April 17, 2005
A Hairy Woman
Part One of "Pondering Lilith:"
By Theresa Dintino
The langsuir is a female demon, who appears either as a predatory night owl or as a seductive woman . . .The langsuir should be caught, then her overlong fingernails should be cut off and her thick hair should be stuffed into a hole in her neck. In this way, the langsuir will be completely tamed.-- Hurwitz, The First Eve
In Junior High, I was one of the last girls to begin the lifelong ritual of shaving her legs. I can still remember how intensely I dreaded the arrival of gym class because we had to wear shorts, thereby exposing to all present the hairiness of me.
My mother never talked to us of matters such as these. Shaving, among other feminine hygiene concerns was not discussed openly in our home. There had also been the recent conversation between my parents-but loud enough for all of us to hear-concerning the increased amount of razor blades being used, complete with a cutting remark toward my older sister who had only recently begun. The contents of the discussion implied that, not only were they displeased that she had started shaving but that it was, for them, an expensive undertaking.
As a girl, the last thing I wanted to do was cause a problem (thank goodness that has changed), let alone inflict further financial strain upon my already overburdened parents. I dare not shave.
I was not alone. There was one other girl in my gym class whose legs also still possessed the dreaded fuzz. In my humiliation I would use her as an anchor for my mind to cling to, telling myself over and over again, I'm not the only one.
We both belonged to the same Roman Catholic Church. I remember wondering even then if this had something to do with our delayed entrance into the rites of womanhood.
I would obsess on her legs the entire duration of the class. There were many rituals: one being staring at her legs, trying to determine how visible the hair actually was; measuring how close she had to get to me for me to see the hair. Her hair was darker and more abundant than mine. I found the greatest solace in that.
One day, during gymnastics, while we were all observing my fellow hairy beast on the balance beam, I made a horrifying discovery. Her legs were clean shaven. Since the last gym class she had entered the secret society of shavers.
I wanted to disappear, to sink beneath the floorboards, turn into a speck of dust upon the mat or, at the very least, run away to the comfort of full-length pants. I was the last girl in my gym class with hair on her legs. The one, the only one who had not started shaving. I knew everyone was looking at me. I knew everyone knew. I tried to take my mind off it, but it was no use. The only things that existed were my two hairy legs, exposed-beacons-for all the world to see.
The feelings I had about myself at that moment seem so odd and inappropriate when I consider them now. I still shave, reluctantly and I must add, quite sloppily. It's hard to do something well when you really don't care about it. However, when I try to stop or just go way too long between shaves, those same odd and inappropriate feelings rise up in me, surprising me still: I feel dirty, stinky and masculine.
Through the ages, Lilith, the first feminist of the western world, has been associated with hairy legs. Lilith was the first wife of Adam (yes, you read that correctly). Having been created at the same time, of the exact same materials as he, she demanded equality, refusing to submit to him in any way. Her behavior got her the same treatment any woman of such character since the dawn of the western world has received: severe punishment and subsequent banishment.
Together, Adam and His God conspired to send her away to the Red Sea. Thereafter, Adam was presented with a woman more suitable to his ego. We are all familiar with here. She is our very own Eve.
Like any person banished for deviation and then excluded, rumors and stories grew up around Lilith. In the Jewish Midrashim and throughout the esoteric texts of the Kabbalah, as well as Middle Eastern and European myth and folklore, they flourished. Like most rumors which grow out of fear, they are intensely negative and progressively more horrific.
One of the themes that pervade these stories is the fact that Lilith is a hairy woman. The long black hair on her head possesses magical powers, demons may collect in the long locks; they could possibly ensnare you.
There was even the belief that you could tell if a woman was Lilith in disguise by the amount of hair upon her legs. In The Book of Lilith, Barbara Black Koltuv recounts Rivkah Kluger's telling of King Solomon trying to determine whether the Queen of Sheba was Lilith in disguise. For assistance in assessing this fact, he had a glass floor built around his throne. Upon approaching it, the Queen of Sheba thought it to be water. Wishing to keep her skirt dry, she lifted it, thereby exposing her hairy, Lilith legs.
The third definition for hairy given in the Webster's New World Dictionary is: 3. (slang) difficult, distressing, harrowing. Goodness knows, Lilith is all of these.
And yet, all women, everywhere, grow hair upon their legs. If all women, everywhere, grow hair upon their legs, then all women are Lilith in disguise. Every time we obediently shave our own legs, we banish the Lilith within us back to the depths of the sea.
And what of those feelings I get when I do not? Dirty? Dirty: unclean, unpure, not virginlike. My pure girl body turning into that of a woman's made me feel dirty. Abundant hair growth, triggering the need to shave, is but an indication, a visible outward sign, of what is to come next, if it has not come already. The most offensive thing of all that a woman's body insists on doing is spite of all the revulsion and disgust -- bleeding.
It is no accident that Lilith was sent to live out her eternal life in the Red Sea. Anyone who looks at a map can quickly determine the reasons for associations between women and this particular body of water. There is also the matter of the color.
Red Water.
Women are so connected with blood -- the flow of life -- "the watery realm of creation" (Gimbutas). Our minds may separate from it, but our bodies never can. Our bodies will live out this life whether we pay attention or not. Of course, Lilith lives within and is at ease in this place. Lilith is not split from her body. Of course this is her home.
Most women bleed every single month for a full week, for a large portion of their life. Yet in our society, this is easy -- even for a woman -- to forget. It is, along with shaving, and other feminine body functions to be taken care of and dealt with out of the public eye. Most women consider it to be a nuisance.
Hair arriving on certain parts of the female body, like the arrival of her first bleeding, represents the completely overlooked crossing of the threshold into womanhood. With the entrance into womanhood comes the monthly, rhythmic possibility of conception, followed by either fertilization or the death of that possibility. This death of possibility the body releases is one of the most cleansing and healing processes known. Yet, for so many years now, this cycle and process of cleansing have been considered impure, disgusting -- dirty.
Red. That most sacred and holy color to early people, signifying possibility and the creativity which arises from pure possibility. For a woman this cycle of possibility occurs within her over and over again every single moon. The ancients recognized and honored not only the possibility of conception of an actual child, but this sacred cycle as a reference point for possibility in all areas of our lives. If we would but free ourselves to remember the deep wisdom this actual felt, experienced knowledge has to offer us about the circular cycles of life and death, what leaps and bounds could be made in the realm of human consciousness.
Stinky? Sometimes women stink. Most often they feel that they stink when they actually do not. No one tells women directly that we stink, but what is a person to think when they are told to wear perfume, use perfumed shampoos and soaps, deodorants and creams, perfumed douches and the latest and truly most offensive products of all, deodorized tampons and pads.
How can you deodorize something before is even exists? The implication of these latest two additions to feminine hygiene is unimaginably offensive. These products imply that the mere thought of what these items shall be used for at some future date requires anti-stink properties. Unfortunately, these anti-stink properties are usually chemicals. Tampons are inserted into the female body. The thought of harsh chemicals sitting within a female vagina for extended period of time is almost unthinkable.
How have we strayed so far? What kind of psychological effect can it have upon a person to be told that their insides stink? Let's face it, natural, unattended to female equals stinky. That message had clearly settled itself into my twelve-year-old mind.
Masculine? Masculine. Ah, there's the rub. The real double bind: feeling masculine.
The feelings I have when I feel masculine do not fit in with the definition of masculine. I do not feel like a man or a boy. What I feel when I'm feeling masculine is unfeminine, in the artificial sense of the word. The meanings and associations that have come to form around the word, feminine, have nothing at all to do with the actual living, human female being who does indeed grow hair, bleed and heaven help us, now and then doth posses and odor less than floral in bouquet.
The artificial female-the one that is held up for women in our society to emulate, smells flowery (always), is very thin, polite, dainty, delicate, pure, clean and hair free in all the required hair free places. Any deviation from one or more of the above requirements tips the scale over into the realm of unfeminine. Many deviations lead us down that dreaded road toward, masculinity and even worse, imply the most horrifying curse of all for a woman-ugly.
Lilith is raw, instinctual, physical female. I think it is safe to say that these particular rumors are true. Being a woman of Mediterranean descent, you can be sure she has a lot of hair, all over her body.
In traditional and ancient cultures hair has long been a symbol of power-inner power manifesting itself in outward form. Of course Lilith is hairy. Her power is unquestionable.
In shaving off our hair, are we cutting, hiding or rejecting our own inner power? Are we grooming it to fit acceptable standards of female power? Are we not being asked to abandon our femininity in the original sense of the word? The very essence of our female being, that which connects us to the earth as well as the cosmos, is it not this which is being denied?
The only way back is by reclaiming our true femaleness. We can start by at least recognizing and acknowledging the bodily experience that is uniquely female.
After all, Lilith is not only hairy. She also has feathers. Lilith is winged. She soars through the air. She has the vision and precision of an owl.
It was my sister, the one who had only recently been publicly shamed by my parents for her entrance into the secret society of shavers, who finally, understanding my shame and humiliation, encouraged me to shave. I'll never forget the day. It was late spring and we were taking down the laundry. The weather was warm, yet I continued to wear pants and tights. Go ahead. Just do it, she urged. You have to. You don't want to wear pants the rest of your life.
She was right. I sure didn't. That night I took a razor to my legs. The next day I wore shorts to school.
For years, when I thought back upon that fatal day in gym class I would slip into a fantasy about having had a mother who encouraged me to shave at a younger age, to spare me all that pain and humiliation. Now, my fantasy has changed. Now it is the fantasy of a mother who encourages her daughter not to shave. In my new fantasy, the mother argues a wonderful case against taking a razor to those tender, twelve year old legs. I hope, when the time comes, I can assume the role.
Theresa Dintino is a feminist author residing in Sebastopol, California. See our review of her latest book, Stories They Told Me
Visit Theresa's web site: http://www.ritualgoddess.com