issues, and resent a little that you are being pressured in such a manner. I would also reiterate that many of the social-pressures women claim to feel coming from men, are often not and are coming from within your own groups.

Yes, if beard discrimination is what you say it is, you’re more often exposed to it than women are exposed to leg hair discrimination, but that doesn’t mean the discrimination itself is stronger when it does occur. The choice to grow a beard is much more respected than the choice to grow female leg hair. I just googled beards and found this; do you honestly think results would be anywhere near so positive if this were about female leg hair? I’m not saying there are never bad impressions of beards or that this study says everything we need to know, just that there are *sometimes* very positive impressions of beards while there are really hardly ever positive impressions of female leg hair in American culture, unless you’re only asking certain types of feminists.

I kinda think I’m done arguing about this.

My face always is. If I skip shaving, inevitably, someone will refer to me as “scruffy”, tell me I really need to “clean up”, and things like that.

I also get more positive female glances when I’m clean shaven.

When I used to date, I had never dated a woman that wanted me to grow facial hair. I was always expected to shave.

Admittedly, I don’t watch a lot of television, but I see so many more commercials for male razors than female, when I do watch it. I’ve been inundated with razor ads for as long as I can remember.

I grew up with a toy razor as a child, and used to pretend to shave with my dad.

I don’t think they have toy lady razors for little girls.