Why Women Body Hair is such a big trouble? Let’s have a Feminist outlook on that.

Credits: Mathilda Rech

Here is one more part of societal unrealistic beauty standards. For centuries, society forced women to be more “ladylike” but the term ladylike is seen differently in different regions of the world. For example, the Chinese culture had a tradition of foot-binding named 'lotus-feet' which remained for almost 8 centuries in China. The arches of women feet were systematically reshaped by forcing them to wear tiny ‘lotus-shoes’ that doesn’t allow their feet to grow more than 3-4 inches throughout their life. The motive of following this culture is marriage, the smaller the feet were the higher the chances would be there of getting easily married because small feet were seen as a status symbol for the people there in ancient china.

History of Body Hair Removal

Credits:hubspot.com

Removal of Body Hair has a long history, dating all the way back to The Stone Age, which was around 100,000 years ago. Cavemen or I would say cave people use flint blades, Seashells and other sharp objects to shave off all body hair. At that time hair removal is done for many logical reasons, such as to prevent frostbites (especially during the Ice Age, when the unending winter would make the water freeze on their body hair) and another reason is not to provide a breeding ground for parasites like mites and lice, and to take away from any advantage, an adversary might get in a quarrel by grabbing.

The hair removal technique became more popular in the 1900s, when women started wearing sleeveless clothes that exposed more skin, and manufacturers of razors and depilatory creams wasted no time in capitalizing on this change by advertising through the style of clothing. Razor companies strategically marketed and advertised by offering to provide a solution (when hair is not even a problem)- to save women from the “embarrassing personal problems”.

In 1915, Gillette created its first-ever razor especially for women which offers smooth armpits, neck, face, and arms. It also refers to hair growth as an embarrassing personal problem. With the change in trend in clothing lines, the idea of women's body hair also changed throughout society. Now body hair is defined as “ugly”, “gross”, “unwanted”, “embarrassing” and “unfashionable” with changing fashion trends skirts became shorter, silk stockings became more prevailing and swimsuits became shorter and revealing. Razor Industry took it as a golden opportunity and advertised and marketed its products more aggressively.

Conclusion

Credits: @beautifullyflawedbean

Hair all around your body is normal. Even though some people are hairier than others because of some hormonal issues. Hair grows pretty much everywhere in our bodies except the soles of our feet, the palms of our hands, and our lips. Body Hair removal was not always gendered, it was important for both the genders in Ancient Egypt, Hindus in Ancient India and was also mentioned in Quran. Over the years, pop culture and the media-fueled this hairless trend as the acceptable standard by constantly portraying perfectly smooth bodies. Advertising of hair removal products started to depict hair removal as a part of “women empowerment” and provide women more confidence after using the products. With this thinking, we go through a question that hair removal will be a choice ever when it’s a socially acceptable norm? We should embrace it rather than waxing, plucking, shaving, bleaching them all the time. As we are all mammals and those hair serves us many purposes, it keeps us warm and protects the delicate part of our body. It might make us feel less feminine but more humane.