Women’s body hair shouldn’t be controversial. It’s time to stop policing our physical choices | Nova Weetman

We must preserve the rights of women to make decisions that have nothing to do with anyone else

Growing up in the 1980s, all the teenage girls I knew shaved their legs and their armpits as soon as they could. I was 15 when I started. I borrowed one of Mum’s razors without her knowing and dry shaved my calves. I can still remember the beads of blood forming after I nicked the skin, and how surprised I was that the hair started growing back so quickly.

Amazingly, I didn’t meet a woman with visible underarm hair until I was backpacking across Europe in my late teens. I stayed in youth hostels where everyone seemed more confident than me about getting changed in the dorms, and many of my fellow travellers were surprised that I still shaved.

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