Students offered extra credits linked to armpit hair

Female students at a US university have been offered extra credits – if they don’t shave their armpit hair for an entire semester.
The offer was made by a professor at the Arizona State University (ASU) in a bid to challenge social norms, the Mail Online reported.
The boys can also apply for extra credit by going the other way – shaving all their hair from neck down.
Professor Breanne Fahs, director of the Center for Feminist Research on Gender and Sexuality, encourages her students to document their experiences in a journal for the 10-week semester.
She said the social experiment helps students analyse society’s attitude to genders, with female students facing ridicule for having hairy armpits.
At the same time, men get an insight into how much pressure is put on women to stay hair-free.
Prof Fahs told the ASU News: “There’s no better way to learn about societal norms than to violate them and see how people react.
There’s really no reason why the choice to shave, or not, should be a big deal. But it is, as the students tend to find out quickly.”
Many of the female students who took the hairy option told ASU News that they were shocked at the reaction from their partners, friends and family.
Student Grace Scale said some of the strongest reactions came from her male friends. “One of my dearest friends — at the time — compared my underarm hair to ‘the sludge in the bottom of the garbage can’.”