For the Last Time About Feminism & Hair

XOJane Executive Editor Emily McCombs went on a fun Twitter rant this morning about other feminists worrying about her pubic hair. It brings up the age-old question: Can feminists worry about both Saudi driving laws and bikini waxes?

The short answer is, of course (McCombs herself notes that the two are not conditional), and I'm generally loathe to put the kibosh on any sort of feminist discussion, no matter how seemingly frivolous the subject. There's nothing worse than the Oppression Olympics ('yes, this is destructive, but not nearly as terrible as this WAY MORE destructive thing'). Not every feminist conversation has to be about social justice. But at a certain point, some issues—like what women do with their own body hair, last names or lip colors—do start to get tedious and start to seem like more of a distraction than relevant discussion. I don't know what spawned McCombs' Tweets this morning, but I have to agree: Don't we have more important things to worry about?

Beauty culture debates can be insightful, and it's important for us all to examine why we engage in certain beauty practices. But all too often this can devolve into people telling one another what the "right" feminist response to something is. And this serves no one except people who like to see themselves shouting about how they're the most correctly feminist of all. I think the final word on this should be:

[I also think I need to say "Off my dick, please" more often. Why should guys have all the fun with that one?]

Of course, Instagram recently deleted artist Petra Collins' account after she posted a photo of her unwaxed bikini line. So let's not pube-shame each other, y'all, but sometimes people are going to provoke us to talk about pubic hair and the choices we make with it. And that's okay, too.

Image via Flickr user Oliviamabrey