by Manon Cuixeres
The argument started the way arguments often do, on a Sunday afternoon during a family reunion. The day had been quiet so far, Clara and her dad had brought dessert and they were about to eat it in the living room, where Clara’s grandmother was bringing a tray with coffee cups and a coffee pot. Hannah, Clara’s aunt, had arrived just in time for coffee, and she was commenting on her niece’s amazing leather skirt, when suddenly Clara shows her unshaved legs to her, proudly declaring, “I don’t shave anymore. I stopped entirely.”
It should be noted here that the women in this family have always had a painful relationship with their body hair. Clara’s cousin Sophia was barely ten when her mother and grandmother bleached her arms and back—apparently too hairy for a girl— using a mixture dated from the previous century that smelled horrible and stung. Later, Hannah, her daughter and Clara had all gone through the painful and expensive process of “permanently” removing their armpit and pubic hair. Body hair, and how to remove them effectively, was often at the center of their conversation, to the point that Clara’s dad had made it a joke. In this context, Clara’s declaration is like a small revolution, but it also sets her apart from the rest of the women in the family.
“Oh, really? We don’t see anything through your tights.” Hannah assumes her niece wants to hear a reassuring voice.
“I didn’t wear tights this summer, though.”
“How does your boyfriend take it?” She sounds genuinely interested.
“My boyfriend’s opinion doesn’t matter when it comes to me shaving my hair or not.
What men think is exactly what shouldn’t matter to us.”
Hannah defends herself from what she takes as an accusation from her niece. “I’ve never shaved because of my boyfriend, I started when I was ten. He never told me I had to shave.”
“Well, if you’ve started shaving your hair when you were ten, he never had to tell you, did he? That’s the thing, they don’t need to tell us because we do it anyway, thinking it’s natural.”
Hannah takes a sip of her coffee, but the liquid is too hot; she burns her tongue and has to spit the liquid into the cup she’s holding. “Shit”, she says, and as her mother passes her a paper napkin, she asks her niece again, “But what does Julio say then?”
“His name is Julián, but yeah, he told me to let my hair grow everywhere—these are his words—because removing it looks painful and it’s not worth it. I had decided to stop shaving my armpits last Spring anyway, so I just took it a step further and stopped shaving entirely.”
“Ah, I really don’t like hairy armpits. It’s unhygienic.”
“That is not true. Most men don’t shave their armpits and they’re fine.”
“I had a friend who didn’t shave and had pubic louse!”
Clara rolls her eyes. “Okay, just because you don’t shave doesn’t mean you don’t take regular showers! I mean, that’s just basic hygiene…” She takes a bite off her slice of apple pie and sets it back on the small plate on her lap before continuing. “But if shaving your hair is a matter of hygiene, why do only women need to do it? And why should we shave our legs? They’re not so dirty that bacteria will hide in the hair or whatever…”
“No, but hairy legs are not very… they’re not very feminine!” She is reluctant to pronounce that last word, as if she knows that her reasoning is flawed, but can’t help clinging to it.
“Aha!” Clara exclaims triumphantly. “We shave for patriarchal aesthetic reasons; shaving is about controlling women’s bodies, and if you don’t think so then explain to me why some celebrities have received death threats or rape threats after showing their armpit hair?”
Hannah looks taken aback for a moment. “Yes, of course that’s not okay, but I mean…” She pauses for half a second before going on, “I have a colleague who stinks! And my boyfriend also told me that he stank before he started shaving his armpits, you know.”
Clara appears to be slightly annoyed at her aunt’s stubbornness. “Look, I sweat a lot, but shaving my armpits didn’t make them less sweaty. I take a shower every day, and might wash my armpits a second time during the day… As I said, this is basic hygiene; it has nothing to do with being hairy or not.” She speaks faster, clearly upset now, her face reddening. “If anything, pubic hair is a natural barrier against bacteria and infections! If you feel like your sweat is unhygienic, well first of all it’s not, and second of all, if it makes you uncomfortable, a good place to start would be to stop wearing synthetic material such as polyester and turn to natural fibers such as cotton, silk, linen or viscose.”
She catches her breath, waiting for her aunt’s answer, and her dad chooses that moment to join the conversation. “Oh yes, polyester is horrible. I had a shirt made of polyester, I could barely wear it for 15 minutes before it smelled. I only buy cotton now.”
Hannah shrugs and admits, “Yes, you’re right about that… but I still think that hair is unhygienic.” Her tone is definitive, as if she wants to end the conversation.
The argument should have stopped here, since none of the parties were ready to negotiate the truth of their positions. But Clara, who always wants to have the last word, declares in a calm voice, “Okay, let me say one more thing and then we can close this subject because it’s clear that we won’t get to an agreement here. We all have hands, right? We all use them to wipe our asses, right? We are all supposed to wash them after going to the bathroom because that’s how hygiene works. It applies to everyone. And you’re trying to make me believe that, even though men sweat as much as women, there is some kind of “hygiene” particular to armpit hair that only applies to women? That sounds very much like bullshit to me, and I don’t see why women should be the only ones who pay thousands of francs to continually remove their hair when men can just live their life unbothered.” Hannah looks like she’s about to say something, but Chloe cuts her short, talking louder. “And I know that some men, like your boyfriend apparently, shave their armpits, but they are not stigmatized if they don’t, whereas women are.” Clara drops her voice then, as if closing the subject for good, but her aunt still has something to stay.
She tells the story of how her current boyfriend once was about to have sex with a woman, and as she undressed, he saw that she hadn’t shaved her pubic hair, so he stopped her right there, gave her a razor and showed her the way to the shower. Clara looks sad for a moment, and then declares, “I would have let him there with his dick between his legs.” Her aunt responds that she would have done the same, but that the woman in question hadn’t. But hair is still very much unhygienic, you see.