Stumbled onto body hair

 

This could be a very literal post, where I just stumbled onto a big pile of body hair. Not even mine, fur balls are body hair and if you have seen our Newfoundland at another post, you would know that these are real safety hazards. 

Nonetheless, I do mean body hair in human women, something oddly controversial. This is what dominated the Greek press for the previous week; Kamala Harris’ step-daughter, Ella Emhoff, posted a photo with her armpit hair visibly showing. Triggered by this a, now infamous, young woman went after this whole ‘trend’ of ‘not falling into an endless shame spiral if, God forbid, you have not shaved your body to the point that it looks like baby skin’. Thankfully, the majority of Greek media and the internet condemned this view; unfortunately I don’t think she was trying to convince any one of those that disagreed. Instead, we have taken a page out of the US politics book and it seems that some people make a career by opposing a majority just to gain very vocal minority to support them. And it works.

The video she posted on her private Instagram account characterised pictures of body hair and cellulite and stretch marks as ‘disgusting’ ad ‘disturbing’ and wondered why she had to be subjected to such images just because someone else wanted to share them. On Instagram. Let me say this again. Someone on Instagram objected to seeing what other people deemed postable. On Instagram. I saw someone’s penis on an Instagram story not two weeks ago. I saw someone’s sunkissed toes. I still haven’t decided which one I hated more, but these are the sort of risks you take when you want to be on the platform. Actually, I think one of these images is legally banned, you know, because of all the perverts with foot fetishes.

She then decided that demonising the very natural appearance of a woman’s body would maybe not get enough traction and decided to extend her argument to include gender fluidity. More specifically, she expressed her worry that men wearing makeup and women wearing baggy clothes were a threat to our culture and life as we know it.  I was debating what to comment on here; would it be worth mentioning that if our ‘culture’ and ‘life as we know it’ is restricting anyone’s freedom of expression, maybe it is worth threatening it right out of existence? Or would it be preferable to mention that in the list of threats to life as we know it, makeup and baggy clothes should probably be further down the line? I, for one, am much more worried about our simultaneous overreliance and abuse on robots; should they become sentient, I think that is when life as we know will definitely be threatened (I have started rewatching Westworld).

This obviously got people all stirred up because of the blunt discrimination and absurdity of the video. This excitement got television involved and said lady appeared on a morning show to clarify her statement. She said that she did not object to the existence of these imperfections, nor suggested that should you have them, photographs are off limits to you. And for that I thank her, cause I got worried there for a while; what with my enlarged pores and sun damage? I mean a have a few moles too, what headshot would I put up on LinkedIn if nowhere else? She refined her statement to say that she objects to the glorification of said imperfections as it takes away from the feminist battle of proving our worth. Those imperfections that were characterised as disgusting and disturbing, it’s not that she dislikes them, as demonstrated by these adjectives; it’s just that she is a feminist. And what is more feminist than thinking a less-than-perfect appearance diminishes one’s worth. Basically, she tried to shift the argument towards ‘people are focusing on external appearance, a commonly female issue, rather than actions’ as if one excludes the other and if one makes a statement with their appearance instead of changing a tire, they are a traitor to the sex. It’s like my mother’s spinach pie; it might be the tastiest thing I have ever encountered but she did COOK it wearing a bra and everything. I wouldn’t eat that thing even if the patriarchy paid me to. The same patriarchy, by the way, that does not prefer baggy clothes on women but does on makeup-less men. But it is true that our ‘culture’ and ‘way of life’ currently includes endless filters, retouches and unrealistic beauty standards and these are threatened by such images. She was right about that. What can we next expect; teenagers growing up with more confidence and self-love? The horror.

This refinement bothered me so much more than the original statement, because as one of the presenters said it seemed ‘more understandable’, therefore defendable. But it really isn’t. It was simply phrased in more careful wording so people could back her up saying she was originally misinterpreted. There is nothing misinterpreted about misogyny though, nothing misinterpreted about trying to enforce traditional beauty standards to those that do not feel represented by them. The refinement bothered me so much that it knocked my predesigned pleasant, corny attempts at jokes right out of this post and it just ended up being me rage typing. You can tell when I am rage typing because I use the quote sign ‘’ a million times per sentence. And yes, let me be the first to recognise that as this is not pop-culture related, but more to do with Greek current events, I could have written it up in Greek like a sensible person. But let me also be the first to recognise that such a post would have lost all credibility, if only for the grammar mistakes. And if you are thinking ‘what credibility?’, well, that of a coherent text, at the very least.