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me_irl
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this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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me_irl
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That's very clearly not the reason though, as those same beauty standards emphasize post-pubescent secondary sexual characteristics a lot too (big boobs, hips, butts, full lips).
The common thread seems to be just a way to hyper-differentiate from masculinity. In this patriarchal binary beauty standard, the most non-masculine woman is the same as the most feminine (assuming they also have those secondary sexual characteristics, otherwise you dip into androgeny). Basically, if you already have feminine qualities, then less man=more woman. It's why tall or more muscular women are seen as less feminine, not because they aren't childlike FFS.
Men have more body hair, therefore manlier men are hairier, and by extension the more feminine women have the least body hair.
Patriarchal society values youth and beauty in women above all else, and the older a girl gets, the hairier she becomes.
Individual aesthetic reasons for hair removal on female bodies are valid, but these choices are still being made within the society we live in and are often still made in order to conform to it.
I'm not so quick to immediately jump on the "omg it's pedophilia!" bandwagon. It's lazy and needlessly inflammatory. If everything is pedophilia than nothing is pedophilia. That's a charge we should reserve for very rare occasions.
Certainly not when the null hypothesis works just fine. Male and female beauty standards are cultural, but they're not completely arbitrary. They're mostly just exaggerated versions of actual physical sex differences. Women on average have fuller lips than men. So we wear lipstick to accentuate this. Men tend to go bald more often, so women's beauty standards contrasts this by tending towards long and highly styled hair. Men traditionally go for short haircuts or no hair at all, again accentuating male secondary sex characteristics. Women on average tend to have less body hair then men. So women's beauty standards tend to encourage its complete removal.
Beauty standards are subjective, but they're not just pulled arbitrarily from a hat. No one ever sat down one day, spun a big wheel and said, "ok, by spin of the wheel, women have to shave their bodies but get to have long hair!" Beauty standards are largely just exaggerations of actual biological sex differences.
I didn't mention pedophillia. The only people bringing up pedo shit are the ones who haven't understood what I wrote and are angry because they saw the word 'patriarchy'.
YOU LITERALLY DID! And now you're trying to weasel your way out of it by saying, "well, I didn't explicitly use the word pedophilia, I just implied men are attracted to the features of pre-pubescent children." There is a word for an adult that is sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children. That word is pedophile. You are literally arguing that female beauty standards are pedophilic.
Where did I do that? Could you show me please? Specifically the bit about this being to cater to mens attractions please.
It's ok to look words up you don't understand.