Is Waxing Anti-Feminist?

First, I must preface this post by stating (okay fine, confessing), that I am addicted to hair removal. I pretty much do it all — I shave, I Nair, I thread, I wax and most recently, I laser — so questioning the feminist dilemmas behind hair removal is a big deal for me. And kind of a bad idea, because in the end I will have to choose between being hairy or a hypocrite. But here it goes anyways.

The Fight Against Queer (In)Justice

“I’m a black, lesbian, feminist from Canada,” Andrea Ritchie said, as she introduced herself to the Sexistentialism journalism class at New York University. The class laughed and Ritchie began recounting how she got to New York, became a police misconduct attorney, advocate and finally first-time co-author of Queer (In) Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States (Beacon Press, Feb. 2011).

The book chronicles the story of queer discrimination in the legal system, giving examples of sex violence, police brutality and prejudice in the courtroom. Since it’s Feb. 15th publication, the work has received many positive reviews. “[This] book is a powerful and productively disorienting book, and essential reading for anyone interested in how queers intersect with the criminal legal system,” wrote Yasmin Nair in Chicago’s Windy City Times. Combining powerful statistics and real-life scenarios, the book tries to make sense of the complicated relationship between queers, social and criminal injustice. “Many of these stories had never been written about in one place,” Ritchie said. “They were like tiles of a mosaic that had never been put together in a big picture.”