Unshaved by Breanne Fahs;

Author:Breanne Fahs;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)

CHINA’S ARMPIT HAIR CONTEST

While interest throughout China in women’s body norms has increased in recent years—with more conversation and attention critiquing the narrow standards of beauty within which Chinese women struggle—body hair has only recently entered the public sphere as a distinctly feminist issue. In 2014, interest in the politics of visible body hair began after a flood of social media attention triggered conversations about women shaving, or not shaving, their body hair. A small contest (with no prize) called “Girls not plucking armpit hair” drew widespread attention on Weibo.61 Over twenty-eight million people viewed the thousands of pictures uploaded to Weibo in August 2014, with many images showing women proudly displaying their underarm hair.62 Tensions emerged from this “contest” when nearly seven thousand people debated online whether women should shave or keep their body hair.63 (This competition also brought plenty of media attention to my body hair assignment—see chapters 1–2—with some Chinese reporters directly assigning responsibility to me for “ruining China” and inspiring this 2014 contest.)64

The year 2014 saw the emergence of Tumblr’s Hairy Legs Club (where women posted photos of their leg hair and commented about social expectations of beauty), Miley Cyrus posting photos on social media of her dyeing her armpit hair, along with widespread international media attention for my body hair assignment.65 Two years prior, feminists in the United Kingdom had organized the Armpits4August campaign, urging women to grow their armpit hair for a month for the charity organization Verity, which emphasizes research on polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). More recently, the Januhairy campaign for women to grow body hair in support of body positivity was launched.66 These campaigns have garnered plenty of social media attention.67 Beauty editor Maria Del Russo noted that social media is an intuitive conduit for thinking critically about body hair: “I think the reason more and more women are using social media to show off their body hair choices is connectedness. Since the idea of women having body hair is not considered the ‘norm,’ women who feel that it is their norm are likely attempting to make connections with other women who feel the same way.”68

Hair has also recently played a role in political protest in China. In July 2015, following the event known colloquially as the “709 crackdown,” where hundreds of human rights lawyers and activists were detained, arrested, and jailed, four wives of lawyers gathered in the central courtyard of a sleepy Beijing apartment complex and cut off their hair in front of their neighbors and a small group of invited foreign journalists. Reuters reported on the event, saying, “The women took turns shaving each other’s heads placing the hair in see-through plastic boxes alongside pictures of them with their husbands, before heading to China’s Supreme People’s Court to petition over their husbands’ treatment.”69 One of these women, Li Wenzu, who had not seen her husband since his detention, told reporters that shaving her head was her protest against the way the government had delayed proceedings on her husband’s case and prevented her from appointing her chosen lawyer.

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