My mother is trying to convince me that if I shave my airmpit hair then I will be less anxious, that I will find more compatible partners, and that life will overall become easier. It seems to be something that matters to her a lot. She continues on to say that she doesn't care as much about let hair, but underarm hair really bothers her because she associates it with smelling bad.
I stopped shaving my armpits a few years ago when I was travelling because I slowly would relieve my backpack of "unnecessaries". More and more things became part of that category as weight sucks to lug around. A razor was one of those unnecessaries.
After this experience, I realized that I liked not shaving my armpits, that shaving them was actually somewhat painful and irritating and why did I feel like I had to? As time continued I noticed that some of my friends also didn't shave and it wasn't all that abnormal depending on the group of people you were around.
But now I'm home, on a small island, in the middle of the ocean, without those other people and my mom thinks I'm strange. HAHA. It doesn't want to make me shave my armpits, who ever wants to do what their mother tries to make them do? But it does make me want to question why. Why is it such a big deal that she would weigh my happiness against it? This baffles me. Where is she getting these ideas? Is it really such a big deal? Would someone resist hiring me over it among other things?
Any thoughts?
I did this for years. Not shaving. It started out of solidarity for womin , any womin, lesbian or otherwise who didn't want to shave. Eventually it felt natural and 'good'. but was always entirely socially unacceptable unless living with similarly minded people. Shaving feels un'real', a bowing to conventions in order to be employed or social. And it is driven by advertising. The need to sell womin products. We must consume.
ReplyDeleteI agree with above statement, and also i have had similar conversations with women and posed the same kind of questions as you have. I have felt a feeling of shame and unwanted presents when visiting areas where friends, family and strangers, question me, tease me, ask me to elaborate why I am deciding to do something uncommon with my body. Uncommon, I just laugh internally and I try to explain my reasonings when I have the patience to explain it. Our society has forgotten our ancestors history and sadly consumerism has explode and we the society are the ones to blame. I don't want to ramble and so i am going to leave it on a positive note that I as a society member have vowed to take every opportunity I can to teach and communicate with the children (and adults of course) that surround me in my life to open converation about women rights, men rights, body rights and to open up the room for conversation :) so thanks rose, internet is a strong tool as well! xo
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