Women
with facial hair used to be relegated to carnival sideshows, but one
bearded lady is fighting for her right to remain unshaven. Explaining
hairs started sprouting from her chin at the age of 21 after the birth
of son, Mariam first tried to conform to societal beauty norms by
plucking them out each morning and having electrolysis done.
“My chin got really red and inflamed from all the plucking, and some of
the hairs were ingrown, so it always looked like I'd fallen on my chin,”
the woman of German-Iranian heritage told ITV. “But when people asked
what had happened and I told them they couldn't believe it.”
But some five years ago, she decided she would accept her furry fate –
and fight for more tolerance. Mariam, who now lives in Britain, started a
blog to explain what she was going through.
“One day I realized that the hair on my chin belongs to my body and that
it should be there,” she wrote. “Today I am happy to have had the
chance to live with a beard," she wrote on her blog. "It is an
experience that has taught me a lot!”
"My parents, brother, and I left Iran in 1980, shortly after the revolution. After a brief stay in Italy, we packed all our belongings once again and headed west to the exotic and the unknown: Vancouver. We had recently been accepted as landed immigrants, meaning Canada graciously opened its doors and we gratefully accepted; we arrived at Vancouver International Airport on my 10th birthday, three suitcases and one sewing machine in tow. After respectful but intense questioning at immigration, we were dropped off at a hotel on Robson Street, which was then still a couple years shy of becoming the fashionable tourist hub it is today. We were jetlagged, culture shocked, and hungry, so that first night, my father and brother courageously ventured out into the wild in search of provisions. I fell asleep before they returned. The next morning, I woke up at 5 a.m. and ravenously feasted on a cold Quarter Pounder with cheese and limp French fries that had been left by my beds...

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