girls are hairy, deal with it
thoughts
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thoughts 〰️
I never planned on writing an essay on girl and women’s body hair. For reasons that will make sense through your read, I have decided to draw the characters of my next book with arm hair and leg hair. I won’t alter their outfit to make it more noticeable, it will be during the time of gowns and sometimes there will be long sleeves so really it isn’t a big deal. But it will be there. And to be at peace I needed to know it’s there.
Now you might wonder why I absolutely want to include such a tiny detail in my next series aimed at teenagers.
And to that I answer, why not?
it’s literally natural
why do we have hair
The fact is, arm hair is actually the equivalent of super cool coat that you don’t have to pay for. During cold temperatures, it raises to keep in the heat, and it also protects us from UV rays. Remember how every single skincare video insists on applying that UV protection? Well our arms have it built in! It can also help evaporating sweat, thus keeping us cool during hot weather.
Furthermore, it helps with tactile functions. Hair can sense changes in the environment and it is connected to the nerve endings. I bet you would prefer knowing if a bug is crawling on your arm, well it is the hair that alerts you the quickest because it is more sensitive to the motion than your skin.
The same goes for leg hair.
Now before I start getting attacked about armpit hair, let me just. Let me.
Armpit air is there to prevent chaffing and irritation (and evenly spread pheromones but there aren’t enough studies on that subject yet). Okay? So next time your armpit is all red and you get an irritation, remember that would not have happened if you had just let it be.
Also, armpit hair, just like any hair, is not going to be unhygienic if washed properly.
Sources.1the body is a symbol
The human body is celebrated in plenty of different way. I feel that if you look up any parts of the body you can think of and follow it with the word ‘meaning’ you will find a result for it. Whether it is a widespread idea like the heart being tied to love, eyes referring to the soul, the hand to unity, the arms to hard work, legs to stamina and foundation, etc, or a very specific meaning originating from a specific spiritual belief, you will still find something.
We have found ways to celebrate every part of our body with a celebration. Why should body hair be left out? The hair at the top of our head gets to be brushed, rearranged, braided, and tied to memory. Why can’t our body hair be a symbol for armour when it’s very purpose is to protect our body?
why isn’t body hair represented in media
capitalism
It is actually insane the amount of things we can blame on one specific economic system. Here, we can even narrow it down to one brand. Gillette.
They are the ones who made shaving cool in the 1915 by publishing ads in influencial magazines such as Vogue and Harpers’ Bazaar. This was the start of the war on armpit hair.
Okay, I will admit blaming only Gillette would be foolish since numerous brands jumped on the trend (Nair comes to mind as it is still pretty established nowadays.)
It then started spreading when nude tights became in vogue, but were then harder to obtain in the midst of the war. The closest thing ended up being hairless legs, so the war extended onto leg hair. They had started earlier on, but the war gave them the final push they needed for it to really work.
I am unsure when the war against arm hair started as I believe this more of a recent thing. Less of an expectation, but still considered ‘abnormal’ enough to earn a comment or two when wearing a sleeveless top. Basically enough of a thing for people to wonder why you’re not hairless like you’re “supposed” to be
From a financial point of view, the behaviour of these brands was understandable. After all “According to SNS Insider, the Hair Removal Devices Market size was valued at USD 1.46 Billion in 2025 and is projected to reach USD 3.32 Billion by 2035.” (Yahoo Finance) There was money to be made. Besides, shaving wasn’t new, people were already shaving based on their own preferences. If that hadn’t been the case, these brands would have never existed in the first place. So what was the harm in doing a little self-promotion?
Well, simple. Instead of going “our products are great, buy them!” they went for “ewww you’ll look horrible, disgusting, and no one will ever love you UNLESS you buy our products ;)”.
Shaving as a concept isn’t bad and has existed for millenia through different cultures. The issue is that these ads and that entire —still ongoing— marketing campaign made it an expectation for women to be competely hairless.
Wrong word. Sorry. Not an expectation.
Much worse. A norm.
a culture of shame
That is my main problem with it. Like I mentioned, shaving has been a concept ever since Antiquity. Even if you look at Renaissance paintings, most of the nudes do not feature any body hair— on both women and men alike funnily enough.
“Ew, your arms are so hairy!”
My issue is that a concept that depended on everyone’s own preference has become a norm and therefore is expected. What was an individual’s choice became an expectation set specifically for women. Enough of an expectation to get turned into judgement against whom did not get in line. Enough of an expectation for people to allow themselves to make unprompted comments on other people’s bodies. Enough of an expectation for advice to be given on how to get rid of body hair, without a question ever being asked. Enough of an expectation to be asked why you have hair in the first place.
“Why do you have so much [leg] hair?”
Enough of an expectation. To be asked WHY you have hair. On a body part that NATURALLY produces hair!!!!!!!
“Are you sure you want to keep your bush as it is? Some guys don’t like that.”
You don’t go around asking people why their eyes are that colour. You don’t go around asking people why they’re short or tall. You don’t go around asking people why they grow teeth. You don’t go around asking people why they have hair at the top of their head, or why they’re bald.
You don’t go around asking people why their body looks the way it looks (or at least you shouldn’t).
“Wow you have a lot of [arm] hair!”
Your brain is not stupid. It would not ask something if it is obvious. There are plenty of questions that we don’t ask because the answer is simply “The body works like that.” Why isn’t it the same for body hair?
“You didn’t wax your legs before the summer? You could always shave them if you’re scared of the wax hurting”
We not only have stopped representing hair in media, thus slowly getting it out of what the norm is (despite every single one of us clearly being able to see it grow on our bodies), and worse we perpetuated the idea that body hair is undesirable. Who you are, as you are, is shameful and you need to get rid of it. Painfully. Wax it. Laser it. Torture your own body for daring to exist in its natural form. To be pretty is to suffer, isn’t it?
“It might be time to go get your mustache waxed, it’s starting to show a little on the corner of your mouth.”
Well no. I don’t want that. They made a campaign to change people’s minds? It’s time we do the same.
Sources.3how do we go back to normal
a hypothesis I have tested on myself
For my next point to make sense, we need to dive back into my late-teenage/young-adult years.
I have a roman nose. Which I hated. It was the only thing I could see when looking at myself in the mirror. I have been lucky enough to not feel insecure about many things with my appearance, but my nose was a big issue. However, I tested out a theory.
I had noticed that if I applied mascara every day, after a while, I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror without it. “I look dead/sick/depressed.” you name it. Whenever that happened, I forbad myself from using mascara until I liked my bare face again.
It worked every. single. time.
So there was my hypothesis, my brain accepted as “my normal state” something it saw consistently.
Now why wasn’t it working for my nose? It was right in the middle of my face every day. Simple, it wasn’t represented in beauty standards around me. I learned to draw with those very misogynistic cliche of man strong-square with a big nose and woman small-petite with almost the complete absence of a nose.
I liked drawing myself as a character for different shows, universes, etc. And from that day on, I made a point to always draw a roman nose on myself, even to the point of exagerating it. I hated it at first. I felt like I was drawing myself ugly, when I think about it now, the fact I had that thought in the first place makes me want to burn alive the people who put those ideas in young girls. All for money to. Anyway. I tested out that method over months, and then years.
It might have been very narcissitic in a way. But now? I love my nose, even on pictures (which was a huge step for me). I love drawing different noses on characters. If I draw myself without a big nose, it just feels wrong. It worked after about a year or two of doing that.
uno reverse
So for our society to go back to normal. The method is quite simple. We just need to do the whole thing in reverse. We propaganda right back.
There needs to be hairy girls and women everywhere.
Ads. TV Shows. Illustrations. Photographs. Films. Etc.
And most importantly, it must not be adressed. It cannot be mixed with a marketing strategy. I know it’s tempting but please do not. It needs to be normal. If we point it out everytime as something groundbreaking we are inevitably alienating it. That is not the point.
The point is to make it something common that people don’t second-guess thus slowing reinstating its place in the common understanding of the human body.
“Normalcy is what you see repeatedly.”
Now you might wonder why I say we. Not all of our jobs have an influence on media or even a big reach. But we don’t need to. Like I said, it does not need to be loud. It needs to be consistent, and omnipresent.
I’m an artist, and a writer. I depict human likeness, and that now includes body hair. I am not delusional, I know that all projecst done with big corporations will be at the mercy of shareholders and they sure as hell won’t let us depict hairy women unless it’s to say they are ugly (would help if not so many of them were pedophiles). That is why it becomes our responsability as independent workers to do what we can.
Art is political. Being independent means doing what we want. That is the whole point of it. Only we have the power to do this. And if you are not in the creative arts, I want you to think of the amount of times you depict human likeness. Do you have an Instagram account you post on? A Facebook page? Do you exist in public spaces?
It starts with small things like this. It needs to be within small things like this, because that is where “normal” is. Please, do me a favour. Next time you are planning a shave or a wax. Ask yourself why.
Do you do it for yourself? Or because you are afraid of what others might say? I’m not asking you to go full wilderness from one day to the next. I myself still shave my armpits (sweaty girls rpz), but just take the time to wonder. Question it. Keep practicing that critical thinking skill. Then see what the result of it is. Maybe you’ll keep doing it for your own comfort. Maybe you see the point of stopping but still need a bit of time to take that step. Maybe you want to push against your fear so that our daughters don’t ever have to ask themselves the same question. Maybe you’ll simply realise you can’t be bothered to spend time shaving/waxing.
No matter the reason why you stop or keep going, I just want you to make sure it is your own educated and conscious choice. Because we were born with hair, on our bodies, it is us who decide whether to keep it or shave it or wax it or trim it or braid it or heck even dye it if we want.
No one else can say anything about it. And there is only one response the people asking why you’re not hairless deserve,
Girls are hairy. Deal with it.
1Your Health Magazine - The Surprising Truth about Arm HairYour Health Magazine - The Benefits and Myths of Embracing Armpit Hair
2I will say though, the look on his face when I simply answered “Because I don’t shave it?” — as if he had asked me the stupidest question I had ever heard— was top tier comedy gold. To be fair, it was indeed a stupid question.3want these landing in your inbox before anyone else sees them?
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