Many of you have heard of Movember , a campaign in which men are encouraged to grow mustaches to raise money for prostate cancer awareness and research.
However, men aren’t the only people who grow body hair. In fact, women were also encouraged to grow their facial hair for Movember, which was met with much praise, as well as disgust, unfortunately.
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Why can men have an entire month dedicated to their body hair without women being able to participate, too?
Well, a woman by the name of Laura Jackson took it upon herself to insert women into the discourse of body hair with “Januhairy.”
Traditional gender role stereotypes teach us that men grow and keep their body hair — that it’s masculine and sexy.
For women, visible body hair is seen as manly, disgusting, smelly, and overall just unattractive.
With campaigns like Laura’s, the conversation of the normalization of body hair for female-identifying individuals is shifting.
The Januhairy campaign works twofold. First, it brings awareness and action to the global climate crisis.
The campaign works to support TreeSisters , an “organisation, that protects and restores natural habitats in order to fight climate change.”
Second, the campaign also works to change societal gender norm stereotypes and empower women.
“This isn’t an angry campaign for people who don’t see how normal body hair is, but more an empowering project for everyone to understand more about their views on themselves and others,” Laura wrote in an Instagram post.
Let’s face it, ladies and gents: Shaving is a pain in the butt.
I seriously debate with myself for 20 minutes if I really need to do it. It requires a lot of mental preparation!
Who even started the whole women need to shave every ounce of their body, anyways?
Why did it suddenly become so vile for women to leave their armpits, mustaches, sideburns, arms, legs, and vajay hairy?
That’s exactly what Januhairy aims to tackle.
“Society seems to be behaving as if the natural hair we grow on our bodies is unattractive and distasteful,” reads the Januhairy bio.
“It’s your choice to do what you want with your body, whether society likes it or not; but sometimes it’s hard to step out of those normalities, especially by yourself.”
“Januhairy is a community, embracing our natural state, and challenging our patriarchal thoughts and expectations, together.”
A major part of the campaign involves featuring female-identifying individuals and their reflections about growing their body hair.
“You can be male and shave. You can be female and not. You can be non-binary and shave. You can be non-binary and not,” says Aitch in a post from the @januhairy Instagram page.
At the end of the day, it’s your body and your decisions and choices.
Aitch continued, “You can decide to shave sometimes and not others! It’s not being lazy, it’s making a decision about what you want on your body in that moment!”
That’s it!
Body hair is natural.
“Body hair is not ‘un-feminine’, it is natural and you should choose whatever you want to do with it. You are beautiful, be kind to yourself,” one caption read.
The Instagram page boasts over 19K followers so far, and is met with much positive reception in the comments.
What do you think about Januhairy? Do you think you’ll participate? Let us know!
