What's the Deal With Unshaven Women?

Mo’Nique’s hairy legs during this year's awards season put personal grooming in the spotlight: Are women who skip shaving taking a stand or just grossing other people out? Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls tells the New York Times, “People assume you’re making a statement, but I’m not”—even though she proudly displayed her hairy underarms at the Globes and tweeted that perhaps she and Mo’Nique would “change the cultural beauty & shaving standard this year.”

But the only statement Palmer wants to make is that women have a choice. Many girls don’t like shaving but do it because it’s the “path of least resistance,” she says. Though hair anywhere but the head almost always draws unwelcome attention to celebrities, that didn’t stop a 1979 photograph of an unshaven, spread-eagle Madonna from selling for $37,500 last year. Palmer’s attitude? “Wake up every morning, decide what you feel like doing, and do it.”