By Bridget Dolan
I shaved my legs for the first time in months on Thursday, May 2 — not because I wanted to, but because I had to.
Friday, May 3 was my last Delaware softball game of the season, and I was in the press box, covering the game. That’s why I had to shave my legs. I had to shave my legs to sit in a box, above the stands, behind a desk where my legs aren’t visible. Because in the short time they were, when I was walking on the field and such, their natural state is unacceptable.
Leg hair is not unhygienic — it’s natural. Body hair — something literally the entire population has — is not inherently unhygienic. But women are expected to shave in order to be more feminine and socially acceptable.
To be taken seriously as a professional woman in this world means you need to perform femininity. It means shaving my legs, doing eye makeup and putting on lipstick all so I can attend an event to write about it.
“Well, why don’t you just wear pants?” you might ask.
Because the Weather Channel called for a high of 75 degrees, which meant that wearing a dress was my only option to deal with the heat, even if it did end up being rather chilly for the majority of the day. And wearing a dress means visible legs, which means they are expected to be hairless.
I can guarantee that not a single one of my male colleagues has felt like he needed to shave his legs before going to a game. And I bet that they could get away with sitting in a press box in shorts in a t-shirt while I’m there, full face done up and a dress.
Me, in the press box, on May 3 to cover Delaware softball’s penultimate games of the season in makeup and a dress. Eventually, I had to throw on the sweat jacket from my car because it got so cold.
As a woman in sports journalism, I remain an outlier. Even as a student, not immersed in the even more competitive world of professional journalism, I’m already one of the only women in the room. Sports journalism remains, to this day, a boys club, which leaves women scrambling to be taken seriously and balance their work with the necessary presentation.
I’ve seen men in sports journalism wearing t-shirts and shorts. I’ve even seen them at sweatpants at a professional sports reporting workshop in Nashville while I was wearing button ups and my friend — the only other female student besides me — was in a blazer and skirt combo paired with heels. We had to dress up to be taken seriously, but men have the luxury of dressing down without having their right to being there questioned.
It’s not considered professional for a woman to be in shorts, unless she’s wearing a pantsuit of some kind, but even then, it’s expected that professional women wear dresses and skirts. The very first item on Macy’s Business Attire for Women page is a dress. The page is primarily blazers, dresses and skirts because that’s the uniform to be taken seriously.
So when you’re gender nonconforming, like I am, it becomes a nightmare. I am expected to do a good job when I’m not even allowed to be comfortable in my own skin. I have to put on a girl costume in order to be able to write.
And then, on top of it all, I’m a plus-size woman, which means that not only do I have to hunt down feminine clothes that I can stand to be in, it’s harder to find those clothes. Companies don’t like to make professional wear for larger women, leaving me grasping at what little I can get. It means I have to wear a dress to a softball game.
And I have to shave my legs.