Hello everyone! Today I’d like to talk about women’s shaving of their underarm hair. Most women do this without thinking. In addition, people regard women who do not shave to be abnormal. However, in 2007 an English photographer named Ben Hopper started a project called “Natural Beauty.” In this project, he showed the pictures of women with hair on their armpit, unshaved. What the photographer tried to say was that women can still look beautiful with hair not removed. One can begin to see that it is not as disgusting as society thinks. In my opinion, I think it should be up to the woman to decide whether she should do it or not. There are three reasons why. First, it is inconvenient for women to do this all the time. Second, it is unfair only for women to do this when men do not. Last, this hair is needed to protect our body. I plan to keep some time for questions after the presentation, so if you have questions, please hold them until the end.First of all, it is very annoying for women to shave their hair under their arm all the time. In order to find out the inconvenience of this process, I’ve done some research and asked twenty-one of my Ewha friends. According to the research, nineteen girls said that they remove their armpit hair. In addition, when asked how often they do this, 25% said that they do this every day. Moreover, 45% said that they do this once a week. It was surprising to see how frequently girls shave. Over 80% of the girls also said that they feel it is troublesome. Nevertheless, 84% of the girls answered they still do this because of the opinion of others. In conclusion, I found out that most of the women shave their armpit hair even though they find it to be a hassle.Secondly, I think it is violation against women’s rights to force them to remove their armpit hair. Even though no one is physically forcing them to do this, society is putting pressure on them indirectly. Men regard it to be disgusting for women to have their underarm hair unshaven. On the other hand, people regard it very natural for men to have their armpit with so much hair. In Korean comedy TV programs, they use women having black armpits as a subject material to make audiences laugh. They are making fun of those women. I think this type of attitude toward women was created through society. Korean people especially have an obsession with women’s clean armpits. In China, it is very common for women to just let the hair grow as it is. Even a famous actress named Tang Wei took a film with her black armpit. Thus, I think this is just the standard that people made in their own culture and society should not be so obsessed with this.Finally, the hair under the arm has an important role in protecting our bodies. Everything that we have has a specific function for being there. The underarm hair serves to protect our bodies. The parts of armpit are connected very closely and it causes friction which can be painful and some may experience sore skin. The hair under the armpit works as a cushion and protects it from happening. In addition, this hair is essential to athletes, as they tend to wave their arms a lot as they run. Some people say they shave their hair because of the bad smell on the armpit. However, it is scientifically proven that the hair has nothing to do with the odor.Well, this brings me to the end of my presentation. We’ve looked at some of the reasons why women should not be forced to shave their underarm hair. First, it is tiresome for women to do this all the time. Second, it is violating women’s rights. Finally, the hair plays essential roles to our bodies. I’m not saying that you should not remove the armpit hair: if you think it is more convenient, you should do it. But what I’m saying is that if women don’t feel happy about this, they shouldn’t bother to shave. I think that society should change and have a more generous attitude toward women. I think that’s all I have time for. Thank you for listening!
