Friday, June 12, 2015

Things They Should Invent: train PSWs in feminine facial hair removal techniques

A while back, I came up with the idea that nursing homes should provide free esthetics services so female patients don't have to deal with the indignity of facial hair.

Today, my shower gave me a far simpler idea: PSWs should be trained in hair removal methods that are appropriate for women's facial hair.


By general societal standards, removing facial hair is seen as more optional for men than for women. PSWs are trained in the more-optional removal of men's facial hair, so they should also be trained in the more-mandatory removal of women's facial hair.

As we know from our own firsthand experiences, tweezing out your yucky chin hairs is more of an everyday personal grooming thing that you do in your own bathroom rather than a specialized beauty treatment for which you go to a beautician.  Therefore, it should be treated as such and be part of the patient's everyday personal care done by their PSWs.  (Yes, beauticians do provide more hardcore facial hair removal services.  Barbers will also shave clients if asked, but male patients get shaved by PSWs rather than having to pay to go down to the hairdresser.)

Some will argue that PSWs are already trained in shaving and that's a hair removal method.  But it's not the a correct, appropriate, suitable method for women's facial hair. Shaving results in same-day regrowth and stubble (especially on hairier-than-average people - and any woman with facial hair is hairier than average), which means that the socially-inappropriate facial hair problem will return before the end of the day.  Removing the hair at the root means the removal will last several days and grow back more gently and less visibly, allowing the patient to retain her dignity for longer.

And that's what this really is - a question of dignity.  Tweezing or threading or otherwise removing the hair at the root spares female patients the indignity of facial hair and the indignity of suffering through the masculine-marked process of having their face shaved. PSWs are trained to retain as much as patients' dignity as possible when bathing them, dressing them, toileting them, feeding them, moving them - every single area of daily life.  This should include the removal of unsightly facial hair.

2 comments:

laura k said...

Do we know that PSWs are not trained in this? They definitely should be!

impudent strumpet said...

The idea that they aren't trained came from the conversation that inspired the post I linked to in the first paragraph, in which someone who used to work as a PSW mentioned that she shaved female patients' whiskers and didn't use root removal techniques because she's not an esthetician. I haven't looked into whether they've changed how they're trained since then, or asked my grandmothers what's done to them.