Is it true that most French women don’t shave their armpits or is this just a dated joke that no longer applies?
Many don’t. Many do. I think younger people tend to shave nowadays, but it’s not a 100% thing. At least, that’s from personal observation on the several times I’ve been to France.
It’s dated.
Probably a slightly higher percentage don’t shave than in the USA, but it’s much less than you’d think.
irishgirl, who has spent time in French female communal dressing rooms.
IME there seems to be a divide at about age 35 or so, where most women younger will and most older won’t. There is another divide with married/unmarried, where it appears most married women stop shaving.
I’ve always found Italian women to be less likely to shave their armpits than French women.
In the late 60s (a generation ago)I asked my German secretary/receptionist about this. She said that three kinds of women shaved, street walkers, movie stars and Americans. She was not trying to be funny. The younger women were shaving and the ads on German TV at the time for ladies razors, roll-on deodorant and lotions meant that change was coming. You got the idea that Frau Mannstein did not approve of this change. She was a sad case but typical of many: a childless, middle aged widow whose husband has disappeared on the Eastern Front and who had worked for the US Forces since the end of the war.
It seems bizarre that street walkers would be in this group. 
This fascinates me for some reason. 
Nasty habit. Shaved armpit skin looks oogy.
Is it true that all the girls in France do the hoochie-coochie dance?
Damn straight they do.
A month ago I saw a woman with unshaved armpits.
It was so unusual that the sight clearly hit me.
So I would say it’s no longer true.
This question would seem to be unrelated to the fact that french women are so skinny.
An other interesting factoid I’ve gleaned from foriegn films.
mangeorge, who considers the “bikini shave” to be ugly.
Mine doesn’t!
Anyway, don’t get too smug, Americans. Muslims—men and women alike—shave* both their armpit hair and pubic hair as a religious tradition. From their point of view, pubically hirsute Americans must seem as gross as Europeans seem to Americans.
*Actually, Muslim women tend to “wax” it off with sugar.
Where/when did this meme start?
Ogling yurpean wimmin for over 30 years in at least 15 countries tells me that most of them shave. The dividing line seems to be that younger women shave more … ahem … areas, whereas women over 30 stick to armpits and legs.
Most likely about the time when American women began to shave. When was that?
Post-WWI. Depilatories and women’s razors began advertising in the late 1910s, early '20s.
This may be an urban myth, but I heard once that it started as a result of men returning from WWI. They would tell the women at home that European women shaved their legs and armpits, and the American women adopted this custom. Later the women here realized that it was only the prostitutes that did this, and the men had developed this mistaken impression by… oh I don’t know… spending time in meaningful conversations with these women, perhaps?
aw geez I just went to a Halloween party as a French Maid and, while I did shave my legs, I left my armpits. When people asked, I said, "Well y’know, I am a French maid.
Huh, this I did not know.
How do you remove hair with sugar?
you cook the sugar.