In 1999 at the premiere of the Rom-Com Notting Hill, A-list actress and leading lady Julia Roberts hit the red carpet in a stunning red sequin dress and an effortless up-do. However, the media saw just one problem in an otherwise typical film premiere. Roberts had the audacity to raise her arm to wave to an onlooker, exposing a tuft of hair underneath her arm. Tabloids took this moment and ran with it, speculating that the actress had to have been making some type of feminist statement, or must have been catering to a fetish that her then boyfriend Benjamin Bratt had for hairy underarms. Twenty-three years later, a Glamour article by Jabeen Waheed titled “Julia Roberts showing her underarm hair at Notting Hill’s 1999 premier ‘wasn’t a statement’” explains exactly that; in reality, this ‘scandalous’ showing of her armpit hair was not a political or sexual statement like the media hypothesized. It was just a typical night out for the actress.
Waheed writes that Roberts was asked in a 2018 interview if the infamous underarm hair moment was in fact a feminist or “punk rock” statement, to which the actress simply replied, “I think I just hadn't really calculated my sleeve length and the waving and how those two things would go together and reveal personal things about me. So it wasn't so much a statement as it's just part of the statement I make as a human on the planet for myself."
The only thing Roberts was guilty of in this situation was simply being human, allowing her body hair to grow as it naturally does, and going about her night without a second thought for how this would be received. Regardless, the media assumed that a woman (a celebrity at that) couldn’t possibly have hair under her arms unless she was doing it for the purpose of making some sort of statement or rocking the boat in some way. This is the sentiment that society has been drilling into the minds of women and girls for generations, that a woman’s body hair is ghastly, and should not be seen lest you be accused of trying to disrupt the expectations of your gender. While men are allowed to have untamed hair all over their bodies, women are expected to remove it in one way or another, not for any specific health reasons, but purely for aesthetic ones. What stems from this is a collective sense of shame, resulting in thousands of dollars spent on removal products/services, and the physical and mental toll of being conditioned into thinking that you are “gross” or “unattractive” for allowing your body to exist as it naturally does, all in an effort to uphold a misogynistic belief system.
Today, it is incredibly common for women to feel the need to remove the hair on their legs, underarms, pubic area, arms, and face, with this practice starting from an early age, often the onset of puberty – but where exactly does this practice come from? An article from the Smithsonian Institute titled “Hair Removal'' states that in the late 19th century and early 20th century:
Personal care products which remove unwanted hair from the face and body were developed to address interwoven concerns about hygiene and personal appearance. Removing body hair helped stave off infestations of lice and other parasites, especially for those who lived in close quarters and who had limited access to bathing.
It seems that at this point in history, shaving was common across the board as a regular step in one’s self-care regimen. However, as the Industrial Revolution spurred a more Capitalistic mindset and a stronger consumer market, the scope of body hair removal began to shift. Gillette’s patenting of the straight razor in 1904 made shaving more convenient, changing the practice of removing one’s body hair from a hygienic statement to a fashionable one. This phenomenon began to blend with gender roles and beauty standards, as the article reads, “Beginning in the early twentieth century, manufacturers of safety razors, seeking to expand their market, promoted the idea that body hair on women is inherently masculine and indelicate, as well as unhygienic”. Gillette began selling a razor marketed specifically for women in 1915, which coincided perfectly with the burgeoning fashion trends of sleeveless tops and shortened hemlines. Analyzing this history demonstrates how women grew to be conditioned that having body hair was abnormal, as the early sentiments of hygiene and capitalism have blended together and snowballed overtime, resulting in the hot debates on female body hair that still exist today.
Despite the fact that body hair removal was initially practiced to combat a more antiquated sense of hygiene and medicine, the root of the distaste for female body hair lies heavily in misogyny. For centuries, women have been taught that their beauty and attractiveness in the eyes of men is their most important quality. While men get to be the dominant breadwinners, women must submit, keep a good home and an unwaveringly perfect appearance. These beauty standards, which are often very Eurocentric, coincide with the idea of submission to a man, and as such, put women in a position to be infantilized. An essay by Tavisha Sood titled “The Infantilization of Women in Mainstream Media and Society” suggests, “The association of femininity with docility and dependence relays the infantilization of women and the hair removal plays on this conception of women as childish and/or immature. The idea of a hairless body being feminine is inherently infantilizing since it imitates the body of a pre-pubescent girl and directly ties femininity to physical appearance”. Sood explains that body hair on women, especially pubic hair, is a marker that a woman is growing out of her child body and into her adult one. To stop this natural change, usually right at the onset, is to deny a woman from experiencing her natural growth, stunting her connection to her womanhood, and instilling an insecurity that will most likely last her entire life.
Moreover, women who choose not to remove their body hair are chastised for not being feminine enough, or even are labeled as masculine and, consequently, are deemed as an “other”. Scholar Breanne Fahs touches on this idea in her journal article “Dreaded ‘Otherness’: Heteronormative Patrolling in Women’s Body Hair Rebellions”, which dissects the intense societal backlash against women who do not remove their body hair, and how this is used as a tactic to further pressure women into continuing to remove their body hair, despite our modernized understanding of the practice. Fahs writes, “Women disguise and conceal their ‘natural’ bodies and undergo a vast array of bodily modifications, procedures, grooming habits, and maintenance behaviors to conform to social norms” (452) one of these being the heterosexual norm our society upholds. Generally speaking, women partake in body hair removal, among other beauty regimens, in order to appeal to the male interpretation of femininity, which involves a lack of hair – hairiness being a “male trait.”
Waheed writes that Roberts was asked in a 2018 interview if the infamous underarm hair moment was in fact a feminist or “punk rock” statement, to which the actress simply replied, “I think I just hadn't really calculated my sleeve length and the waving and how those two things would go together and reveal personal things about me. So it wasn't so much a statement as it's just part of the statement I make as a human on the planet for myself."
The only thing Roberts was guilty of in this situation was simply being human, allowing her body hair to grow as it naturally does, and going about her night without a second thought for how this would be received. Regardless, the media assumed that a woman (a celebrity at that) couldn’t possibly have hair under her arms unless she was doing it for the purpose of making some sort of statement or rocking the boat in some way. This is the sentiment that society has been drilling into the minds of women and girls for generations, that a woman’s body hair is ghastly, and should not be seen lest you be accused of trying to disrupt the expectations of your gender. While men are allowed to have untamed hair all over their bodies, women are expected to remove it in one way or another, not for any specific health reasons, but purely for aesthetic ones. What stems from this is a collective sense of shame, resulting in thousands of dollars spent on removal products/services, and the physical and mental toll of being conditioned into thinking that you are “gross” or “unattractive” for allowing your body to exist as it naturally does, all in an effort to uphold a misogynistic belief system.
Today, it is incredibly common for women to feel the need to remove the hair on their legs, underarms, pubic area, arms, and face, with this practice starting from an early age, often the onset of puberty – but where exactly does this practice come from? An article from the Smithsonian Institute titled “Hair Removal'' states that in the late 19th century and early 20th century:
Personal care products which remove unwanted hair from the face and body were developed to address interwoven concerns about hygiene and personal appearance. Removing body hair helped stave off infestations of lice and other parasites, especially for those who lived in close quarters and who had limited access to bathing.
It seems that at this point in history, shaving was common across the board as a regular step in one’s self-care regimen. However, as the Industrial Revolution spurred a more Capitalistic mindset and a stronger consumer market, the scope of body hair removal began to shift. Gillette’s patenting of the straight razor in 1904 made shaving more convenient, changing the practice of removing one’s body hair from a hygienic statement to a fashionable one. This phenomenon began to blend with gender roles and beauty standards, as the article reads, “Beginning in the early twentieth century, manufacturers of safety razors, seeking to expand their market, promoted the idea that body hair on women is inherently masculine and indelicate, as well as unhygienic”. Gillette began selling a razor marketed specifically for women in 1915, which coincided perfectly with the burgeoning fashion trends of sleeveless tops and shortened hemlines. Analyzing this history demonstrates how women grew to be conditioned that having body hair was abnormal, as the early sentiments of hygiene and capitalism have blended together and snowballed overtime, resulting in the hot debates on female body hair that still exist today.
Despite the fact that body hair removal was initially practiced to combat a more antiquated sense of hygiene and medicine, the root of the distaste for female body hair lies heavily in misogyny. For centuries, women have been taught that their beauty and attractiveness in the eyes of men is their most important quality. While men get to be the dominant breadwinners, women must submit, keep a good home and an unwaveringly perfect appearance. These beauty standards, which are often very Eurocentric, coincide with the idea of submission to a man, and as such, put women in a position to be infantilized. An essay by Tavisha Sood titled “The Infantilization of Women in Mainstream Media and Society” suggests, “The association of femininity with docility and dependence relays the infantilization of women and the hair removal plays on this conception of women as childish and/or immature. The idea of a hairless body being feminine is inherently infantilizing since it imitates the body of a pre-pubescent girl and directly ties femininity to physical appearance”. Sood explains that body hair on women, especially pubic hair, is a marker that a woman is growing out of her child body and into her adult one. To stop this natural change, usually right at the onset, is to deny a woman from experiencing her natural growth, stunting her connection to her womanhood, and instilling an insecurity that will most likely last her entire life.
Moreover, women who choose not to remove their body hair are chastised for not being feminine enough, or even are labeled as masculine and, consequently, are deemed as an “other”. Scholar Breanne Fahs touches on this idea in her journal article “Dreaded ‘Otherness’: Heteronormative Patrolling in Women’s Body Hair Rebellions”, which dissects the intense societal backlash against women who do not remove their body hair, and how this is used as a tactic to further pressure women into continuing to remove their body hair, despite our modernized understanding of the practice. Fahs writes, “Women disguise and conceal their ‘natural’ bodies and undergo a vast array of bodily modifications, procedures, grooming habits, and maintenance behaviors to conform to social norms” (452) one of these being the heterosexual norm our society upholds. Generally speaking, women partake in body hair removal, among other beauty regimens, in order to appeal to the male interpretation of femininity, which involves a lack of hair – hairiness being a “male trait.”
"As the early sentiments of hygiene and capitalism have blended together and snowballed overtime, resulting in the hot debates on female body hair that still exist today."
Fahs explains that in a study she conducted on female college students, wherein they were challenged to not remove their body hair for 10 weeks, a third of the women experienced some type of homophobia-related backlash. Several of the heterosexual participants “feared deviance” from the norm they are accustomed to, while the bisexual and lesbian participants “feared disclosing their stigmatized identity to unfamiliar others'' (Fahs, 458), as their hairiness was equated to homosexuality, showcasing their “deviation” from the “cultural norm” through this refusal to practice hair removal. One women even shared that her boyfriend openly expressed that he did not “tolerate'' her body hair, and that he believed women should be hairless because “He wants to know that the person he is in a sexual relationship with is strictly ‘female’ in appearance and not ‘in between’” (Fahs, 465). These disturbing results demonstrate how closely linked hairlessness and femininity truly are. These women changed nothing else about their daily lives other than ceasing to remove their body hair, and were treated as if they had made massive changes to their sexualities, personalities, and genders. We can relate this back to the Julia Roberts scandal mentioned above; the actress was speculated to be making a political statement or openly expressing a sexual kink, when in reality she was going about her day without a second thought for the hair that naturally grows under her arms. All of this supports the implication that a woman must have an ulterior motive when she does not remove her body hair, due to the fact that it is believed to be so inherently connected to femininity.
Personally, I have been removing my body hair for about 10 years, starting at around the age of 12, which seems to be commonplace for most women. I began shaving my legs when I noticed that many of the girls in my seventh grade P.E. class had smooth, hairless legs sticking out from their gym shorts. I can distinctly remember the moment I looked down at my hairy legs and thought that it was “manly and gross” after a long period of paying it no mind at all. While I wasn’t directly told by anyone that my hairy legs were manly or gross at this point in my life, removing the hair was still something I felt I had to do in order to stave off any embarrassment. Later on, I remember being teased by my girl friends for having more hair or darker hair than they had, and as a result, through most of high school I shaved my legs everyday, feeling ashamed of even the slightest amount of stubble. This caused me lots of pain in the long run, giving my skin a sensitivity that I still deal with today.
I would justify it by saying that I just liked the feeling of smoothness, which is a sentiment a lot of women have as well. Many women, myself included, have claimed that it “just makes them feel more attractive”. Following this idea, scholars Marika Tiggemann and Christine Lewis conducted a study called “Attitudes Toward Women’s Body Hair: Relationship with Disgust Sensitivity”, wherein they recorded male and female college students’ emotional reactions to women’s body hair, both the presence of it and lack thereof. The results show that most women in the study removed their body hair, and did so for “reasons of liking the soft silky feeling and feeling attractive” (Tiggemann and Lewis, 384) and that this was more important to them than social/normative reasons for removing their hair (385). However, these findings still carry the implication that removing body hair is inherently more attractive than not doing so, as the article states, “Attributing their own hair-removal practice to femininity/attractiveness reasons is exactly the kind of rationale that serves to keep women insecure of their bodies” (Tiggemann and Lewis, 386). Though many women claim to remove their hair by their own volition, the general attitude towards female body hair skewed negative in this study, as it did in Breanne Fahs study. The long and short of this is that women are conditioned to feel some sort of disgust about their own bodies, and maintain a false sense of empowerment by claiming that they remove their body hair for reasons that have to do with their personal sense of attractiveness as opposed to a social one, when in reality, the latter still has a hold over the former.
There can be many effects of the stigmatizing of female body hair and the natural female body in general, but the most universal seems to be overall negative self-image. This phenomenon goes back to the very beginning of women’s body hair removal rituals; by feeding women and girls the belief that a lack of body hair is not only more attractive, but more comfortable, we are merely disguising misogyny and beauty standards as a choice women make. Tiggemann and Lewis’ study points out that the ‘silky, smooth’ justification is one regurgitated from advertising (385), which is reflected in the initial advertising that brought women into the market of body hair removal in the first place.
Body hair removal and the culture that has been built around it exists for nothing else but to sell products and contribute to the overall need to control women’s bodies. To combat this, one way to start would be fixing the ways in which hair removal products are advertised to women. Ads for men’s shaving products are usually framed around feelings of overall comfortability and necessity, such as two Gillette ads that read “A shave you barely feel” and “More comfort and less irritation”. While ads for women’s hair removal products have improved slightly over the years, they still have ideas of beauty and sexuality at their core, such as a Schick ad that shows three bikini-clad women trimming plants (“bushes”) in front of their pubic areas, or the countless campaigns depicting a woman seductively caressing her smooth legs. On balance, the razor brand Billie flaunts a more inclusive clientele, featuring unisex language in their marketing, and using images of diverse individuals rocking their hairy armpits and legs. I think this campaign promotes the idea of choice when it comes to hair removal, taking the power out of the hands of the retailer, and giving it to the consumer. It is clear that the practice of hair removal is not going to simply disappear, but it is possible to reframe our language about the subject, and normalize the idea that a woman can decide whether or not she wishes to shave without the fear of being deemed unattractive. One ad from Billie shows three women, one with no armpit hair, one with a unibrow, and one with underarm hair, the words across the images reading “However, whenever, if ever”, promoting the idea that shaving is not a necessity.
Most importantly, young girls and women should be taught their beauty is not their most important asset. We should not be told through marketing or just general social interaction that a woman’s only value is how she is viewed by men. Girls should not be conditioned to think that their natural bodies are unattractive before they even grow into their adult bodies, as this only leads to lifelong physical and mental pain that does nothing but perpetuate a gender-wide sense of shame that is passed down for generations. We must realize that our words have power, and that we have the ability to shift our language regarding self-image to be more positive and inclusive, rather than derogatory.
Works Cited
Fahs, Breanne. “Dreaded “Otherness.”” Gender & Society, vol. 25, no. 4, Aug. 2011, pp. 451–472, https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243211414877.
Smithsonian Institution. “Cosmetics and Personal Care Products in the Medicine and Science Collections: Hair Removal.” Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Institution, 2016, www.si.edu/spotlight/health-hygiene-and-beauty/hair-removal.
Sood, Tavisha. “The Infantilization of Women in Mainstream Media and Society.” Verdict Magazine, QUB Law Society, 11 Jan. 2021, www.theverdictonline.org/post/the-infantilization-of-women-in-mainstream-media-and-society.
Tiggemann, Marika, and Christine Lewis. “Attitudes toward Women’s Body Hair: Relationship with Disgust Sensitivity.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 4, Dec. 2004, pp. 381–387, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2004.00155.x.
Waheed, Jabeen. “Julia Roberts Showing Her Underarm Hair at Notting Hill’s 1999 Premiere “Wasn’t a Statement.”” Glamour UK, 11 July 2022, www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/julia-roberts-armpit-hair-notting-hill-premiere-1999.
Advertisements mentioned:
https://goodshoppin.top/ProductDetail.aspx?iid=445197091&pr=50.88
https://www.amazon.com/Gillette-ProGlide-Refills-Shaving-infused/dp/B08Z6LCSND
https://www.glamour.com/story/billie-shaving-ad-body-hair
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/d7zz/schick-hydro-silk-trimstyle-by-the-pool
Personally, I have been removing my body hair for about 10 years, starting at around the age of 12, which seems to be commonplace for most women. I began shaving my legs when I noticed that many of the girls in my seventh grade P.E. class had smooth, hairless legs sticking out from their gym shorts. I can distinctly remember the moment I looked down at my hairy legs and thought that it was “manly and gross” after a long period of paying it no mind at all. While I wasn’t directly told by anyone that my hairy legs were manly or gross at this point in my life, removing the hair was still something I felt I had to do in order to stave off any embarrassment. Later on, I remember being teased by my girl friends for having more hair or darker hair than they had, and as a result, through most of high school I shaved my legs everyday, feeling ashamed of even the slightest amount of stubble. This caused me lots of pain in the long run, giving my skin a sensitivity that I still deal with today.
I would justify it by saying that I just liked the feeling of smoothness, which is a sentiment a lot of women have as well. Many women, myself included, have claimed that it “just makes them feel more attractive”. Following this idea, scholars Marika Tiggemann and Christine Lewis conducted a study called “Attitudes Toward Women’s Body Hair: Relationship with Disgust Sensitivity”, wherein they recorded male and female college students’ emotional reactions to women’s body hair, both the presence of it and lack thereof. The results show that most women in the study removed their body hair, and did so for “reasons of liking the soft silky feeling and feeling attractive” (Tiggemann and Lewis, 384) and that this was more important to them than social/normative reasons for removing their hair (385). However, these findings still carry the implication that removing body hair is inherently more attractive than not doing so, as the article states, “Attributing their own hair-removal practice to femininity/attractiveness reasons is exactly the kind of rationale that serves to keep women insecure of their bodies” (Tiggemann and Lewis, 386). Though many women claim to remove their hair by their own volition, the general attitude towards female body hair skewed negative in this study, as it did in Breanne Fahs study. The long and short of this is that women are conditioned to feel some sort of disgust about their own bodies, and maintain a false sense of empowerment by claiming that they remove their body hair for reasons that have to do with their personal sense of attractiveness as opposed to a social one, when in reality, the latter still has a hold over the former.
There can be many effects of the stigmatizing of female body hair and the natural female body in general, but the most universal seems to be overall negative self-image. This phenomenon goes back to the very beginning of women’s body hair removal rituals; by feeding women and girls the belief that a lack of body hair is not only more attractive, but more comfortable, we are merely disguising misogyny and beauty standards as a choice women make. Tiggemann and Lewis’ study points out that the ‘silky, smooth’ justification is one regurgitated from advertising (385), which is reflected in the initial advertising that brought women into the market of body hair removal in the first place.
Body hair removal and the culture that has been built around it exists for nothing else but to sell products and contribute to the overall need to control women’s bodies. To combat this, one way to start would be fixing the ways in which hair removal products are advertised to women. Ads for men’s shaving products are usually framed around feelings of overall comfortability and necessity, such as two Gillette ads that read “A shave you barely feel” and “More comfort and less irritation”. While ads for women’s hair removal products have improved slightly over the years, they still have ideas of beauty and sexuality at their core, such as a Schick ad that shows three bikini-clad women trimming plants (“bushes”) in front of their pubic areas, or the countless campaigns depicting a woman seductively caressing her smooth legs. On balance, the razor brand Billie flaunts a more inclusive clientele, featuring unisex language in their marketing, and using images of diverse individuals rocking their hairy armpits and legs. I think this campaign promotes the idea of choice when it comes to hair removal, taking the power out of the hands of the retailer, and giving it to the consumer. It is clear that the practice of hair removal is not going to simply disappear, but it is possible to reframe our language about the subject, and normalize the idea that a woman can decide whether or not she wishes to shave without the fear of being deemed unattractive. One ad from Billie shows three women, one with no armpit hair, one with a unibrow, and one with underarm hair, the words across the images reading “However, whenever, if ever”, promoting the idea that shaving is not a necessity.
Most importantly, young girls and women should be taught their beauty is not their most important asset. We should not be told through marketing or just general social interaction that a woman’s only value is how she is viewed by men. Girls should not be conditioned to think that their natural bodies are unattractive before they even grow into their adult bodies, as this only leads to lifelong physical and mental pain that does nothing but perpetuate a gender-wide sense of shame that is passed down for generations. We must realize that our words have power, and that we have the ability to shift our language regarding self-image to be more positive and inclusive, rather than derogatory.
Works Cited
Fahs, Breanne. “Dreaded “Otherness.”” Gender & Society, vol. 25, no. 4, Aug. 2011, pp. 451–472, https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243211414877.
Smithsonian Institution. “Cosmetics and Personal Care Products in the Medicine and Science Collections: Hair Removal.” Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Institution, 2016, www.si.edu/spotlight/health-hygiene-and-beauty/hair-removal.
Sood, Tavisha. “The Infantilization of Women in Mainstream Media and Society.” Verdict Magazine, QUB Law Society, 11 Jan. 2021, www.theverdictonline.org/post/the-infantilization-of-women-in-mainstream-media-and-society.
Tiggemann, Marika, and Christine Lewis. “Attitudes toward Women’s Body Hair: Relationship with Disgust Sensitivity.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 4, Dec. 2004, pp. 381–387, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2004.00155.x.
Waheed, Jabeen. “Julia Roberts Showing Her Underarm Hair at Notting Hill’s 1999 Premiere “Wasn’t a Statement.”” Glamour UK, 11 July 2022, www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/julia-roberts-armpit-hair-notting-hill-premiere-1999.
Advertisements mentioned:
https://goodshoppin.top/ProductDetail.aspx?iid=445197091&pr=50.88
https://www.amazon.com/Gillette-ProGlide-Refills-Shaving-infused/dp/B08Z6LCSND
https://www.glamour.com/story/billie-shaving-ad-body-hair
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/d7zz/schick-hydro-silk-trimstyle-by-the-pool
|
About the Author
Chloe Caneday is a 4th year student majoring in English Literature with a minor in Classics. After graduating in the Spring of 2024, she will continue her studies in SFSU’s English Literature graduate program to obtain a master's degree. This paper was originally written for a Women’s Health class, but became a larger research paper upon uncovering several intricacies within this very gendered and widely accepted societal demand in relation to the policing of the female body. |