Body-hair Activism

I once was on Tumblr when I saw a user that I followed post a picture of her in a very cute tank top. It had little rose petals embroidered with red lace, and she was raising up her arms with a tongue sticking out of her mouth next to her cheek and eyes fully closed. Although, the reason why this particular image still comes to my mind, is because the girl, who was probably in her early twenties, had armpit hair that was grown. And it got so, so much hate.

In my early preteens, my Mom decided to make me shave my legs and armpits since I was beginning to "mature"  and was growing into a beautiful young woman. At first, I was fine with it. When I had my first real "boyfriend" when I was 13, I had already had it my mind that I would never stop shaving because my boyfriend, and probably others, would think that I'm gross. I didn't really think about it until I had started to loose dramatic weight by my eating disorder.

The scale was probably the only thing I thought about during the summer I had experienced not eating. I started to realize that my body image mattered a lot. Not just mine either, all of the girls and boys that looked on TV or on websites that had our role-models skin to bone thought they needed to be like them. Usually, I would've denied the fact that society's image doesn't force anything on to us. But it does.

My weight dropped increasingly fast where the point I was underweight and about 115 pounds. (My usual weight is 125.) I thought my legs needed to be tiny so I'd look nice. Plus, like the hair thing, I thought I needed to shave in order to be pretty. I wore makeup to make myself look like I wasn't starving. (Even though this sounds dramatically dark and somber, it's not just wait.)

So! Even though everyone today still thinks that body hair on woman is gross, it's not. And if woman want to shave anyways because they prefer it, they can. What people seem to miss is that it's YOUR body, and you can do whatever you want with it. 

In the summer of 2014, I had decided to not shave my armpits and leg hair. Although this could sound disgustingly gross to you, it's not. Just like men, we take care of it. We don't just walk outside with no deodorant and our armpit hair braided with little bows in them. We trim and we walk the walk. My parents although, couldn't take the news correctly.

My mom is very strict with me dying hair or doing things I want to do with my body, so they hated it when I didn't shave my armpits. I never really told anyone about it, just my family, but even they couldn't take it. They constantly made jokes about how they were going to shave it off in my sleep! (Which is pretty funny, you can laugh.) But it hurt so much of my feelings knowing I'm not allowed to be me!

Being a huge dweeb I am about body activism, it's alright to have hair! Hair is OK, and no hair is OK. It's just really your choice. When my parents though finally told me that I needed to shave it off for good, I started. Although it isn't excessive, there's a little stubble there and here. I don't tell my parents because it would just anger them. Although my current boyfriend thinks it's adorable and is proud of me being myself. And I think that's what everyone else should do.

Body-hair is great. Hair removal didn't become a huge thing until 1920 in Europe, but some still try to have hair. There's really no favorite, but it's OK to have hair! Express yourself and be totally c-o-o-l.