Teacher claims she faces dismissal over unshaven armpits

A 26-year-old teacher from Jerusalem said Wednesday she was humiliated and threatened with termination for not shaving her armpit hair.

The teacher said she was told to wear sleeved shirts and long skirts, despite the school’s dress code allowing pupils and teachers to come to school with exposed calves and armpits.

In a post on her Facebook page, she said she “found it hard to believe the situation.”

The teacher said she was employed by the school after investing a great deal of effort to finish the required training. “I was so happy to finally start doing what I like best – teaching. As I was making final preparations to sign a contract, the human resources manager asked me to come with her to another room, and on the way there the headmistress joined us,” she wrote on Facebook.

The headmistress said “there is a matter I need to raise with you and it’s unpleasant and embarrassing, but I must do it,” the teacher recounted. “I received several complaints about you. You have a hygiene problem. You’re not hygienic, and it is apparent and problematic,” the headmistress said.

The teacher recounted that by mentioning “hygiene,” the headmistress in fact meant armpit hair. “You have a certain shaving problem. You don’t remove your hairs and it’s unhygienic. It’s problematic, and I think we can’t employ you here if it continues to look like this,” the headmistress told the teacher, according to the teacher’s account.

The teacher wrote that she explained that she was “absolutely hygienic, and showered sometimes twice a day.” The headmistress, wrote the teacher, replied that “when you have hair on your legs some of the pupils may be offended if they see it. And also, when there’s hair in the armpits, sweat stains form and an unpleasant odor ensues.”

The young woman was asked come to school “wearing long skirts and sleeved shirts and to use profuse amounts of deodorant and perfume,” she wrote.

“If I don’t break my values of equality, which I have stood by for years despite the hardships I suffer from society unofficially, I will be shamefully fired from my job,” she wrote. “I, who according to expectations should be a good teacher making minimum wage, cannot give of my time to the people who need me because she has aesthetic needs that I see as absurd.

“Legally, I am allowed to show the hairs on my legs and armpits boldly and no headmistress wearing a pink sweater and a chain that looks like it was farted out by a unicorn can tell me otherwise,” she wrote.