unacceptable beards

garconniere:

Umm, okay so I have these pretty long/thick sideburns. I got that from my mom and I got awesome chin hair from her too. I’ve had them for a pretty long time now, they started to grow when I was really young, elementary school maybe? I got made fun of in middle school but I was still comfortable…

i find it really depressing/interesting that so many of our greatest insecurities stem from childhood teasing. reading this brought back a lot of shitty memories about my own insecurities about body hair.

my nickname in grade school was “hairy monkey legs” and i begged my mother to let me shave. she finally gave in when i was eleven, before my first day of seventh grade when i had to wear a uniform that showed my legs. i’ll never forget the pink razor and the bathtub with all that soft hair sticking to the sides, and my mother sighing those heavy sighs.

seventh grade wasn’t any better than sixth; my journal from that year is filled with self-loathing and detailed accounts of how much everyone hated me and how much i hated myself. that year was filled with friends who lied about everything and anything. thinking back to that year i don’t think any of us were happy at all in the walls of that school. outside wasn’t so bad.

shaving my legs hoping it would deter bullies and teasing without it changing anything hurt, a lot, at the time. i was convinced if i looked a certain way, if i changed certain things, then people would like me. that’s what you’re told. but later, i think it was the first time i realized that people will find something to criticize about your appearance no matter what you do as a girl or as a woman.

do whatever the fuck you want - shave or don’t shave, wear makeup or don’t, wear short skirts or don’t - but do it for you. sadly i didn’t come to these conclusions until a good six or seven years later, thanks to zines and music and badass women i’ve met. thanks, third wave feminists.