WET HAIRY WOMEN
No Shave Wovember
THE WET HAIRY WOMEN MOVEMENT
We invite you to participate in a necessary social movement, and take the time to heal your own relationship to your body and its connections to womanhood.
We are a movement of women-aligning people and allies who are celebrating, researching, and crafting loving relationships with our bodies. We do this through art, movement, community, and advocacy. We believe that we can expand feminism and liberate all bodies by fighting shame around body hair and confronting how it looks, feels, and is perceived by the self and others.
Our Annual Initiative:
#NoShaveWovember
#WomenHaveHair
Women deserve to know what their bodies actually look like. Our children grow up without any accurate images of what a natural woman’s body looks like. Many have never seen a bathing suit ad with a woman who has hair on her bikini line, legs, or under her armpits. The truths of our natural bodies are hidden from us. Instead, we grow up with an innate repulsion to hair on women, which strips away the power of choice and the empowerment our natural bodies.
Whether or not we remove hair on our bodies, where, and how much, is one of the many ways that people express their bodily autonomy. Women-aligning folks are pressured from a young age to fear the natural states of their bodies, and we need your help to change that.
Grow Out Your Body Hair
Re-Connect With Your Body & Womanhood
While we encourage the challenge of not removing any hair from your full-body for the whole month, we welcome everyone to participate as they see fit. You do not need to identify as a women to participate, we invite all humans and allies to share this experience.
We will hold weekly open community conversations to invite thought-provoking dialogues about embedded standards of gender, and our relationship to the femme-presenting body. You will have access to several creative prompts curated with the intention to help you dive deeper into your relationship with your body and womanhood
Create and Share
Tell your story! We encourage everyone to use art as a tool of self-understanding and advocacy. Art in all its forms can empower us to push the boundaries and preconceived notions of our relationships to womanhood and process our internalized shame, so that we may heal, and find pleasure in our freedom of choice.
Raise Funds for Our First Live Performance
Wet Hairy Women is fundraising to produce our first live performance piece in NYC. We have dozens of women who have committed to fundraising $250 over the month of November as they grow out their body hair. You can support this performance by making a donation or raising funds from friends and family.
OUR CALL TO ACTION
#NoShaveWovember
#WomenHaveHair
This November, I am calling upon people of all walks of life to flood social media with images of real bodies.
Ever heard of No Shave November? In college, I remember all of the men taking pride in not shaving for the entire month, attaching the act to a fundraising project.
I can also remember being six years old the first time a boy commented on my body hair: “Ew, you are like a gorilla. Your arms are hairier than my dads’!”
Cis gendered binary beauty standards have led people to believe that women should not grow hair on their bodies. From the moment we hit puberty, we are given razors and taught to be ashamed or embarrassed by any hair that might make itself visible. God forbid you were the girl with the mustache in middle school (we all know who that was).
From the moment I started to grow hair under my armpits, I was aware of the gender norm that women are expected to shave there, and everywhere else for that matter.
Women deserve to know what their bodies actually look like. The scary thing is that our children grow up without any accurate images of what a natural woman’s body looks like. I have never seen a bathing suit ad with a woman who has hair on her bikini line, legs, or under her armpits. Why are these truths of the human body hidden from us? Instead, we grow up with an innate repulsion to women and hair that strips away the power of choice and the empowerment of a natural body.
What if we could create a reality where pre-teens in middle school health class were shown accurate depictions of what a woman’s body looks like? What if instead of carrying shame and embarrassment, we nurtured realities for people to explore choice, diversity, love and acceptance? What if we could redefine and reshape what it means to be a woman?
What if instead of my mom handing me a razor the first time my brother noticed my armpit hair, she sat down and had a conversation with me about detrimental beauty standards and the pressures we grow up around? What if I was told I was becoming a woman when I started to grow more body hair, as opposed to feeling like something was wrong with me? Like something was growing there that didn’t belong?
I saw what my body looked like for the first time when I was 24 years old. Once quarantined during the surge of COVID-19, I made the conscious decision to face some of the deepest demons within me. I grew out my body hair, knowing that this would bring up rooted feelings of self doubt, self perception, and body image. For the first time in my life, I was confronted with what my body truly looks like in its most natural state – uninterrupted by societal norms. While the experience was grueling, and many mornings I woke up to disliking what was growing on my body, it was also one of the most empowering experiences I have ever had. Confidence, choice, and love replaced the shame and embarrassment that haunted me for so long.
What makes a woman is the CHOICE to express ourselves - our bodily autonomy. But how can one make a choice if from the day they are born, the choice is already made for us? What if teenage girls knew that it was normal to grow pubic hair on their bikini lines? What if body hair was normalized? What if we were given the tools to love and accept our bodies for what they are capable of?
I believe in the power of women. Women in their full embodied power; uninterrupted, unapologetic, and untamed.