To wax or not to wax, that is the question

The subject o body hair seems to becoming more and more of an issue as the relatively recent supremacy of the waxed female body is challenged.

A film 'Secret Garden' examines the issue, here's a preview


Meanwhile The Mirror is shocked by the display of female body hair, as the headline reveals:

 'Madonna's not the only one to flaunt hairy armpits - here's more famous faces who forgot to shave'

Here's that shocking Madonna image...

Gosh! I'm lost for words. Don't The Mirror's 3AM team ever see real women?

It's interesting that The Mirror believes that women must have forgotten to shave, not made a conscious choice.

The rest of that article is so censorious:

'The usually immaculate Beyonce rocked up to a film premiere in 2008 with a veritable bush sprouting from her left armpit.

Seemingly unaware of the hairy situation, she waved to horrified fans at the opening of Cadillac Records.

With rap-star hubby Jay-Z clinging proudly to her other arm, the stubble trouble went unnoticed by him as well.'

Here's that hair that so 'horified fans'

 Shocking?

That Mirror article goes on to draw attention to Britney Spears:

'Britney Spears had a red-faced moment of her own at the 31st Annual American Music Awards.

Looking absolutely stunning in a glittery cream dress, all eyes were swept up to under her arm as soon as she lifted it to laugh.

All eyes.

The singer had a rather hefty amount of hair growing under there - we would seriously say it hadn't seen a razor for weeks.'

Here's a picture of that 'hefty amount of hair'

Hefty? Seriously?


Then there's Drew Barrymore:

'Drew Barrymore was spotted down Lexington Avenue in New York with a whole lot of fuzz on show.

Her low-cut black dress did nothing to save the situation unfortunately.'

Does this look like a situation that needs saving?


The Mirror then go on to include Lily Allen:

'Lily Allen is known for her, erm, bold nature, but we can't imagine she intended to show off any underarm hair.

She was pictured on stage in a knee-length dress and decided to stick her arm up in the air to say hi to the crowd.

Oops.'

 Here's the image that apparently so shocked The Mirror

I can't even see any underarm hair but apparently Lily Allen has form for the Mirror go on to explain that:

'And it wasn't the first time it happened to the hard Out Here singer either.

She was pictured again in 2008 letting her inner skank out.

Not only did the singer appear to have ditched her bra, but she seemed to be sporting a new manly, underarm hair look. Urgh!'

So underarm hair on a women is 'skanky'? Nice going The Mirror.

With attitudes like that in the press it's good that women such as Cameron Diaz are speaking their minds. Cameron Diaz earlier this year said that female pubic hair is there for a reason, and to remove it is tantamount to saying, "I don't need my nose".Unfortunately I have no pictures of Cameron Diaz's pubes, well actually I do and you can see them (from a long time ago in her career) here in this earlier blogpost.

Meanwhile a Google search for underarm hair brings up plenty of images that the Mirror's 3AM team might find shocking, but do you?

In researching this atricle I came across some odd articles and pictures that may be of interest; here's one.

There also appears to be quite a lot of porn related to underarm hair but most show other.... areas of the female body that would not sit well on this site. So here's a link to a clean example here and one to a site that is called hairy pits 'n' tits, so definitely NSFW.

Male vs Female in sport - weightlifting

Further to this morning's post and the continued claims from @SexismInSports that 'Women are NOT the weaker sex' I thought I'd compare a sport where strength is of great importance, although technique does also play an important part, weightlifting.

The trouble with making direct comparisons is that the weight (of the competitor) categories are not always directly comparable so I have compared in all but one case only where the women are in a higher weight category, thus giving them a slight advantage. The exception to this is in the highest women's category when women of any weight above 75kg compete, in this case I have compared with the men's 77kg category as there is no 75kg category. However for the men this is a restricted category with four heavier categories whereas for women there is no weight restriction in this category, so theoretically the women competing in this class could be many kilos heavier than the men.

If you look at this comparison you will see that the men at any given weight lift more than women. Taken across all the classes there is an average male superiority of 19.1%. However that includes the last wight class that gives women an unfair advantage, excluding that weight class gives men a superiority of 21.52%

So are women the weaker sex in weightlifting? In which sport are they not?

Male vs Female in sport

The other day I heard some women complaining about sexism in sports coverage and today I was told, contrary to the demonstrable facts, that 'women are NOT the weaker sex' - so this post is for @SexismInSports.

I thought I'd show the current world records for Olympic athletics events - with the addition of the mile because it's my favourite event and of historic importance, and the taking out of the walks and multi-discipline events. Then I compared the men with the women to show how much faster, higher or longer the men's records are. You will see a few lines where the women's records would seem to be better than the men's record, a glance at the last two columns will explain why. In the sprint hurdles the women run 9% shorter and over much lower hurdles and the men are still quicker. In the 3000m steeplechase the hurdles are lower and the men are still quicker. In the throwing events you'll notice that the men's objects are around twice the weight of the women's (apart from the javelin where it's only 33.3% heavier) and the men still generally throw further. Taking into account all of these adjustments the men are still 11.22% better than the women. Now do you see why people prefer to watch men compete, they are better.

In football and cricket, women play at a fair level but nowhere near the men's standard. But it is tennis that is the sport where women most often claim parity with men, I think not.  I have heard some women try and convince the stupid that women have beaten men on straight match terms. As far as I am aware there have been four such singles matches over the years.

The first two matches were between an ageing Bobby Riggs (55 at the time of the matches) and the then still top women players Margaret Court and Billie Jean King. Riggs won the first and lost the second. This was less about men versus women than old versus young.

The next match was between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova. Jimmy Connors was then aged 40 and Martina Navratilova was aged 35. It was over the best of three sets and the hybrid rules favoured the female player in that Jimmy Connors was allowed only one serve per point, and Martina Navratilova was allowed to hit into half the doubles court. Jimmy Connors still won  7–5, 6–2.


The last match that I can recall was held during the 1998 Australian Open between the then 31 year old Karsten Braasch and the Williams sisters then aged 17 and 16 respectively. Prior to the matches the Williams sisters had claimed that they could beat any male player ranked below 200. Braasch was then ranked 203rd and challenged them both. Braasch first took on Venus and beat her 6–2. He then played Serena and won 6-1. It seems that Serena Williams has learned her lesson because when in 2013, Andy Murray responded to a Twitter user who asked whether he would consider challenging Serena Williams, by saying "I’d be up for it. Why not?" Williams reacted positively to the suggestion, remarking "That would be fun. I doubt I’d win a point, but that would be fun.

So parity in tennis? I think not.

Any sports where there is parity? How about where women out perform men? I'll wait, yes...

"Don't try to fix it. I just need you to listen."

"Don't try to fix it. I just need you to listen." Every man has heard these words. And they are the law of the land. No matter what.

Thanks to Theo Spark for the spot.