When women want to challenge the status quo, they cut their hair. I decided to grow mine.

Social conventions and conditioning are wars I have fought most of my life. They are battles I have mostly won (aided because I was born with physical and behaviour* privilege armour).

 

One battle I have never really fought… body hair. I actually enjoy my body hair. Stubble doesn’t horrify me and I get my brows done when I remember. 

I do like smooth legs because of the definition aesthetic.

 

Pubic hair-wise, I refuse to get rid of it all and I WILL NEVER understand why ADULT Women [& men who want them] want to look like pre pubescents. Like CHILDREN. 

 

When I was 13-14 (’84/’85) I saw images of @madonna that were taken before she was MADONNA.

Gorgeous b&w, arty images of her nude with lush underarm hair (and as was the norm back then, full bush). I was smitten with the WOMANity and then because people said I had “Sophia Loren eyes”, which in hindsight is fucking creepy because her eyes are sexy and I was a child, I found photos of her… and Ms Loren didn’t shave her underarms and I thought was just NORMAL

…but I still ended up shaving my underarms because I guess, it was “expected”. 

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I started shaving my arms BECAUSE Indian friends would say to me how “lucky”  I am because I didn’t have obvious arm hair.

So to stop that shit, to ‘fit in’, one of the FEW times I have cared, I shaved and continued to shave my arm hair. Even though I didn’t have a lot of arm hair to start with. Sigh.

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I LOVE that younger Women are rebelling and fighting back against the LIE that Women need to be hairless to be feminine or that Women who embrace their hair are not.

I don’t want to be known solely as a Woman Who Doesn’t Shave her Armpits… there is a stigma still and I am going to murder that fucker, hence why I NEED to talk about it 

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I am neither Earth Mother nor hippie nor a rebel. I am WOMAN.