Get your pictures of hairy Asian women right here
Thai women are usually quick to follow lifestyle trends, but surely few of them are likely to mimic the hundreds of Chinese women who've entered a competition that involves posting photos of their unshaven armpits on the microblogging site Sina Weibo.
One of the more popular accounts there is hosting the imaginatively named “Girls Not Plucking Armpit Hair” contest. We’re not going to imply it’s kinky or anything. It’s billed as a celebration of “natural beauty”.
The selfies show pretty young women with arms raised, and the subsequent debate has been heated. There are those who find the hair (or at least its public exposure) gross. There are those who praise the hirsute ladies for their confidence and courage in challenging social norms. The contest has been in the Thai news, but so far Thai women have failed to join in the pit-beard fun.
American pop singer Madonna must be smiling, though, having dared to show the truth of her own shaggy underarms on Instagram and alluding in the photo caption to freedom and a “revolution of love”. We recall Hong Kong stars of the 1980s also sharing picture of their dyed pit hair.
China Daily reports that the entrants in the contest there have various reasons for airing their hair. The armpit photo posted by one woman identified only as Coco showed hers covered with gauze because she picked up an infection due to plucking the hair. She had to have a bit of surgery. “What a lesson!” Coco lamented online. “I suffered a lot. I dare not pluck my hair ever again.”
Meanwhile contestant “Alice” thinks armpit hair is sexy and vows never to shave again. “It’s healthy for young women to not shave,” she adds. “And the contest is promoting this point of view.”
In Sina Wiebo’s survey of 6,400 people, more than 70 per cent said it’s better to shave because it’s more beautiful. The other third disagreed entirely, opting for naturalness and health over superficial appearances. The counter-argument is that shaving leg and underarm hair is a matter of personal hygiene – and etiquette too. Men might be considered more manly with hair all over the place, the reasoning goes, but women must use epilators, shaving creams and razor blades to be “feminine” – which translates basically to “hairless as a newborn baby”.
China Daily quotes Beijing-based women’s-rights activist Lyu Pin as pointing out that women in China only began shaving their underarms about 20 years ago. “It’s easier to hold an armpit-hair contest in China due to the cultural differences between China and the United States,” she says, referring to the world power where excess follicles remain taboo (for everyone except iconoclasts like Madonna).
“If people think you’re not beautiful or lack etiquette just because you don’t shave your underarm hair, I don’t think they’re right,” Lyu Pin says. “The decision whether to shave or not is restricted only by social norms. I don’t think Chinese have to learn from Westerners to shave their underarm hair.”
We’ve just had a phone call from the razor-blade-and-hair-removal-wax industry and must request that you stop reading this now and forget you ever heard of such a thing.
