beauty

The French women who might make you reconsider hairy armpits.

For years, French women have been fighting armpit-fuzz stigma. And we all know the French are trendsetters…

Now, they’re truly reclaiming their pit whiskers, posting pictures of themselves with the hashtag #LesPrincessesOntDesPoils (“Princesses have body hair”). Word.

The hashtag was started by 16-year-old Adele Labo, who was mocked and teased at school for not shaving. “I think society stigmatizes women, there is massive social pressure over body hair,” she says.

The very wise 16-year-old has a blog featuring pictures of her body hair, and encourages others to do the same. And the results are pretty beautiful.

Armpits are not considered a pleasant body area. We often refer to places we hate as “armpits”. Like Starbucks, the armpit of modern coffee culture. Similarly, we refer to undesirable tasks as “the pits”. Like, riding the train in 35-degree weather is the pits.

But these sexy pictures have me thinking about why most women feel the pressure to beautify this area anyway? The short answer is we feel pressure to conceal the fact we’re actual humans, with bodily functions and hair in very normal places—just like men. In most Western cultures it’s not the norm to see a woman with non-groomed pit hair.

The stigma around armpit hair is perpetuated by the myth we must all be perfect princesses without flaws. Spoiler alert: we have hair everywhere. Armpits, legs, vaginas, upper lips, between our eyebrows. Women are just as bristly as men, we just have way higher pain tolerance.

Scroll through to see some more photos from the hashtag. (Post continues after gallery.)

And as the hashtag so simply reminds us, princesses have body hair.

These French women proudly showing off their armpits look gorgeous. More importantly, they look carefree. They’re showing hair removal is a choice.

Whether you shave or not is up to you. These French women are just trying to remove that taboo.

This post was originally published on our sister site, Spring Street.

Featured image via Twitter