Breanne Fahs, an associate professor of women and gender studies at the Arizona State University has been conducting an intriguing extra-credit exercise with her students since 2010.
To receive the extra-credits, female students would have to stop shaving their underarms and legs for 10 weeks, while their male counterparts would have to remove all hair on their bodies from the neck down.
According to Fahs, “There’s no better way to learn about societal norms than to violate them and see how people react.” As the participating students soon found out, this very personal grooming decision can be a big deal to the people around them—for instance, friends and strangers alike expressed disgust at the visible body hair of a female participant.
For the male students, the exercise gives them a taste of the labor-intensive, and often painful, hair removal processes that women have to go through.
Would you stop shaving, or start shaving, for extra credits in school?
[via HelloGiggles, Image via ASU News]