Students of Women/Gender Studies at ASU get credit for not shaving

[Moonlight Graham]

IMAGINE getting extra credit at uni for not shaving? Yep, that’s right, students at Arizona State University (ASU) in the US are passing their course by letting it all grow out.

The Women and Gender Studies class is run by Professor Breanne Fahs who encourages her female students to stop shaving their underarms and legs for 10 weeks during the semester and to document their experience in a journal.

Student Stephanie Robinson said it was a “life changing experience.”

...

Professor Fahs said it's a great lesson about the social issues around gender roles. “There’s no better way to learn about societal norms than to violate them and see how people react,” said Fahs. “There’s really no reason why the choice to shave, or not, should be a big deal. But it is, as the students tend to find out quickly.”

Male students were also able to participate however Fahs believes it’s not quite the same as it is for females with “manscaping” more accepted in society. For the extra credits, the male students were made to shave all their body hair from the neck down.

...

Surprised by the positive feedback, Fahs idea has spread to other universities and given some students the confidence to challenge social norms.

Jaqueline Gonzalez credits the body hair project with helping to shape her into the activist she is today. “The experience helped me better understand how pervasive gendered socialisation is in our culture,” Gonzalez said.

http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/students-of-women-and-gender-studies-at-asu-get-credit-for-not-shaving/story-fnh81jut-1226979530205

This is a very interesting idea and teaching method (though full credit is a bit much), As a man, shaving my legs and arms during the summer months would get some looks, especially from friends/family/significant others.

So do you think you could go 10 weeks doing what the students did, especially in the summer with shorts and tees/tank tops etc.? As I said, it would be really weird shaving my legs and arms, i'd be worried about the harsh hair growing back in. For full credit though i'd probably do it.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Moonlight Graham

[WestCoastRunner]

I don't think this course is just about growing hair to earn a credit. The course is called 'Women and Gender Studies' so I expect they are covering topics similar to any other women's studies course. Having said that, it does sound like an interesting experiment, although I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have signed up for it in my university days.

When you really think about it, why do women shave? Who started this whole thing!!

[Guest]

Being European, I never could figure out why women shaved their armpits.

[-1=e^ipi]

Full credit for doing this seems a bit much.

When you really think about it, why do women shave? Who started this whole thing!!

Women shave for a number of reasons, but probably one of the bigger ones is societal pressure.

As for the origins, even though the practice has morphed into a cultural phenomenon, its origins are probably related to sexual dimorphism, sexual attraction, and human evolutionary history.

Men have a longer biological clock and mature later, as a result it was and still is common for the male partner to be older than the female partner. Furthermore, if a male gets a female that is younger, she has a longer remaining time window to reproduce and is less likely to have pregnancy complications, so attraction to younger females is evolutionary favourable. In hunter gatherer societies where people have a lifespan of 30 years (most of human history), these evolutionary pressures would be very strong. Shaving one's legs gives the impression of being younger, which can increases the chances of a female to attract a male. It is actually a bit similar to the theory of blondness being primarily a sexually selected trait.

http://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/why-are-men-attracted-to-blonde-women/

The other thing you have to remember is that humans have been slowly losing body hair over millions of years, so it is not unreasonable to expect less body hair to have become a sexually attractive trait based on evolution. In males, body hair isn't a big deal due to sexual dimorphism since it helps distinguish males from females.

[Michael Hardner]

So do you think you could go 10 weeks doing what the students did, especially in the summer with shorts and tees/tank tops etc.? As I said, it would be really weird shaving my legs and arms, i'd be worried about the harsh hair growing back in. For full credit though i'd probably do it.

For the men, you have to SHAVE everything below the neck. I couldn't do it, even for extra credit.

Are you a woman MG ?

[Michael Hardner]

Being European, I never could figure out why women shaved their armpits.

I mostly like smooth skin so I "get it". I think standards of beauty are a bad idea, though, and much prefer incentive for everybody to take care of themselves.

[Michael Hardner]

Also - the source story is likely a better place to get information on this project.

https://asunews.asu.edu/20140703-body-shaving

[cybercoma]

There's a lot to be learned from this exercise. She has them documenting their experiences. It's not often in a university course that you get to experience personally the lessons to be learned.

[Michael Hardner]

There's a lot to be learned from this exercise. She has them documenting their experiences. It's not often in a university course that you get to experience personally the lessons to be learned.

Indeed - just the prospect of having to shave my body like that evokes a physical response in me. I learned something just reading about the course. Would I do it to be more attractive though ? Probably.

[guyser]

, i'd be worried about the harsh hair growing back in.

Its a myth that happens.

Hair is hair

[Moonlight Graham]

For the men, you have to SHAVE everything below the neck. I couldn't do it, even for extra credit.

Are you a woman MG ?

I'm a man. Well legs and arms is a maybe, but whole body below neck wouldn't be socially much different but would be very annoying given some of the "sensitive areas", which the prof couldn't confirm anyways so I'd just cheat and say I shaved everything haha. It would be a ton more work for the guys in the class than the girls.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Moonlight Graham

[Boges]

I wonder what marketable skills you learn by shaving and/or not shaving.

[cybercoma]

I wonder what marketable skills you learn by shaving and/or not shaving.

Yes. Because school should be about job training and only job training.

[Moonlight Graham]

I wonder what marketable skills you learn by shaving and/or not shaving.

I'm sure it could be useful as a psychologist, social worker, or researcher.

[Guest]

I mostly like smooth skin so I "get it". I think standards of beauty are a bad idea, though, and much prefer incentive for everybody to take care of themselves.

I can see legs, in the same way I can see dyed hair. If it makes you feel good, etc. Armpits are hidden most of the time, and for those few times they are not, it seems an awful lot of effort. Still, different strokes and all that.

[jacee]

This is a very interesting idea and teaching method (though full credit is a bit much),

...

For full credit though i'd probably do it.

It doesn't say [a] "full credit".

It says "extra credit" ... and that usually means a few bonus marks on top of the course requirements.

yup ... from the original source posted by Michael:

"an extra-credit exercise"

" the extra-credit assignment,"

It's one (voluntary, optional) assignment.

It's not a full course credit, and not even a course requirement.

But very interesting.

.

Edited July 10, 2014 by jacee

[Michael Hardner]

MG said he'd do it for full credit, which I took to mean the 'extra credit', whatever that means, probably wouldn't be enough motivation.

[Moonlight Graham]

It doesn't say [a] "full credit".

It says "extra credit" ... and that usually means a few bonus marks on top of the course requirements.

yup ... from the original source posted by Michael:

"an extra-credit exercise"

" the extra-credit assignment,"

It's one (voluntary, optional) assignment.

It's not a full course credit, and not even a course requirement.

But very interesting.

.

So you're saying it's not for full-credit?

[The_Squid]

I wonder what marketable skills you learn by shaving and/or not shaving.

You're right.... Let's get rid of any course that doesn't directly result in a "marketable skill"...

No more history... You can't make money knowing what year the War of 1812 happened....

Law - unless you're intending to become a lawyer, no one should learn law.

There are plenty more "useless" courses we could eliminate using arbitrary criteria like "marketable"....

[Hal 9000]

Extra credit for recruiting feminists and feminizing men is another example of social engineering. What would happen if extra credit was handed out for men to grow beards and women to wear high heals and mini shirts?

[Michael Hardner]

Extra credit for recruiting feminists and feminizing men is another example of social engineering. What would happen if extra credit was handed out for men to grow beards and women to wear high heals and mini shirts?

"Social Engineering" sounds like a conspiracy theory term. Who is getting paid to engineer society anyway ? Feminist theory is now a venerable field of study that makes for a better world.

Actually, I could see a class like that doing an exercise as you describe also !

[eyeball]

10$ says most men would be turned on and feel more sexual when shaved. That seems like an odd thing to try to evoke in a class on gender roles. Guys get turned on by the weirdest stuff - tell us something else we don't know.

[cybercoma]

"Social Engineering" sounds like a conspiracy theory term. Who is getting paid to engineer society anyway ? Feminist theory is now a venerable field of study that makes for a better world.

Actually, I could see a class like that doing an exercise as you describe also !

it also seems like a really inefficient way to engineer society. Their target population is only those who go to university, of them only those who go into liberal arts, of those only those who take this course about gender, of those only the people who choose to do the assignment for extra credit. That's a pretty limited scope if you're trying to engineer an entire society.

[Michael Hardner]

That's a pretty limited scope if you're trying to engineer an entire society.

But the Clintons ensure that they get a place in government... and then Hollywood... and the environmentalists... etc. etc.

[Argus]

When you really think about it, why do women shave? Who started this whole thing!!

It's funny how shaving armpits and faces on women morphed into shaving legs once skirts got shorter, then genitals as bathing suits got smaller. It's like hair on women is a huge turn-off (which it is) yet at the same time, most men love long hair on women...

As for men, the pressure has grown on them in the last decade or so, and young guys are also shaving their chests and genital region (even though mens shorts and bathing suits have gotten much longer). No more of these guys in the movies or on TV... http://www.pinterest.com/pin/475552041875829623/