In this post, there will be pics of my unshaven armpits (and legs), so beware, prepare to question all you've ever known! (I kid!)
Body hair: it's safe to say it's a taboo for women. There are plenty of womanly/non-binary folks going against the grain and choosing not to shave or wax or somehow other rip out hair unnecessarily. I'm not going to lie, I do feel a bit scared to write (and maybe publish?) this post. I'm not fully confident about showing my body hair. Maybe the photos in this post will be a bit of exposure therapy for me? But the main purpose of this post is to challenge a belief you may or may not hold about body hair being unfeminine or generally abhorrent for women. Let's get on with it! (Sorry if this post reads a bit odd, I'm very fired up by this topic, hence the potentially preachy tone).
The basics: it’s not unhygienic, believe it or not
Essentiality, and this is common knowledge, body hair is there for a reason. It protects the sensitive skin of the areas which it covers most prolifically, reduces sweating and the odour that sweat sometimes produces. It is an entirely natural (and in my mind, wonderful) thing. It is not to be fought in the way it is done so today.
Hair grows in places we now deem best clean shaven, but it hasn’t always been that way. On the continent, it is rare for women to shave. I’ve walked through French markets as a child, and due to my British unbringing, been bewildered by the dark hair sprouting from European women’s armpits. I know find that somewhat sad, that even as a child, underarm hair was strange and unusual. Something so natural had become surprising, even shocking.
In the past, women simply didn’t shave. The didn’t have the means to, as razors were yet to be considered a female implement, something which later became purely a money-making-exercise for the razor companies, when targeting men simply wasn’t enough.
It’s a modern, British-American thing to shave (this is not to say that women elsewhere don’t shave at all) and it is so ingrained in our culture that I do not doubt that people will find my writing this post and sharing these photos vulgar and inappropriate. Let’s question that!
A Feminist Rhetoric: why shaving is not a female obligation
Men are not expected to shave their legs, armpits, pubic area or even their face unless they so choose. Why is it that all these areas must be shaven on women? How has it become obligatory for women to be smooth and hairless? The damaging effect that the media has had on what we view as attractive for females shines through strongest in this case.
Attractive women are neat, tidy, smooth. They have reduced all that it means to be womanly: curves are straightened and ‘unsightly’ aspects are removed (cellulite, skin imperfections and of course, body hair). We are shrunk and shorn away at until there only remains what we are told to be. Some are happy to live and present themselves in this way. I am not, and maybe you’re not either. But I still feel the pull to be how everyone expects a female-bodied person to be. I’m sure you do too.
Even Hector, my boyfriend's dog, marvels at my audacity, haha.
Rebellion: Embracing our physicality and animalistic traits
We are animals. Human-animals, but animals all the same. Growing out body hair is a small, but important acknowledgment that we are creatures of the natural world, not of the world of social media, the mass media and of the public sphere.
With every stare and disgusted look, I want to challenge what society has programmed us to believe is beautiful. I can be beautiful and not shave my armpits. I can beautiful and not shave my legs. It simply doesn’t matter, because beauty standards are made to be broken, and we should not feel restricted by what is dictated to us. If you want to grow out your hair, body or otherwise, you are free to do so. If you want to shave it all off, for comfortability reasons or any other reasons you see fit, body or otherwise, do it!
I shaved my head nearly two years ago and with that there came a kind of freedom I'd never experienced. Granted, I'd never do it again, but what I was blissfully unaware of before was that the majority of people don't like it when women aren't how they expect them to be, it shocks them.
Therefore, I implore you, if you want to be hairy, go for it. There's nothing stopping you, because the standards set for us by the world should not exist, and the more we go against the grain, the softer and more malleable the parameters of 'what a woman should look like' become.
The individual decides what they feel most comfortable with. Our bodies are all we'll truly ever own, so do with it what you will. Don't let 'them' force you into a corner, I certainly won't.
My (also, of course) unshaven legs! Complete with tattoos!
Thank you so much for reading this (actually quite angry and weirdly written) blog post. I hope you found it a little bit helpful (and not too preachy). And I hope you liked the photos!
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Stay fab, you wonderful lot.
Over and out! <3
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