I think I started shaving my legs in middle school. I don’t remember, because the process quickly and seamlessly became a normal part of my life. I was never actively bullied or pressured into it. My mom told me I should start shaving, because it’s what girls my age did, and so I started.

Because I can’t remember when it started, I also can’t remember when I started feeling self-conscious about having unshaved legs. That isn’t to say that I ever liked shaving my legs. It was a chore. It took a long time. I cut my legs a lot. But I did it, because I knew I’d feel uncomfortable if I didn’t. I have thick, dark hair, so it was always obvious when I took a day off out of a desire to take a shorter shower or to avoid nicking myself.

This summer I spent a week as a counselor at Girls Rock! Iowa City (a fabulous feminist rock-and-roll day camp that’s definitely a topic for another article). Midway through camp, I started feeling strangely uncomfortable for no apparent reason. When I feel uncomfortable “for no reason,” I put my mind to figuring out where the feeling’s coming from so I can fix it. I eventually narrowed the feeling down to my legs. I was feeling self-conscious about them. But why? I’d shaved, so I shouldn’t feel uncomfortable, right?

That’s when it hit me: most of the other counselors at the camp didn’t shave their legs! That uncomfortable feeling, the same feeling I felt when I didn’t shave my legs, must not have been about wanting to shave. It was about how my legs looked compared to everyone else’s. It was self-inflicted peer pressure!

Now that I knew the source of my discomfort, I decided that it was time to make a decision for myself instead of basing my actions on what the people around me did. Razor companies have preyed on women’s insecurities since the mid-1900s, and I refused to have my actions influenced like that. There’s nothing wrong with shaving if it’s really what I wanted to do, but the decision ought to be mine and mine alone.

As I considered my real feelings about shaving, all I could think about was how much time shaving took, and how many times I ended up cutting my legs. I also thought about how much I liked not shaving in winter, when everyone wore pants I couldn’t feel pressured into wanting to shave by seeing other people’s legs.

So far I’ve had a nice few months of not worrying about my legs, and not spending too much time in the shower. I haven’t thrown out my razors; I still might use them again sometime. If I do, though, it’ll be because I want to, not because of anybody else.