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| Sophia Loren, famous minger |
by unrelenting rain. But even during the rain, quite warm it was; warm enough to require naked legs and al fresco armpits. And in this year, a miracle did occur: Hannah completely stopped caring about ensuring every inch of skin was devoid of Unsightly! Unseemgly! Unladylike! hair before leaving the house.
And Hannah saw this, and she said that it was fucking awesome.
And no one died. No one stared and pointed. None of the many medical professionals who have been poking round in her privates in the last couple of weeks ran away screaming. Children did not hide behind their mothers, begging for protection from the horrible hair-beast that had come to attack them with her monstrous legs of death.
There was no road to Damascus moment heralding this beautiful day; Hannah did not hurl down her razors in disgust, crying, "No more, The Patriarchy, no more! No more will I waste time, energy and money on this fruitless, unachievable, and ultimately empty attempt to attain someone else's ideal of female bodily perfection! BEHOLD MY CHIN HAIRS AND TREMBLE!"
Rather, it was rebellion by default: warm it was, on this day; hairy of leg, was Hannah on this day. Leg shaving before work would not fit into her patented three-minutes-from-alarm-to-pavement schedule. So on went the skirt with the split to the knee, and out to the world went the legs of hirsute horror, and... no one died.
Truly, a miracle of our times.
It is unlikely that this furry state of affairs will become the modus operandi, given that a day's worth of armpit stubble warrants The Look Of Doom on the part of our heroine's gentleman friend, but glorious it is to know that one has the option of doing whatever one damn well pleases regardless of the smoothness of one's pins.
Sometimes it feels that to Do Woman properly in this society, you have to hate yourself. So finding strength not to do so, in whatever way you can find, is such a joy.
Bliss it was in that dawn to be hairy, and not to give a flaming shit about it was very heaven.
Hi Allam, I found you on Feministe today. Love this. I know it is such bad, bad form to leave a comment (esp. on your first visit) that says "read my blog" but I don't have too many unshaven friends to share stories with, and everything i'd say in my comment, i already wrote in my post, so if you're inclined, check out my long journey to unshaven legs and my conflicts over the whole dreaded issue of pits. bravo on having a hairy day - it's true, the sky doesn't fall if we don't shave! :) http://smallhouse-bigpicture.blogspot.com/2011/11/feeling-hairied-at-my-mammogram.html
ReplyDeletesorry - i meant "Allama"!
DeleteThanks! I loved your post, so your imaginary transgression is more than forgiven ;-)
ReplyDeleteFun facts:
ReplyDelete1) I teach high school in Arizona, wherein I wear a fair amount of capris and sleeveless shirts.
2) For the past several years, I have done little more than trim my legs and underarms.
3) While I have heard the odd suppressed snicker from a 14-year-old (who, to be fair, are generally still acclimating themselves to the hair removal "rules" and have maybe not brushed up against "rules were made to be broken" in quite this context), basically -- even in my professional life -- no fucks are given.
4) The last time I shaved my legs and underarms was for my wedding shower this summer.
5) My skin was full of red angry burn (like it always gets, no matter what I do; I should know better), and it was quite noticeable. Many concerned fucks were given, most of them by me.
More power toyou, dear lady!
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