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Arts/Society I Don't Shave

Are you okay with female body hair?

  • I am female and my answer is no

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I am male and I am sitting on the fence

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    38

spnadmin

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Jun 17, 2004
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True but the Guru's also taught us to fight against oppression. Society's ideals, whether hair or another stereotype are a form of oppression.

Fighting the oppression of cultural stereotypes related to keeping kesh is a bit different from fighting the oppression that led to the scalping of Sikhs during the times of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur.

One is fighting the oppression of cultural stereotypes when one stops doing what the oppressor, through criticism or through subtlety, coerces or inveigles one to do. One just stops, and takes the social consequences in stride.

That is the case when the stereotype comes from the drug culture, or from the fashion culture of anorexics, or any other realm of social ideals which are numerous and often contradictory. As long as an inner drama is raging, then anyone of us is still attached inwardly to the stereotype, and not free of it.
 

Inderjeet Kaur

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Oct 13, 2011
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It's a bit strange. I really hadn't given much thought to my body hair for years until I got these Muslim caregivers who clearly find them dirty and repulsive. I've tried to be gracious, but I finally told one of them, "Suggesting I shave any of my hair is as rude and uncalled for as if I started insisting that you ought to eat bacon." She was clearly offended, but said nothing and hasn't said a word about my body hair since.

The other one still thinks I'd smell a lot nicer if I'd get rid of them. I haven't yet lost my temper with her. :realangrymunda: Yet...

:kaurfacepalm:
 

Tejwant Singh

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Women aren't the only one under pressure to shave. Here's a really disgusting Gillette ad . On the bright side there is a Saying in Spain that goes
Los hombres son como los osos
entre mas peludos mas hermosos
Try as I might I can't get it to rhyme in english but it's
men are like bears
the hairier are the more handsome they are.

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytEl1LmV70c

Linzer ji,

Guru Fateh.

This is a very common phenomena all around the world, especially in the beach going communities. Before, men used to be proud of their "manhood" by gallantly exposing their chest/leg hair on the beach and also no one really cared about the ones with their bulging tummies over their Speedos.

Now, this is not the case because having a six-pack abs, well toned body and shaved chests and legs have become mode-de-vie for many, even for those with the bulging tummies over their Speedos.

It has become a norm for the men to visit the threading and the Brazilian waxing saloons for the above and also to get their eyebrows shaped.

Tejwant Singh
 

Tejwant Singh

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Jun 30, 2004
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It's a bit strange. I really hadn't given much thought to my body hair for years until I got these Muslim caregivers who clearly find them dirty and repulsive. I've tried to be gracious, but I finally told one of them, "Suggesting I shave any of my hair is as rude and uncalled for as if I started insisting that you ought to eat bacon." She was clearly offended, but said nothing and hasn't said a word about my body hair since.

The other one still thinks I'd smell a lot nicer if I'd get rid of them. I haven't yet lost my temper with her. :realangrymunda: Yet...

:kaurfacepalm:

Inderjeet Kaur ji,

Guru Fateh.

As my visits to the hospitals have become not that rare, I wear a bandana before I get there and the first thing the nurses want to do is to shave my beard off and take the bandana off to put the hospital cap on. I have to fore warn them most of the times.I made them put my needs in the computer system, so which ever hospital of the chain I land up at, they know what NOT to do.

Regards

Tejwant Singh
 

spnadmin

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Inderjeet Kaur ji,

Guru Fateh.

As my visits to the hospitals have become not that rare, I wear a bandana before I get there and the first thing the nurses want to do is to shave my beard off and take the bandana off to put the hospital cap on. I have to fore warn them most of the times.I made them put my needs in the computer system, so which ever hospital of the chain I land up at, they know what NOT to do.

Regards

Tejwant Singh

What hospital chain? Because by now in time health care professionals - in hospitals - should have had some staff development in religious needs. Or is part of the problem dependent on the number of Sikhs in a region, and therefore familiarity with what is culturally real in their area.

In hospitals near me there are signs posted about the availability of translators including Punjabi speakers to assist people from Punjab. There are doctors from India and Pakistan, whether Hindu, Sikh or Muslim, who know instantly about kesh.

Home health care givers unfortunately are not given the level of training that hospitals "allege" - there I am not surprised. But hospitals, yes, you should not have to keep going over this.

Thanks, because your letting us know will be information that is valuable for readers in the forum. What to expect!
 

Tejwant Singh

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It is St. Rose Catholic Hospitals chain. As there are very few turban wearing Sikhs, they were not aware of this.

I am planning with the help of SALDEF to teach all the hospitals in Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas about the Sikhi tenets. Our first powerpoint presentation is in the first week of October. Once we do it here, then it will be done nationally, especially in the states where the Sikh population is rare.
 

Inderjeet Kaur

Writer
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Oct 13, 2011
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Linzer ji,

Guru Fateh.

This is a very common phenomena all around the world, especially in the beach going communities. Before, men used to be proud of their "manhood" by proudly exposing chest/leg hair on the beach and also no one really cared about their bulging tummies over their Speedos.

Now, this is not the case because having a six-pack abs, well toned body and shaved chests and legs have become mode-de-vie for many, even for those with the bulging tummies over their Speedos.

It has become a norm for the men to visit the threading and the Brazilian waxing saloons for the above and also to get their eyebrows shaped.




Tejwant Singh
To me, a man without facial hair and body hair looks and feels like a girl. I dislike this sort of vanity in women and find it incredibly off-putting in men. To me, it's a most effective means of birth control. Utter revulsion, in fact.
 

spnadmin

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Tejwant Singh ji

Of course you would be the one! You have done it for Homeland Security. Now you are joining up with SALDEF and that is really wonderful.

I want to just share this from my own hospital experiences - many in the last 2 years - that will prove how important your efforts are. This has next to nothing to do with kesh specifically, but it is related to the larger issue of awareness of other religions. As you proceed to the south and east of the city of Philadelphia and into the southeast suburbs, there are many communities of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. The doctors, nurses and other medical professionals are drawn from those groups because they also live in the same communities. Questions related to kesh, diet, language needs and prayer are better known. Fewer misunderstandings. As you move more to the south and west the situation does change, although where I am there are many Muslims. This and the fact of so many doctors from India, creates not so much awareness, but a sense that a patient should be taken seriously when he/she makes needs known or raises religious objections. Still there are difficult moments. In the particular hospital where I go there is no chaplain, but they do have members of the Roman Catholic clergy making regular visits. The area is predominately Catholic although the hospital is not affiliated to any religion. All of this goes along with the notion that prayer and faith helps one to recover more quickly and makes it easier to live with the difficulties of sickness and in some cases the need to make peace with death. The big problem with this however is the social pressure to permit a priest or nun to pray over you. It takes a stiff back to say "Thank You, No!" All is well-intentioned but I felt it put me in a tough position for that very reason. I said NO every 3 weeks for 2 years lol. And at one point a priest got a teeny bit annoyed and said, "I will pray for you later." And I said, "And I will pray for you too!" He became red in the face and stomped off. .....bruised religious authority?

So there is an undercurrent of pressure around religion in hospitals. Most of the nurses had never heard of the Sikh religion, and I explained as best I could what we are. I talked about kesh, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji and Guru Nanak, and the Maryada. When you are sick it is often easier to cave in. Your efforts should pay off in the end.

And... a little p/s Something tells me that if the cleric were a Muslim, this would have gone easier. I think he would have offered to call the gurdwara for me if I wanted. But it was always a Roman Catholic. I never saw an imam.
 

Ishna

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May 9, 2006
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Also not Sikh-related, but when my Italian father-in-law was in palliative care in a public hospital here they kept pestering my mother-in-law about arranging a Catholic priest. They'd made assumptions that because they're Italian they'd be Roman Catholic. My mother-in-law is, but my father-in-law was an atheist.

She didn't let them in.
 

spnadmin

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ishna ji

That story has a positive ending. Good for you grandmother. The same did not prevail for an aunt of mine who died at 44 of breast cancer. She was forced to have the last rites and she screamed through it. No one including her husband stepped in to put a stop to it.
 
Feb 28, 2010
53
73
Keeping hair or not keeping them is a matter of personal choice. If I am a woman, I wouldn't want anyone to tell me if I should keep my hair or remove it. Telling or forcing someone to do something they don't want is interfering with free will and I strongly disagree with this.
 

Harry Haller

Panga Master
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Jan 31, 2011
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Keeping hair or not keeping them is a matter of personal choice.

It all depends how much weight you give the words of the tenth master, and how much you wish to adhere to being a Khalsa.

However, if you do, then it is not a matter of personal choice at all.
 

Brother Onam

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Jul 11, 2012
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Sat Sri Akal,
It's really a sign of the times. I'm a vegetarian, who likes natural, organic food. I have to go to a "Health food" store, or else the Health food section of the grocery. Wouldn't it be more reasonable, since I am really just looking for food, to go to a "food store", while those favouring processed, artificial, adulterated foods ought to go to a "Un-health food" store?
By the same token, I prefer women with hair on their body, just the way the Creator has made every woman. But in this upside down culture, I am considered odd; someone with a fetish, because I like women to be un 'processed' or adulterated. What a world!
 

Harry Haller

Panga Master
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Jan 31, 2011
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Sat Sri Akal,
It's really a sign of the times. I'm a vegetarian, who likes natural, organic food. I have to go to a "Health food" store, or else the Health food section of the grocery. Wouldn't it be more reasonable, since I am really just looking for food, to go to a "food store", while those favouring processed, artificial, adulterated foods ought to go to a "Un-health food" store?
By the same token, I prefer women with hair on their body, just the way the Creator has made every woman. But in this upside down culture, I am considered odd; someone with a fetish, because I like women to be un 'processed' or adulterated. What a world!

Is liking hair on a woman, as bad as disliking hair on a woman?
 

Ishna

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May 9, 2006
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Well said Brother Onam ji. Thank you!

Harry ji:
Sssshhhh !! The Buddhists will hear you!! LOL

The REAL question is why it has become a preference even?? Do I like my man to have skin? Do I mind if he has ears? Since when did a part of my body become subject to anyone's whimsy? It grows, I can't help it, we evolved it and its annoying when women are by default considered less by yet another part of our biology. If its not our ability to bear children which makes us dirty its our menstruation and if not that our body hair. The sooner we accept that our flimsy female bodies are oh so inferior and accept our place in the world because of that the better!

At least that's what it looks like to me today.
 
Last edited:
Aug 27, 2005
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Baltimore Md USA
I think I voted in error. I really thought this was referring to pubic hair. I am definitely not cool with hairy legs and arm pits. I think it is because of my raising but I think it is gross and feels horrible.
 
Feb 28, 2010
53
73
It all depends how much weight you give the words of the tenth master, and how much you wish to adhere to being a Khalsa.

However, if you do, then it is not a matter of personal choice at all.

Didn't tenth master also said " Guru manyo granth"? I don't see anything mentioned specifically regarding shaving there?

We can try to create as much monopoly as we want to become proper Sikh/Sikhni but the problem is that you are trying to focus on mere pixel while ignoring the big picture. I am also not in favour of kids carrying a kirpan even though I was raised in a sikh family. Simple reason is that time has changed now and I can still teach my kid that he needs to be ready to defend the weak . I don't know why is it so difficult for people to understand that 10th master commandments were at a very different times. Sikhi means continuous learning and I have to say that Sikhs stopped that long ago.
 

aristotle

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May 10, 2010
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Didn't tenth master also said " Guru manyo granth"? I
don't see anything mentioned specifically regarding
shaving there?
Well, wasn't it the Tenth Master who established Kesh as one of the Kakaars? I think you missed that.
Moreover, Guru Granth Sahib Maharaj is not a cookbook of do's and dont's, it is not a religious instruction manual.

I don't know why is it so difficult for people
to understand that 10th master commandments were
at a very different times.
I hope you are not implying the 5 Kakaars have lost their value. The would have, if they were mere symbols, which they are not.

I am also not in favour of kids carrying a
kirpan even though I was raised in a sikh family.
Simple reason is that time has changed now and I can
still teach my kid that he needs to be ready to defend
the weak .
See how simplistic you have made it, 'a kid carrying a kirpan', naive and vulnerable. If your kid is mature enough to understand the importance of defending the weak, isn't he mature enough to understand the importance of Sikh values and Amrit? Surely Amrit should only be administered if a personof proper age who is mentally stable and mature to hold the tenets of Amrit.

Not to mention there is no compulsion in Sikhism. You should only take Amrit if you choose to. There isn't any evangelist propaganda in Sikhi.

You can take the kirpan from the kid, but I wonder what you'll do when they attack each other with pins, blades, felt tip pens or geometrical compasses. Kids are not psychopaths.
If you claim to understand the 'big picture', you shouldn't weigh only on one side of the fence. That's called bias.

Sikhi means continuous
learning and I have to say that Sikhs stopped that long
ago.
I get it you aren't a big fan of Kakaars or Amrit ceremony, but singularly implying a thing so rhetorical is of no good value. Forsaking one's religion does not equal modernity, period.
 

Harry Haller

Panga Master
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Jan 31, 2011
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Didn't tenth master also said " Guru manyo granth"? I don't see anything mentioned specifically regarding shaving there?

We can try to create as much monopoly as we want to become proper Sikh/Sikhni but the problem is that you are trying to focus on mere pixel while ignoring the big picture. I am also not in favour of kids carrying a kirpan even though I was raised in a sikh family. Simple reason is that time has changed now and I can still teach my kid that he needs to be ready to defend the weak . I don't know why is it so difficult for people to understand that 10th master commandments were at a very different times. Sikhi means continuous learning and I have to say that Sikhs stopped that long ago.

I am myself a mona, and I do not carry any of the k's, however the difference between the two of us is that you seem to have created your own Sikhi that suits you, whereas I know in my heart how short I fall, and I do fall short.

I sell IT equipment for a living, you have no idea how much one bad pixel can affect a whole monitor, you end up looking at the pixel instead of the display, you cannot focus on the display, just that damn pixel staring at you in the face.
 

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