by Natalie Hunter

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I used to care so much about my body hair. I remember the face-melting shame I felt when a boy at school announced loudly that I had hairy arms, while we coloured pictures at a table. But, when I think of it now, it is just a memory of a memory. I feel detached from the experience. I grew up with plenty of unconditional love at home. Therefore, I knew intrinsically that my value was inherent and unshakable … at home. Like so many people in this world, it took venturing out into the world for school, to initiate the confusing experience of being “othered.” Some years later, at the age of fourteen, I would stand in front of the mirror enumerating every single thing that was unacceptable about my beautiful, youthful body, as if identifying the offending aberrations could bring me closer to perfection. It amuses me to think of that fourteen-year-old seeing me now, two weeks from my fortieth birthday, thinking, “How could you let yourself become so ugly?” 

Five years after that, picture me as a college freshman in a café, reading Dworkin and Greer, navigating the confusing contradictions of my own identity. I was angry at the “othering” that was imposed on me by the world, and I was inspired that these authors helped me articulate those unjust truths in my own life. Self-importance and immaturity combined in me, fostering a sense of intellectual superiority over others. I was self-conscious of my appearance, both wanting and not wanting men to notice me. I was trying to define and reclaim my own sexuality. But I had no lens through which to do so, except one of self-objectification. This certainly didn’t coalesce with my sense of inherent self-worth (and self-importance). Nevertheless, I had internalised and prioritized that unpleasant message: “your value lies in how attractive you are to men,” as had almost every woman I knew. The pop culture-feminism of the early 2000s told us essentially: be and do anything, as long as you look sexy and feminine doing it. 

Picture me now, at forty, and I have not entirely combed through this twisted knot of cognitive dissonance.  Some days I feel beautiful and some days I feel like somebody’s middle-aged mother. Most of the time, however, I feel the wisdom in my bones that it doesn’t fucking matter. When it does matter, I don’t feel ugly, just invisible. My unhelpful friend, Mr. Internalised Objectification says, “That’s what you become as a woman, when you age … invisible, no longer relevant.” My higher-functioning-Germain-Greer-reading-feminist-consciousness disagrees. Then I look outside myself, and see that the world too, cannot seem to agree on this point either.

I am aware that there is a biological component to this terrible visibility/invisibility problem, specifically after watching some amazingly entertaining lectures on evolutionary biology by Stanford lecturer Robert Sapolsky. I learned that everyone’s biological imperative is to pass on copies of their genes, and most behaviour can be interpreted through that motivation. I understand that in that context, young women represent that coveted opportunity in their fecundity. And within that context, male possessiveness is also explained. But then I remind myself of how male-dominated science has been. I have a healthy scepticism, not that the science is wrong, but that it doesn’t tell the whole story. I mean, no one had bothered to map out the anatomy of the clitoris until 2005. I think that interesting fact speaks volumes.

Many people nowadays talk about how it’s all a social construct anyway. No doubt, this internalized objectification is convenient to the patriarchal purposes of maintaining power. It boggles the mind to think how many hours of my life I have spent trying to appeal to the male gaze, and what I might have done with that time instead. What a shame it is when girls and women believe they exist to please others and not themselves.

Attractiveness is not a list of haves and have nots. No matter how much a person tries to embody it, this “perfect fuckability,” is like that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I see young women striving for it, while also living their lives; dancing, studying, loving, despairing, trying to confirm their own desirability. I mostly smile and hope only that they come to no harm in their own journeys. 

I think about these things often when I’m lying in the bath, gazing at my hairy legs. I think, “I should shave or wax them,” and then I think of how much I like my body as it is. I imagine doing a modern art installation, a picture of my naked body in the bath. My breasts would be closest to the lens. My toes would be furthest away, resting under the faucet, as if the viewer is looking at their own body in the bath. They would see my hairy legs and the dark hairs that grow from my two big toes. They would understand that this is me, as I am. My hair grows because I am alive and well. My body is not for their consumption. I am far from objectified. I am complex and imperfect. I am simply human.

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© Natalie Hunter

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Natalie Hunter is an emerging writer of fiction, poetry and essays, often focusing on the topics of feminism, existential thought, and magical realism. Natalie lives in Glasgow with her husband and kids.

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