Glittery armpits… I know. Awesome.
Here we have it. Armpit lovers of the world unite. In one blog post. For a limited time only. (Ok, no, well, probably for as long as I am writing this blog and still believe in sharing these things).
nb I’m not saying anyone has to grow out their armpit hair. This is just me showing some sisters who are rocking a different style.
My pit pioneers:
Xiao set up an armpit hair selfi competition in China. She wanted women to feel they had a choice in what they did with their own bodies’. She wants women to have the option of growing it out long, if they so wish. So that they don’t have to be seen ‘gross’ by anyone else.
She also won the role model award at the 2015 Beijing Media Awards following a 2000 km walk to raise public awareness of sexual assault against women. Cool.
You know how I was talking about Muffember in my last post?
Well, here’s some women who got there before me. Chloe Marshall and the gang stormed the streets with their protest, as well as growing them out long for a good cause, raising money and awareness of PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome).
Ben Hopper is a photographer from London who took some beautiful shots of women with hair. He wants to challenge the ‘brainwashing’ that has been imposed upon society. To the point where what is natural is not what is beautiful. He is hoping that some women will now reconsider what they find to be beautiful or not. And why.
Organisers of ‘free your pits’, and fashionistas, Roxie and Rain (cool band name if they ever decide to branch out into music), are encouraging a movement where women’s pits are free to do whatever the hell they want, shaved or haired.
Since her switch to the fuzz, Roxie has felt more empowered and conscious about every single decision she makes each day. She began questioning what was coming from her, and what coming from outside influences. Knowing what she did was her own choice, and no one else’s felt pretty great.
They got a lot of press interest when they got together and dyed Rain’s armpits blue. #freeyourpits
Destiny M posted a video showing off her newly dyed pits. Since discovering the hashtag #noshavenoshade she was inspired to try out this new trend. She found that dying them was an easier way of being hairy in public.
Destiny expresses the deep idea that, we have a concept of what a woman is right now; it’s what we’ve seen before, it’s what we’ve seen in adverts, it’s what our family and friends have told us a woman is. But that’s not all a woman can be, and can be defined as.
Or anyone for that matter. If we are only defined by our past, how can we be anything new in the future?
Like it.
Madonna was bullied by boys in her high school for having hairy armpits. She chose to be different. Because she wanted to know, ‘why do I have to do that?’
Now she is proving once more, that you don’t have to do shave, if you don’t want to. Tell Madonna she can’t do something, she’s daim straight gonna do it!
… and other famous people
Most famous people don’t give much information about why they shave or don’t, at least, I can’t find it.
But there a few of them out there, showing pit pride.
So, there we have it. Many lovers of armpit hair!
But this post isn’t just about pit love. It’s also about what these brave women and men really are; women’s rights pioneers. People who believe that the pressures put on women by the media are ridiculous, and that we, ourselves, can define what we feel is beautiful.
I’ve had as many images of perfection shoved down my throat as the next person. -So many adverts telling me to loose weight, to be hairless, to be perfect, to have shiny hair, perfect skin, to be sexy. It seems all that matters to the media is that a woman looks pretty, or is shaved, no matter what she does or achieves. And, for a while, I bought it. I tried to be that perfect woman. I tried to reach ‘pretty’.
And now I’m writing this blog about hair and image, so I can say to myself, and all other women out there: you don’t have to be a slave to someone else’s expectations. Not the media. Not society. Not your friends, family or even your loved ones.
I can feel the difference, now, between me when I was younger, and was trying to fit into this box of perfection, and me now, in which I am reaching out, and finding my own style, irrelevant of what any magazine or tv advert might want to tell me. I don’t know when, but slowly my aim changed. I gave up on pretty. On perfect.
Now my aim is to have the freedom to do what I want with my body. To choose what I do because it’s my choice, because of empowering reasons, and not shameful ones. To do what feels good, for me.
My sole aim doesn’t have to be attraction anymore, it can be fulfilment. And love.
But, really, wasn’t that always the aim in the first place?
❤
“The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.” Audrey Hepburn
❤
What do you think of these pit pioneers? Let me know in the comments below!
Next post: Rainbow
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