Too many hours of the week are spent getting rid of these tiny, dark, nuisances. What am I talking about, you ask? Ants? Termites? Did you really think I would spend hours of my week trying to get rid of ants? No, I am talking about body hair, facial hair, all hair. I am covered in a layer of this, frankly, no-longer-necessary–for-survival material. Everyone has always told me how unappealing body hair is, or how facial hair on a woman isn’t “right.” Is that normal? Is an eight-year-old supposed to hate the way she looks because of comments made about the peach fuzz on her face? Is a twelve-year old supposed to be embarrassed to wear shorts because people will laugh at her leg hair? Is a fourteen-year-old supposed to be disgusted at pictures of herself because her unruly eyebrows might be apparent? Is that a normal way to live?
Hating my body hair has been a defining part of my life since I was seven years old, the first time someone made a comment about my facial hair.
“Hey, do you shave your mustache??”
That is when I first realized that having this hair on your face isn’t good, the opposite really. This was the first time I heard something like this about my appearance. I let it slide, thinking, oh, that was a one-time incident, it won’t happen again. Little did I know how wrong I was. Then, at the end of third grade, we drew self-portraits of ourselves, and compiled them into one book. Our third-grade yearbook! We all sat eagerly on the edges of our chairs waiting for our copies. As soon as we got our hands on one we flipped through it looking at everyone’s drawings and biographies. And it was such a wholesome, innocent moment -- until the girl in front of me said, “Looks like Sara forgot something in her drawing.” She took out a dark pen, and drew a squiggly line on top of my smile. I looked at her in silence, thinking, why someone would do that, thinking, is my mustache really that noticeable, thinking: I hate my face.
Fourth-grade passed without a hitch, but the bruises left from the year before are still very much felt. A year later, hair starts growing in my armpits, which is a natural part of life, so I never questioned it. I never thought it was a bad thing, or that I had to get rid of it. That all changed when I started swimming, and both my underarm hair and I were, again, exposed. I was the only girl with hair in her armpits. Still, it had never occurred to me that it was wrong in any way, until I noticed people staring at my armpits with a weird look. I told my mother and immediately she understood. That was the year I first started removing hair from my body. It started with waxing, because my mom thought I was too young to shave, (somehow pouring hot wax on my skin and ripping it off was totally fine). I was 10 just hitting double digits and puberty; a part of life where I am supposed to grow and mature into myself, I began slowly, systematically, and secretly stripping parts of my body away.
I enter middle school - another year full of realizing how hair literally doesn’t belong on any part of my female body. Our class was walking back from lunch and standing in the hallway, waiting for us to quiet down so we can head upstairs. I was wearing a pink skirt with floral patterns on it, flowing down my legs. A guy pointed at my legs in the middle of the hallway and laughing, saying, “You have hair like a guy!” Again, I stand in silence, wondering how many more parts of my body can I hate. I confess to my close friends how much it frustrates me that I can’t get rid of my leg hair, how my mom thinks I am too young to start shaving. They give me advice along the lines of, “wear longer pants,” “don’t ask your mom and just go for it!” “Use duct tape!” Nothing about accepting my body, just tips on how to fix the problem of leg hair. I asked my mother many times, begging her to let me do it. How I was repulsed by my legs and how ugly they looked. My mom stood strong and told me that still I was too young. As the obedient child I was I listened, and continued to let the hate fester.
Seventh-grade was a pivotal year. Were you hoping that I finally began to accept my body? Oh, no, that is far from the truth. I finally shaved my legs! I did it! I got rid of those tiny, dark nuisances. Did my mom finally let me shave? Oh no, yet again that is far from the truth. I was home alone one day. I went to my trusty friend Google and looked up, “How to shave your legs girl?” I found a wiki-how article, read the entire thing. I didn’t think that was enough, so I checked a few Yahoo-Answers pages just to make sure I had the technique right, and I was using the right things. I went to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and found a hopefully clean female razor to use. I shaved up to my knees, and finally they looked acceptable. I wore capris that day feeling so proud of myself, hoping that someone would notice the change. No one noticed. After all that they said, they still didn’t notice. What was the point of me doing this if no one noticed?
I was wrong - someone did notice. It was my mother. I came home and after a while she asks, “What did you do to your legs?”
“Mummi, I couldn’t take it anymore, everyone always commented on my legs. I couldn’t stand wearing shorts or skirts. Mummi, I needed to do this,” I said, as tears welled up in my eyes.
She understood again, she understood why I went to such lengths, why I went behind her back. Instead of getting angry, she told me it was okay. That I can continue shaving, or start waxing if I wanted. I felt so relieved. My legs had finally become “good.” I finally liked my legs.
Slowly my love for my body started coming back as I stripped more and more of it away. Yet again it wasn’t enough. There was always more you could get rid of. At fourteen, I was sitting in the cafeteria with a friend’s little brother. Out of nowhere he says to my face, “I didn’t know girls could have mustaches.” He is in third grade, I can’t say anything to him. Again, I sit in silence and just let it sink in. I go home that day and tell my mom, “I don’t care if I am too young. I want to get rid of my mustache. I can’t deal with it anymore.” Once more, she understands and gives me options. We try threading and waxing, both painful, but necessary. Beauty is pain. From then on I get the peach fuzz from my upper lip removed every two weeks. To this day, I walk home every other week for this precise reason.
Lately I get comments like, “Wow your eyebrows are so great!” Little do they know the amount of time and pain endured to make them “so great.” Hours upon hours are spent removing my hair, from my legs to my upper lip to my eyebrows. I spend two to three hours a week alone plucking my eyebrows. Hours in the shower shaving my legs. Lots of pain in waxing, threading, and plucking my eyebrows and upper lip. It is a painful and time-consuming process that I put myself through every week. Razors, waxing, (both hot and cold), threading, plucking, hair removal cream, bleaching, you name it - I have tried it.
To be frank, I still haven’t accepted my body hair. I am still very insecure about it. The comments made about my body at such a young age have left deep imprints. Comments made about any kid’s body leave deep imprints. These comments shape the way children think about themselves. I can’t blame the kids who said those deep wounding comments to me, in the end of the day they too were children taking in the culture around them.
There is such a stigma about body hair in our society, and although it seems like a small, insignificant topic, it affects people in a deep way. Although people try to push back on beauty standards, in the end it is the beauty standards that win over. Girls will still shave their legs, get their eyebrows done. They don’t want to be the odd girl out. It will ostracize them, so they will go through the long tedious process of hair removal to make sure that they aren’t different. Even if they don’t want to, they will do it. We all wonder if we are the only ones going through this, but in reality every single person has been through the battle of finding love for their body.
The damage may be permanent; it’s hard to tell. The comments I have received changed the way I perceived myself. I have an aversion to my face when I see facial hair on it. I went from a young girl who loved her body, and didn’t think that it needed it to be changed, to an adult who still constantly attempts to “fix” my body. I don’t think I will ever stop, and honestly that part scares me. I consider these hours I spent, hours wasted, but it needs to be done. I can’t stop. I can’t go through what I went through when I was young. I can’t bear to hear how much I look like a man. I can’t have people stare at my legs. I can’t have people tell me I have a mustache. I can’t.
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