# Women: do you have hairy forearms? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2012, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-do-you-have-hairy-forearms/631994 "2012-08-19T20:03:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-do-you-have-hairy-forearms/631994/41 "2012-08-21T02:54:52Z")
> [@zweisamkeit](#): > > And really, it _is_ kinda funny that most American women will remove their leg hair but leave their arm hair (especially since leg shavers are also generally pit shavers, too). Obviously cultural attitudes about “acceptable” body hair are inherently arbitrary, but this is especially so! Why is it normal/expected to remove hair from legs but removing it from arms is weird? I don’t know that it’s that arbitrary. My leg/pit hair is way, way darker and coarser than my arm hair. Not quite as coarse and dark as pubic hair, but pretty darn close. My arm hair is damn near invisible. This is pretty typical for women of western European extraction (ie, the groups that predominantly settled and had the huge immigration pulses into this country.) If you accept that people predominantly shave their legs/pits to avoid grossing people out with their big dark, clearly-visible body hair, then shaving hair that’s damn near invisible becomes one of those “ooooookaaaaaaaaay, then” sort of things. Not big-deal weird, but weird nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-do-you-have-hairy-forearms/631994/42 "2012-08-21T03:16:23Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > I don’t know that it’s that arbitrary. My leg/pit hair is way, way darker and coarser than my arm hair. Not quite as coarse and dark as pubic hair, but pretty darn close. My arm hair is damn near invisible. This is pretty typical for women of western European extraction (ie, the groups that predominantly settled and had the huge immigration pulses into this country.) If you accept that people predominantly shave their legs/pits to avoid grossing people out with their big dark, clearly-visible body hair, then shaving hair that’s damn near invisible becomes one of those “ooooookaaaaaaaaay, then” sort of things. Not big-deal weird, but weird nonetheless. Oh, I agree with you for near-invisible hair, but it seems that most people think any woman removing arm hair (even if it’s highly visible) is weird. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-do-you-have-hairy-forearms/631994/43 "2012-08-23T20:11:55Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > I don’t know that it’s that arbitrary. My leg/pit hair is way, way darker and coarser than my arm hair. Not quite as coarse and dark as pubic hair, but pretty darn close. My arm hair is damn near invisible. This is pretty typical for women of western European extraction (ie, the groups that predominantly settled and had the huge immigration pulses into this country.) If you accept that people predominantly shave their legs/pits to avoid grossing people out with their big dark, clearly-visible body hair, then shaving hair that’s damn near invisible becomes one of those “ooooookaaaaaaaaay, then” sort of things. Not big-deal weird, but weird nonetheless. But not all women have nearly invisible arm hair. ---
**Author:** ![Imago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@Imago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imago)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-do-you-have-hairy-forearms/631994/44 "2012-08-24T06:09:05Z")
Huh. I’ve never thought about it. I have that annoying pseudo-Irish skin, very pale. The hair on my head is dark brown, occasionally mistaken for black. I’m 20. I haven’t shaved my legs in four years. The hair on them stopped growing at 1/3rd of an inch long on the calves, much shorter and lighter on the thighs. It’s obvious to anyone who even casually glances at my legs that I don’t shave. On my arms, though, the hair’s much shorter (about 1/4th or 1/5th of an inch) and appears blonde. You’ll surely see it, but it doesn’t draw attention. I never would have thought to shave it even when I used to do my legs and pits. My entire back appears smooth and feels completely hairless to the touch, as does my upper lip. But I also have a very widely spaced, very dark patch of hairs between my breasts. Like somebody cut off about a dozen or fewer armpit hairs and glued them there. I used to be nervous about undressing for other women in a sexual context, but it hasn’t gotten me kicked out of bed yet, so now I’m a lot more comfortable. ---
**Author:** ![lycopersiyum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@lycopersiyum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lycopersiyum)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-do-you-have-hairy-forearms/631994/45 "2012-08-24T09:57:59Z")
I think this is very cultural and also age-based. For my American culture, I’ve never felt the desire to shave my arms. In fact, that would have seemed to me to be a bit weird. I guess you could say I have a light, normal (for my culture) amount of hair on my arms and never felt cultural pressure to remove it. On the other hand, when I was young my best friends were a Pakistani family, and they for some reason were terribly embarrassed about any bodily hair. They experimented with shaving their arms. I never understood it, because in my opinion at the time they didn’t have “too much hair,” but they believed they did. They also didn’t want to go to the pool with us on many occasions because they didn’t want to get “dark.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-do-you-have-hairy-forearms/631994.md?page=2)