armpit hair feminism

Why I'm giving up the razor

I have an almost 12 year old daughter, she is reaching the age where the usual puberty changes are happening, there are boobs and hormonal mood swings and there is the hair… Sprouting from armpits, legs and you know, everywhere.

And so it got me thinking about the relationship between young women and their body hair.  It is such an odd thing when you think that though teens are desperate to grow into adults, they also want to remove the body hair that shows their maturity.

We live in a society where the norm is to remove every inch of hair from our legs, armpits and fannies and though I have no issue with women who choose to do this, it concerns me that the vast majority of images we see are of hairless women.

I watched The Devil Inside recently, a movie about demonic possession, there is a scene in this ‘docu-film’ (you know the whole film shown as a real documentary thing) where a woman has been locked in a basement, chained to a bed, she has dislocated her own shoulders and has the devil living inside her… Yet she seemed to have found the time to have shaved her armpits.  What the fuck?

the devil inside armpits

 

I’m a fan of The Walking Dead and it is noteworthy that all the female characters are totally smooth in the pit department.  They are years into apocalypse, zombies are walking the earth, their days are spent killing monsters yet all the women have the time to make sure they have no body hair that could be deemed unattractive?

And so I come back to my own family, my eldest child is a boy and so the only shaving we have discussed is about the whiskers on his chin but now I come to my daughter and I suddenly feel so protective over her body as she has so much more pressure to deal with as she grows up.  She has started to mention that other girls at school shave their legs and though she hasn’t outright asked yet, we have talked about it a little bit.  I have told her that some women shave, some don’t.  Either way her body hair is natural and she is a beautiful young woman and removing the hair or not won’t change that.

Then I look down at my hairless legs and armpits and think, oh snap… I grew up in a house of women with two sisters both a lot older than me and so I have always shaved.  It was just the norm, it was what women DID.  When I actually thought about WHY I shave I can’t really say why I do it.  I care little either way, I don’t have a strong preference yet it is a habit that I have done for over 20 years!

And so I decided to ditch the razors for a while, my body is au naturel at the minute and it honestly has made no difference to my life.  I am not making a big deal about it, we actually haven’t discussed that I now have hair on my body where it previously wasn’t, and that’s how I want it to be, not a big deal.  I am not encouraging her NOT to shave, more silently showing her that some women don’t and the world doesn’t stop turning.

I think the legs and armpit shaving leads onto a trend that worries me more which is the pubic hair thing… In a study by Indiana University, it showed that two-thirds of women aged 18-24, had totally or partially removed their pubic hair during the past month, and a fifth had been hairless during that entire period.  I talked to male friends and two had NEVER slept with a woman who had pubic hair.

It is all about personal choice, for sure, but more women remove the hair than those who don’t, making a hairy fanny a rare breed these days.  Most of my friends remove the vast majority or all of their pubic hair and it got me wondering why, some say they hate the way they look with hair, others cite cleanliness and fashion as the reason they go smooth down below.

As adults we have the ability to make that choice ourselves, I am seriously not judging those who do shave or wax.  But it does concern me that pre teens and teens see a very hairless society that tells them that hair removal for women is not only the norm, but that women with hair on their body are ugly, dirty or the punchline of a joke.

Some say the trend began in the pornographic industry, the vast majority of pornographic images show no hair at all and I suppose that is what concerns me, that pornographic imagery has seeped into mainstream life so far that our young teen girls are mimicking the looks of porn stars.

Perhaps it is simply a trend, one that is going to change with the times.  Either way I feel really protective over the daughter and her body hair! Maybe that is daft and I need to calm down, but I have this feminist voice screaming in my ear that I need to show my daughter that her body hair isn’t ugly or something to be ashamed of, that many beautiful, smart, wonderful women have body hair and it makes not a jot of difference.  I feel like I need to show her some sort of antidote to the barrage of hairless images and the messages she sees constantly that hair = ugly.

This post is not about stigmatising women who remove their hair, it is about a conversation that we often don’t speak of, if you have ever winced at the sight of a woman with hairy legs, think about WHY? What is it that you think is offensive or ugly.  Women’s bodies are constantly being judged on weight, size, shape, colour and body hair is another way to marginalise women, to make them feel ashamed of the natural state of themselves.

I realise I do sound anti shaving and I am genuinely not.  As with everything, personal choice is key but I like to think now that I am the mother of a young woman that I can do a little something to show her a different image to the ones that she sees everywhere else.

And so I am ditching the razor for the time being.  So far my husband hasn’t mistaken me for an overweight, bearded man,  but thanks Veet…

 

Love Sam x

13 replies
  1. gemmathomas
    gemmathomas says:

    I LOVE your blog Sam, it’s so funny and honest and inspiring. This sums up so much of what I think. I shave my legs and armpits, but do worry about the idea of grown women looking like hairless, pre-pubescent girls. Your attitude is so non-judgemental, but so celebratory! This is what women look like! Thank you for being so honest and straight-talking as ever. Happy new year!
    Best wishes,
    Gemma x

    Reply
  2. Nickie @ Typecast
    Nickie @ Typecast says:

    I strongly believe that the easy access to p0rn has introduced part of the teen (and young 20’s) generation to a world of hairless, over-produced and unnatural bodies but these are the only naked bodies that young people have to compare, unless parents (like you) are prepared to teach their children that it’s not all like that.

    I read a passage in a book once (wish I could remember which book – but the though process behind it has stayed with me) which was a conversation between two women on this exact subject – one was all about the smoothness of her body whereas the other said it was creepy because it represented the body of a child therefore was unnatural.

    However, I shave certain areas of my body (and trim others) but I don’t get hung up if it doesn’t happen for a while – and, funnily enough, neither does my husband. A lot of the “image” behind hairlessness is from what is being portrayed, yet again, in the media. Perfect bodies should not have curly bits of hair sticking out of them when it’s actually entirely natural.

    Remember the furore when Julia Roberts didn’t shave her pits and showed them off? Nothing happened – the world didn’t stop turning… The hair is there for a reason – and for me, it’s ok to tidy it up once in a while.

    Reply
    • sam
      sam says:

      Hi Nickie
      Thanks so much for your comment love! I have no issue with people wanting to remove/tidy/leave their body hair, but I wish there were more hirsute women in mainstream media to give teens a more balanced view of the world! xxx

      Reply
  3. Roly
    Roly says:

    Due to a skin condition that was made worse by waxing/shaving, I decided a few years ago to stop removing body hair. I’d shaved or waxed my underarms and lower legs since teenage years, my bikini line was kept ‘tidy’ with nail scissors. Now I do nothing!

    I’m now in my early 40’s with a 13year old daughter who has yet to start removing hair (to my knowledge – although I have asked to come to me first so she doesn’t hack an arm off with Her Dad’s razor) and interestingly to me, an 11 year old son who is repulsed by body hair (male or female)! There are 2 younger children too but the 5 year old is quite partial to a bit of pitmuff stroking if I’m in a vest top in the summer…

    Anyway, I digress. I frequent a parenting forum and female hair removal is often raised as a feminist issue. I’m still surprised at the attitudes of other women who will state that hairy armpits (in particular) suggest to them that ‘hairy’ women are unhygienic, dirty, slovenly or don’t care about their appearance!

    Reply
  4. alexpolistigers
    alexpolistigers says:

    Very nice article. You could go round in circles arguing about whether a choice is really free, since it has been made in the wider context of societal approval and so forth, but I think you have struck the right note. I never remove either leg or armpit hair, or any other body hair, for that matter! Smell is no more a problem than it is for men – good hygiene is important however much hair you have! No one could ever mistake me for a man, my husband finds me attractive, the earth continues to revolve, and my children are no strangers to how an adult woman naturally looks. If my daughter decides to shave later in life (she is still young!), then that will be up to her.

    The suggestion that we hairy women don’t care about our appearance is ridiculous. Of course we do – and this is how we care to look.

    Reply
  5. Orsetta
    Orsetta says:

    Nice article. I sometimes epilate my legs and sometimes I don’t. I have to admit that I don’t like the look of my hairy legs, but I also don’t like the idea that I don’t like hairs because society made me not like them. So I am keeping them for a bit. The shaving of girls started in the Twenties when bikiny, short sleeve tops and fashion changed. Fashion people started shaving armpits of models and film stars becasuse it looked “cleaner” and than people saw celebrity with shaved legs and armpits and they started to copy them. I think films should have hairy people if they are in the wild or in the past or zombies, and I would like to see hairy bodies on a cat walk. If they did that, people would be less judgemental about hairy women.

    Reply

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. […] started the year by giving up the razor, which I led me down a hairy path of self awareness and body love. I travelled around the country […]

  2. […] But do consider that we somewhat perpetuate the normality of bare vulvas, underarms, and legs by shaving them ourselves. We can make what is natural (hairiness) normal, by doing it. (I enjoyed this recent post by a mother and why she has quit her razor due to what she thinks it does to her daughte…) […]

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.