The battle on body hair

Within the past year, there has been a long debate on embracing women's body hair. The conversation of shaving or not, feeling comfortable, and fighting stigma of body hair in general. There have been many critics of the "no shave" movements amongst feminists around the world, saying that it is "unladylike". So I looked at an article by Buzzfeed and another by the Huffington post to see how these two news sources are covering the body hair revolution.

Photo from Buzzfeed: @howtohairgirl

The Huffington Post article by Helana Darwin was more of a typical new story structure. While the Post is not the most conventional news source, it provided a good contrast to the Buzzfeed piece. This piece had no photos and was fairly short. It focused on the ways that men can shave whenever they please with little consequence, and how women are striving for the same choice. The article goes into how this movement is taking on the internet and advertisers alike, but the stigma surrounding women's bodies is still so prevalent. Darwin's piece was also an interesting mix of opinion and reporting on the trend as well, but she still maintained her personal distance from the matter.

Photo: blackgirllonghair.com

The Buzzfeed article by Becky Barnicoat, on the other hand, is nothing like traditional reporting. It is honestly more of a post or a piece of work rather than an article. It is completely composed of photos of women with hair pulled directly from people's Instagram accounts. Under the photos, there are short, sentence long blurbs commenting on the quotations above deeming why women should shave. The photos then contrast these negative comments by showing beautiful, feminine women embracing their body hair. This piece is much more of a quick, Facebook Share post very much geared towards young people than to truly stir a debate. Yet, it does continue the conversation.

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