Long Live the Bush.
I’ve said what I said.
Somewhere along the way, we collectively decided that women should resemble a freshly peeled dolphin from the eyebrows down.
I have missed that memo.
Now don’t get me wrong.
I’ve removed my body hair.
I’ve shaved it.
Waxed it.
Trimmed it.
Spent far too much time thinking about it.
Particularly as a woman with PCOS, which often feels like Mother Nature got halfway through building me and decided to start improvising.
I’ve found chin hairs that appeared overnight, with zero regard to my feelings.
I’ve found mystery hair that wasn’t there the day before.
I’ve spent years wondering whether I should even be fighting my own body and just simply accepting this is the body I was given.
The answer turned out to be somewhere between acceptance and a decent set of tweezers.
The thing that fascinates me is how emotional people get about body hair.
Not their own.
Other people.
Particularly women.
I’ve never really understood it.
Hair grows out of people.
It’s one of the least surprising things a body can do.
Dare to mention female body hair and suddenly everybody has an opinion.
Some people are mortified.
Some people are delighted.
Some people become suspiciously invested in the conversation.
I’ll let you decide which category you fit into.
The funny thing is, people assume body hair must mean something.
That must be political.
Or rebellious.
Or a statement.
The reality is much less dramatic.
The first time I saw a young woman wandering around a festival with unshaven legs and underarms, I remember grinning like a proper knobhead.
She looked completely comfortable.
Completely unbothered.
Like she’d never once stopped to consider whether a stranger approved of her body.
There was something incredibly liberating about it.
Not because she was trying to make a statement.
Because she clearly wasn’t.
She was just existing.
I have no doubt she didn’t have the faintest idea she’d just altered the trajectory of a stranger’s relationship with her own body.
But she did.
The irony is that I never actually set out to become known for body hair.
It just sort of happened.
One minute you’re existing peacefully.
The next you’ve somehow become the woman strangers associate with armpits.
Life comes at you fast.
The older I get, the less interested I am in trying to keep up with whatever beauty standard we’re all supposed to be chasing this week.
They change constantly anyway.
Eyebrows disappear.
Eyebrows return.
Someone invents a new insecurity.
Everyone panics.
The cycle continues.
It’s exhausting.
These days I find myself asking a much simpler question;
What do I actually want?
Not what looks best.
Not what’s trending.
Not what will make strangers on the internet happy.
What do I want?
Most of the time the answer is surprisingly boring.
I want to be comfortable.
I want to feel like myself.
I want clothes that fit.
I want an extra shot in my coffee.
I want a dog that occasionally listens.
Beyond that I’m fairly flexible.
Most days, body hair isn’t making a statement.
It’s just there.
Part of me.
The same way my tattoos are part of me.
The same way my laugh is part of me.
The same way my tendency to adopt slight chaotic rescue animals is part of me.
It’s not that deep.
At least not most of the time.
For years I spent far too much time worrying about whether I was getting womanhood right.
Hair and all.
Long Live the Bush.