A Hairy Issue

If Natalia Vodianova can do it… (moda.thestars.com.ua)

People are very angry on Twitter. Of course they are. But today one of the things they are angry about is #NoShaveNovember.

Apparently this was created so that men could go a month without bothering to shave, but now those pesky feminists have hijacked it as an excuse not to shave their disgusting lady hair.

I know, how dare they? The objections to ladies getting involved with #NoShaveNovember go something like this:

• Ew, gross
• #NoShaveNovember is for guys
• No one wants to shag a hairy woman
• I wouldn’t want to shag you, so you all better keep shaving
• Ew, gross
• Ew, gross

And some of these come from ladies.

What I find strange is how angry people get by the mere idea of women not shaving legs and armpits – getting so worked up by hypothetical hair. Why should they care about the hair of people they will never meet? Besides, anyone who has been in a long-term relationship is probably aware that a bit of lady fuzz really doesn’t matter. In that sense, many of us are more progressive in this matter than would appear on Twitter.

However, those who don’t mind their boyfriend encountering their leg hair are unlikely to display this hair in public, precisely because they would get the kind of reactions noted above. It seems that we have a collective image of all women as sexily hair-free, and we feel the need to maintain this image even while being less bothered by it in our personal lives. We know it’s an ideal, and an unrealistic one, but we can’t quite let it go. Why not?

Perhaps our understanding of beauty, sexiness and gender are fundamentally challenged by the prospect of luscious lady hair. This would be disappointing and slightly dull – I mean, as if those huge concepts can be defined by body hair. But what this possibility does show up is that our ideas of beauty, sexiness and gender are built on some very silly and untrue foundations. We do know that beauty is more than hairless legs. So let’s shake those foundations a bit, we’re already halfway there.

I’m off to start some arguments on Twitter. Do join me.