Erika Underteat, a self-proclaimed feminist, opened up to The Garter last Sunday about her struggle in relation to the question of hair removal. In a recent statement to the press, Underteat admitted that after much consideration she finally decided to shave one leg and leave the other hairy, as mark of her compromise between warring ideological factions.
Underteat reveals she came to the decision to avoid the biweekly toss up – between the “boredom of spending forty minutes in the shower, that could have been put towards literally any other productive task, or the pain of copping side eye from co-workers and senior citizens on the bus.”
Trying to rationalise between these two powerful influences, for Erika, shaving one leg, one underarm, and waxing half of her upper lip was clearly the optimal choice.
“Removing half my snail trail actually took more time and precision than shaving the whole thing would have, but hey, it was worth it for the principle of the thing,” She explained.
This isn’t the first time Underteat has let feminism inform the way she conducts her life and beauty regimen. “The other day I sat down with all my razors, scissors and makeup brushes around me and read the them the full text of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Then I tucked them into bed with a Judith Butler audiobook on loop. Now I feel a lot better about the whole situation.”
“It hasn’t had too much of a negative impact on my relationships. When it comes to my normie boyfriend, we just hang out entirely on my left side! He just holds my left hand, kisses my left cheek and gives me erotic massages, but I insist – on the left side only.. It’s not been an issue at all! When I hang out with my more socially aware boyfriend, Leaf, he actually prefers to hang out on my right side.
“It’s wild: I used to struggle about whether I wanted to have fun or be socially conscious, but now I understand – the answer is just to be both. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.”
