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When was the first time you were told to shave your legs?
For me, it was primary school, when a girl wandered over and asked, “So, when are you going to shave your legs?” My internal reaction was: Um, what? Shave my legs? I wasn’t aware my legs had hair on them, let alone hair that needed to be removed. Huh.
Turns out, I wasn’t the only one that experienced this rude awakening. When the subject came up at a marie claire editorial meeting, just about every other female staffer recalled a similar incident where a fellow student, almost always a girl, helpfully pointed out that females were expected to have hairless legs.
It was practically a primary school rite of passage, and based on conversations with my primary school aged niece, it’s a question that still gets asked, and, according to my high school aged nephew, it’s a query boys are now subject to as well.
Whether you blame social media (I certainly do) or playground politics, it’s something that clearly is not going away.
But one American woman is hoping to change the perception that body hair is bad.
Morgan Mikena’s Instagram page has loads of workout selfies (the lady is #fitnessgoals), but there are also images of her hair-covered armpits and legs – which she hasn’t shaved in a year.
And Ms Mikena really has no time for your opinion on the matter, as evidenced by one of her photo captions:
WARNING If body hair offends you, you will want to keep scrolling, no negativity please. I’m fully aware that my body hair is clearly visible in this picture, and that’s the whole reason I posted it. I’ve have been getting beautiful emails from females who I inspired to stop removing their body hair and have helped send them on their journey of self love … For a majority of my life I have been chasing acceptance and love from others, and not focused what is actually important.. Loving MYSELF and feeling comfortable in my own skin and not needing anyone’s approval.
Mikenas has also taken to YouTube, explaining that she started shaving her legs in middle school (around 11-13 years old) after “some girls on the playground” made fun of her hairy legs (sound familiar?). “I went straight home to my mum and was so upset and crying and telling her to teach me how to shave my legs,” she explains in the video. “That’s when it all began.”
But it ended last year, when Mikenas decided enough was enough and, as time went on, she felt ok. Now, she says, “I freakin’ love my body hair.”
#bodyhairdontcare
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