Strength TogetHER 12- Session 3
“SHAVE BECAUSE YOU WANT TO, NOT BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO”
Our third session of Strength TogetHER was themed as “Normalizing Body Hair” was focused on breaking the gender stereotype of girls needing to have a perfectly hairless body. Here, we discussed the complexities girls in general face in society for having body hair. Our session was moderated by Mrs.Bhawana Malla Baniya.
This session had a participation of 20+ amazing girls and body hair being a hot topic to shame girls in our society, we decided to keep the floor open for everyone to share their stories. We proceeded the session with the speakers sharing their stories and experiences.
Our first speaker shared how her male classmates used to bully her for having hair in her hands and face in her school days. Right after completing 10th grade, waxing and threading had become a routine for her. She used to visit the parlor every two weeks for the hair removal. It was in her college days that she realized she didn’t need to do it at all; it was her body and her choice whether or not to keep the body hair. Meeting the expectations of the society wasn’t something she needed to be concerned about. She shares that she now removes the hair whenever she feels like.
Our second speaker shared how her brother said he didn't like her friend just because she had body hair but she just couldn't talk back to him that time. Her concern was, how sensical or humane it is for a male to expect perfection from a female and hate her just because she doesn’t meet that criteria.
Having been insecure all her life about her body hair, our third speaker shared an incident from her school days where she was having chit-chat with her friend group at school and one of the boys from the group, out of nowhere, pointed at her and said, “You have a moustache”.She remembers trying not to pay attention to what he said and change the topic, but he kept on repeating the same thing which made her feel very uncomfortable. A year or two down the line, she finally started gaining confidence about herself after another male friend of hers said that it's very okay to have body hair and that she didn’t need to remove it to be beautiful.
Having visible hair in her upper lips, before even entering her teens our fourth speaker started getting so ashamed of it that one day she took her father’s razor and shaved it off. As she was small, she clearly couldn’t get a close-to-clean shave. So, the other day at school she was asked by her friends if she had shaved, to which she denied, but it is still embarrassing for her.
Our fifth speaker shared how uncomfortable it was for her to wear sleeveless or even half-sleeved t-shirts and shorts when she hadn’t shaved or waxed.She’d often feel that people would judge her for having body hair. However, one day she just decided to not care about anyone and go out in shorts and sleeveless tees without shaving and everything felt normal as ever. Since then, she has become really confident accepting her body as it is.
Bhawana ma’am was really proud of all the girls for learning and helping others learn self-acceptance. Also,she was proud of the Strength TogetHER team for creating a space where us girls can talk openly about all these and bring change in the society’s thinking modalities.
Our moderator shared her experience on the topic and put forward the fact that it has been women all the time teaching women the ‘need’ to be perfect to be accepted in society. She also talked about toxic masculinity affecting women's freedom to decide what they want to do with their body.
She added that body hair should never define a girl's beauty or even her hygiene, a girl can shave if she wants or she can just leave her hair alone.Body hair is a part of us and as hygienic if taken care properly, which implies to both men and women. But on a second note, she considers removing hair in the underarm area a better option for preventing any sorts of allergies and infections.
Written by- Nirjara Shrestha (Cohort Coordinator)
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