I’ve been always fairly hairy.
I remember when I was 10, during my childish summers in Sicily, the first time that my uncle saw my armpits, telling me shockingly: “Did your mother should not explain how you should get rid of it?”
I remember when I was 21, living in France for my Erasmus exchange and having a French boyfriend who was repeatedly telling me how I looked so fascinatingly Portuguese (long-life to stereotypes!?!), still making me feel heavier the weight of the hair.
I remember when I was 26 travelling in the countryside in Emilia Romagna with my feet up to the dashboard, having my mates commenting how my legs hair looked like hair cats.
I remember when I was 30 and be totally in love (platonically) with a model girlfriend who posed for life drawing and it was a celebration of a forest of Amazzonia. I was so proud and admiring of her.
In the grip of patriarchy, I still feel guilty if I “let myself go”. Now I’ve been living in the countryside for a while, in a place where women cover their shoulders and their knees and they don’t hang after 6,30 and I stop to care about it.
Nobody is pointing at me.
With this celebrative post, I’m getting rid of the sense of guiltiness that men always cultivated in me.
