Six months ago, I started working as a housekeeper and receptionist at a backpackers' hostel in Canterbury.
The assistant manager told me I could not wear shorts to work unless I shaved my legs.
She said this was because I work in a front-of-house position and therefore need to be ''presentable''. She implied I would be viewed by customers as unclean for being a hairy woman, and called me a hippie who lives an alternative lifestyle.
She told me my decision to be unshaven was OK ''privately'' but not at work.
I was so humiliated I suffered anxiety attacks to the point of vomiting. I was discriminated against, and felt judged, inadequate, ugly, and dirty.
The men at my work are allowed to wear shorts to work, and they have hairy legs. The men are also not expected to be facially clean-shaven.
The dress code is pretty casual given that my duties include cleaning toilets. The only reason this woman was harassing me was simply because I am a woman. She was laying down a ''rule'' she would never expect men to adhere to.
I stood my ground, I sought help from a legal representative, friends, family and union representatives.
I demanded permission to wear shorts to work with my legs still hairy, and asked for an apology.
The investigation was not dealt with well and it took two months before I finally got an apology, and three months before I got the mediation I requested between my harasser and me.
I received an apology from the company, and assurance the opinion voiced by this woman was not the view of the wider company.
The company investigated and found it to be an act of ''indirect discrimination'' - which when I looked up a definition means something like a blanket rule that inadvertently discriminates against a small, fringe group of people.
I eventually received a written apology from my harasser - one that was about as insincere as the apology issued from the Veet marketing team after their ads were pulled.
Unsatisfactory apology or not, I still won because I am a proudly hairy and beautiful woman who rocks my bare, hairy legs confidently - in public, at home, at work, on the beach, at the swimming pool, on the dance floor, at formal events ... For six months now I have been wearing shorts to work displaying the thick, long hairs on my legs with a great amount of pride.
I am 23. I am a confident, vibrant and creative individual. I do not shave or wear makeup.
I still consider myself beautiful, I have a loving boyfriend who sees me as beautiful because beauty is certainly not skin deep. My hairy legs act as an idiot filter.
If someone is shallow enough to be disgusted simply because I have hairy legs, then I do not want anything to do with that person.
Other than this one-off incident at my work, I have fortunately never suffered from shaming or bullying for being a hairy woman.
No strangers, friends, boyfriends or, as we see in the Veet ads, taxi drivers or ambulance officers, have had a problem with it.
I sincerely hope my harasser has since taken some time to gain a better education in human rights, and question her actions as a victim of a society that turns things such as beauty, femininity and cleanliness into commodities that you can purchase.
I wonder if she shaves because she wants to, or because ''everyone else does it'' and because she believes the common perception of those who grow up in Western society is that being unshaven is synonymous with being unclean, ugly and ''dude-ish''.
I am so pleased to see so many people, male and female, disgruntled by Veet's advertising campaign.
It is bad enough to have sexism come from the occasional poorly educated individual, but to then see a huge company further nurturing and encouraging these attitudes within modern society is absolutely disgusting.
I guess the advertising campaign has not gone down so smoothly, huh? Veet does not have to worry about losing me as a customer, because as a non-shaving, non-waxing individual, I was never buying into their products and definition of femininity anyway.
