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Downloaded from
YTS.BZ

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(percussive jazz music)

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.BZ

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(bike rattling)

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(bike bell rings)

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(narrator): I was 13 years old
and I was in love...

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...with my bike.
(bike bell rings)

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(♪♪)

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(rings)

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When I was riding my bike,
I felt like I was flying.

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I felt like I was free.

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It was summertime.

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And like most days
that summer,

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my bike rides ended up
at Christina's house.

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And on this day,
Christina had a plan:

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today was the day we were going
to shave our legs.

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(moans lightly)

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We were becoming women

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and shaving was required.

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(owww)

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Somehow Christina always knew
what was up next,

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and I always followed
her lead.

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Christina went first.

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She was confident... reassuring.

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Being a woman isn't so hard.

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But then...
(squeaking)

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Let's just say,
things didn't go as planned.

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(yells loudly)

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(yelling)

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(soft rattling)

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Before I became a woman,

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life was a whole lot simpler.

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Even as a kid I was perplexed
by the world of adults.

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(mother hums)

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My mom seemed very different
from my dad.

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This made no sense to me
whatsoever

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because us kids -

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we were all the same.

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(laughter)

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My brothers and I
liked doing the same things.

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(brothers laugh)

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They just didn't like
doing them with me.

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But Terry did.

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We'd been best friends for
as long as we could remember.

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And we loved
all the same things.

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(croaking)

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We even wore the same clothes.

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(laughter)

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Except when we weren't
wearing them.

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(splashing)

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By the time we were 11,
we'd made it to the top.

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- Whee!

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(narrator): We were the oldest
kids in the school

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and we were the best.

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- Whoo!
(narrator): At everything.

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- Whoo-ooh!

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(narrator): We'd been kids
our whole lives, after all,

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so we knew what we were doing.

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- Yippee!

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(narrator): But then
suddenly, everything changed.

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And in my limited experience,
so far in becoming a woman,

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nothing good ever came from it.

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So why would I shave my legs?

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Around this time,

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my favourite book was about
a gang of outsiders.

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I could relate
because at my new school,

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I was part of a gang too.

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But instead of being
tough and cool,

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we were goofy and mischievous.

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And the title of our book,
if we'd had one,

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would've been The Free Spirits.

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We bonded over things like

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our desire to swing
as high as we could,

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and then to jump off
at an alarming height.

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The curiosity we had about
the inner lives of our pets;

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these furry family members
who we loved fiercely.

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Getting away with sneaking onto
the local rink after hours

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so that we could skate
under the stars.

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And our love of art.

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Art was expansive.

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It could be beautiful.

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Or disturbing.

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It could be abstract.

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Or surreal.

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But more than anything,

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art gave us the freedom
to express ourselves.

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A freedom that extended
to our hairy legs.

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(laughter)

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I graduated high school
never having shaved them.

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And not knowing I had gotten
away with something.

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In fact, I was confident
that wherever I went,

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I'd find fellow
female hairy-legged friends.

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So when I got to university,

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the first thing I did
was look for them.

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But pretty soon I started
to wonder if I was wrong.

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It appeared that the shins
of every woman on campus

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were shorn -

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except for mine.

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(teacher, indistinct)

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(narrator): And then,
I spotted her.

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I wasn't alone!

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There were at least two of us.

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And after a few days of
observation,

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I found even more.

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I deduced that these fellow
female hairy-legged students

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could be placed
into three categories.

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The first were the ISTS.

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These included feminists,
pacifists,

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animal rights activists,

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environmentalists,
communists and anarchists.

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Identified through
political buttons,

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sandals made
from recycled car tires,

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and The Communist Manifesto.

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The second group
were the hippies.

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Nature lovers,
tree huggers,

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flower children,
folk singers,

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and vegetarians.

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They cooked with lentils,

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were into toe jewellery,

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peace on earth,

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and transcendental meditation.

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- Om...

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(narrator): But the hairy-legged
women who intrigued me the most

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were the rugby players.

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They were fierce,
powerful,

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loyal, and bold.

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Easily spotted
by their injuries,

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their muddy knees,

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and of course,
their striped jerseys.

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The women's rugby team

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was known to take anyone
who wanted to play.

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Including me,

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someone who had never played
the game before,

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didn't really catch
onto the rules,

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and was scared of the ball.

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For a while I got away

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with letting others
play the game for me.

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(crowd cheering)

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Until I caught the ball.

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(grunts)

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(electrical buzzing)

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It was a short season.

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(soft music)

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So, I thought,
maybe I was a hippy?

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I'd always been a free spirit,

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was a huge fan of peace on earth

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and I loved folk music.

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(soft rattling)

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But, unfortunately,
the hippies didn't want me.

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(clears throat)

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I was getting discouraged.

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Maybe I should start
shaving my legs.

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But every time
I thought about it,

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I'd get this funny feeling
in the pit of my stomach.

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It just felt... wrong.

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Around this time,
one of my roommates

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was taking a women's
studies class.

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At first, I couldn't
really see the point.

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Being women ourselves,

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didn't we already know
what there was to know?

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Eventually though my
curiosity got the best of me.

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And before I knew it, I
became totally engrossed.

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But it was this line
that blew my mind.

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"One is not born, but rather
becomes, a woman."

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Because this meant

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that one is not born
to shave the hair on her legs,

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one becomes a shaver of the hair
on her legs!

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The uneasy feeling
in my stomach

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when I thought of shaving
my legs

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was the feeling of injustice.

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And this is how
I became an IST.

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A feminist.

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And being a feminist made
me believe in my hairy legs

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more than I ever had before.

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Learning about feminism
took me on a journey.

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(energetic music)

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I read books by feminists

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who were paving the way
for equal rights,

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fighting so women could vote,

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work, and have control
over our bodies.

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Including having hairy legs.

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I learned that femininity

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is just a story
written by our culture,

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consisting of certain practices,
none of which I had to do.

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Including shaving my legs.

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I learned about patriarchy
and capitalism.

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And how they work together.
(men): Yeah!

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(narrator): First
by convincing women

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their legs
should be hairless,

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then by selling them
a way to get rid of that hair,

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and finally, by making this
practice a lifelong pursuit,

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they could make themselves
a lot of money.

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The money I'd saved
from not shaving my legs

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could be put towards something
worthwhile,

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like saving the whales.

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I learned that if the problem
was patriarchy,

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this meant men.

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Which was confusing
for my boyfriend at the time.

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(growling)

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(moaning)

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And for me.

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(women chanting)

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I knew that by marching
on my hairy legs,

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I was making a difference.

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I was helping to make the world
a more equal and safe place

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for everyone.

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My hairy legs had a purpose.

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But what I didn't know

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was that it was easy
to have hairy legs

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when I was surrounded by them.

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Because eventually I left
university, and I wasn't.

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One by one, my hairy-legged
friends joined the real world.

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And, apparently,
in the real world,

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women shaved their legs.

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They had reasons like,

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"Shaving my legs
makes me feel clean."

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"It's customary, it's what
women in our culture do."

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"I'm a feminist, and feminism
is about choice."

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"I love the feeling
of smooth legs."

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"Hairy legs were just a phase,
this is the real me."

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I didn't judge them.

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For all I knew, Simone de
Beauvoir shaved her legs too.

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(chuckles)

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(narrator): I also discovered
that in the real world,

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people had opinions
on hairy legs.

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And then someone I never
could've predicted

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started to think my hairy
legs looked disgusting.

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Me!

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Because if enough people tell
you a part of you is disgusting,

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you might just start
to believe it too.

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I couldn't deny
that my hairy legs

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had gone from
making me feel free

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to making me feel like a freak.

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And it was women who shaved who
looked far freer than I felt.

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And all I ever wanted
was to feel free.

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It was time.

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I wanted to feel
comfortable in my own skin
again.

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I wanted to feel
more like myself.

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00:14:04,611 --> 00:14:06,680
(soft music)

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(sighs)

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But as the hair on my leg
began to disappear,

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I didn't feel
more like myself,

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I felt less.

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Because I was disappearing.

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This is what I knew for sure.

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My hairy legs made me feel
like I did when I was a kid,

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before becoming a woman tried
to pull me away from myself.

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My hairy legs made me feel
free-spirited

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like the flower children,

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powerful like the rugby players

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and fierce like the feminists.

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My hairy legs made me feel
expansive

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like when I was a teenager
and I discovered art

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00:14:58,832 --> 00:15:01,568
and it helped me
to make sense of it all.

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My hairy legs made me feel free.

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00:15:04,438 --> 00:15:06,874
My hairy legs made me feel.

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00:15:06,940 --> 00:15:08,842
(breathes loudly)

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There will always be
a part of me

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that falls outside the frame
of someone else's idea

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of who I should be.

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And my hairy legs were
the first line of defense

262
00:15:20,087 --> 00:15:22,022
in protecting who I was becoming

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00:15:22,089 --> 00:15:24,291
and what I believed in.

264
00:15:26,326 --> 00:15:29,663
If shaving my legs was
someone else's story,

265
00:15:29,730 --> 00:15:33,600
then not shaving my legs
was my own.

266
00:15:33,667 --> 00:15:37,704
And it's in this story
I find my freedom.

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(splashing)

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00:16:45,572 --> 00:16:47,541
Subtitling: difuze