Today is February 1st, which makes today the very first day of Get Hairy February.
Get Hairy is an extremely good charity campaign and body positivity movement, based around – you guessed it – resisting the razor and keeping your body hair intact and luscious for the entire month of Feb.
100% of the money raised by participants goes straight to The Full Stop Foundation, which supports Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia.
Here’s some heartbreaking stats for ya: last year in Australia, 71 women were killed due to violence against women, and the current statistic of Aussie women who have experienced domestic or sexual assault is 1 in 3. ONE in every THREE. That number is ridiculously high.
The benefits of this magical campaign are two-fold:
– Raise money for a very good charity that helps with the support and counselling for survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
– Help tackle the awful stigmatisation of women’s body hair.
As Get Hairy‘s website states, the only reason we shave our legs, underarms, pubic hair, arms, feet – nearly EVERY part of our body – was because in 1915, a company ran an advertising campaign telling us that hair on a woman’s legs and underarms was ‘ugly’ and ’embarrassing’.
Now, hair removal is seen as the norm, and keeping your leg hair or underarm hair is deemed ‘gross’, or even ‘unhygienic’. (Note: it’s absolutely not unhygienic. Hypothetically, if it was about hygiene then men would remove their underarm hair too.)
Get Hairy February founder Alex Andrews says this of the campaign:
“Get Hairy February is disruptive and has the potential to make a real impact to gender inequality and violence against women in Australia.Women growing their body hair has made headlines around the world for decades, and recently small actions in China and France gained international attention.Now, it’s Australia’s turn.”
Seriously – your body hair is natural and great. If you prefer to get rid of it, that’s chill! If you prefer to keep it all attached to your lovely body, then that’s bloody good too.
It’s absolutely up to you – make the choice for yourself and your relationship with your body. Your body is cool, you should listen to it! Feeling comfy in your own skin (hairy or otherwise) is goal numero uno.
Get Hairy gives us the opportunity to challenge society’s expectations as well as our own, and raise money for an extremely important cause – the safety and support of women who have experienced gendered violence.
If you’d like to dedicate the next 28 days to raising money for multiple wonderfully good causes, head to www.gethairyfebruary.org.
Or if you don’t feel like you can or want to take part this year, you can donate to another participant by scouring the ‘Donate’ page, instead: www.gethairyfebruary.org/donate
