When I was a little girl I always noticed my mother shaving her legs. She used her yellow disposable razor against her soft legs which left her looking feminine and gentle. The silky smooth final product looked so desirable, and I knew that shaving was one step closer to becoming a "woman." I could not wait to start shaving.

I wanted to be like my mom, so as soon as I started showing signs of any sort of body hair, I immediately took her razor and started copying what I saw. I soon had silky smooth legs and I was so proud of myself! I was finally evolving into a woman!

This lasted for few years, until I ended up in high school. Freshman year I still continued the process of shaving my legs and armpit hair once or twice a week, but once Sophomore and Junior year hit, I was completely over it. I was sick of spending money on the latest shaving creams and spending time in the summer to make sure I was groomed enough to be seen in the public eye. Although I hated shaving, I still continued the process just because of societal norms.

Since then, I would shave my legs a few times a month and my arm pits every time I noticed any sort of hair.

It wasn't until a few months ago that truly stopped this ongoing process.

Over winter break of my Freshman year of college, I thought "what if I just stopped shaving" and so I did. I was so annoyed of shaving my legs in the small shower stalls at school, and just didn't want to spend the excess time on it. I felt fine with having body hair and just wanted to give up shaving overall.

Since then I've only shaven my armpits once, as they started to get quite long and itchy, so I felt that it was fine to get ride of. I wasn't giving in to society, but rather doing what made me feel comfortable.

I don't want to stop anyone from what makes them comfortable, if being completely hairless makes you feel powerful, shave everything! If you hate the process of shaving, there is no need to! Our bodies were made this way. Humans are mammals and mammals have hair, and there is nothing wrong with it. The only thing wrong is how society has been trained to look at female body hair as "gross" or "unnatural." As powerful women, we need to do what we feel the most comfortable with, not what society tells us.