‘I’m just a girl’: A teenager’s courage amid the stigma of excessive facial hair

A young woman from the Oshana region is challenging stigma and embracing self-acceptance after developing excessive facial hair in her teens.

At first glance, Maiso Servieh (24) looks like any other 20-something woman.

But behind her confident smile is a story of self-discovery, struggle, and courage in the face of stigma.

Servieh, who is from Ondiiyala village in the Okatyali constituency, started noticing a lot of facial hair when she was18 years old.

“I first noticed the hair in 2019. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but as it grew thicker, it started affecting me emotionally,” she says.

People called her names.

“Some even call me ‘monkey’. It hurts because I am just a girl. This is not something I chose,” she says.

Servieh says she initially tried to seek medical help, but was quickly discouraged.“I cannot afford the medication. When I can, I wax. When I can’t, I use hair removal cream or just shave. It’s not easy,” she says.

Despite the challenges, Servieh says she found a sense of courage and community on social media.

After coming across a woman on TikTok who also has facial hair, she began posting her own photos.

“I saw a lady like me and it made me feel less alone. So, I also started sharing my pictures. I thought maybe someone out there might relate,” she says.

She says sometimes she considers embracing her facial hair, but public ridicule often gets in the way.

“People are not good. They stare, they laugh, they whisper. It’s hard.”

Mayo Clinic says excessive facial hair in women can be caused by various conditions, including hormonal imbalances or polycystic ovary syndrome.

However, access to diagnosis and treatment remains limited for many Namibians, especially in rural areas.

As she continues her journey, Servieh hopes to inspire other women.

“I just want people to know I’m human too. I didn’t ask for this. I’m not doing it for attention – this is my reality,” she says.

She hopes that one day, society will learn to embrace diversity in all its forms.

Clinical psychologist Shaun Whittaker says shame around natural bodily functions, particularly among women, is a socially constructed burden rooted in cultural conditioning, bullying, and patriarchal expectations.

He emphasises the importance of normalising the human body and rejecting shame tied to its natural functions.

“And of course it’s a common issue with many women. It’s just a normal human thing that you sometimes have hair in certain places, you know. So it would be so fantastic for more women to embrace themselves – even on social media,” he says.

Whittaker says racial history also plays a role in how physical features are perceived and judged, especially in African societies still affected by colonial beauty standards.

“I think that’s one of the big hangovers of racism that we don’t speak about enough. There’s this hyper-awareness of physical characteristics,” he says.

Whittaker says patriarchal systems continue to control how women are expected to look and behave in public.

“. . . this whole thing about male dominance and how women should look, their appearance, that they should be presentable in public. It’s really about control. It’s quite toxic in so many ways.”