The Story of an Armpit Warrior

Just another example to add to the canon - people don't like it when women don't shave their armpits. SHOCK!

I know it seems obvious, and it really is, but think about it; why would anyone mind?
As usual when it comes to people not liking a behaviour which doesn't fit into the gender stereotype (homosexuality, men having jewellery, women shaving their heads, etc), people have been asking me if it's because of the fact that I am a lesbian (yes, people just know me as a lesbian because I know that they won't understand omnisexuality) that I don't shave my armpits. Of course, any behaviour which doesn't fit with the hegemonic ideal of femininity or masculinity equals homosexuality. My arguement, a relatively sound one, is that men aren't expected to shave their bodies to fit their gender role, and therefore it's a gendered practice which, if you want to, you should be able to avoid.

Then comes the "science". "But if you don't shave your armpits, you'll stink!" So men are allowed to stink? Women aren't supposed to smell at all? Does this even make you smell worse if you have good hygene? I doubt it. In fact, I know that it doesn't, because I'm sitting here quite comfortably with no revolting smell coming at me from under my clothes. Then people start to say it's just "unnatural" for women not to shave.


Sometimes, I just despair. We need to keep on fighting for the ability to do what we wish with our bodies - tattoo them, shave them, dread them, pierce them, fuck whoever we want with them, give birth with them, abstain with them, dance with them. I will never shave my armpits again, or at least until I feel like it. Unless I become an olympic swimmer, in which case I will shave my entire body, just to be streamlined.

Until then, I'm happy to be a hairy hippie if it means that I'm rejecting the idea that women are supposed to alter their bodies for the sake of the status quo.


Combat, don't contribute.