When I told my boyfriend at the time that I was thinking to stop shaving my legs, his first reaction was « Oh fuck me. I had not realized yet how much other people would be bothered by my body hair. Here is a mix of some of my experiences with body hair, as well as the experiences of other women. I was indifferent towards my body hair until my mother pointed out that I have hair on my neck and chin, after which I became extremely conscious.
Plucking hair out with my tweezers left marks around my face. A male friend spent an entire night trying to convince me to shave my legs for the sake of my relationship. I would leave my girlfriend if she decided to stop shaving. A man on a dating app told me he could not see me when he saw a picture of my body hair I had posted. While we were showering, a boyfriend started shaving my legs without asking me. He knew I had decided to stop shaving.
On top of being time consuming and painful , I reject hair removal because it is a useless beauty standard imposed on women that has roots in sexism, racism and capitalism. For example, before Gillette realized selling razors to women would be a profitable new market , it was uncommon for women to shave their armpits.
However, body hair removal started way before that, with roots as early as Ancient Greece and Egypt. Hair as a symbol of class was also present within the Romans BC , being hairless meaning being an upper-class woman. Later in the early s, hair for the American woman was associated with being lower class and immigrant.
Today, we believe myths around body hair, that is has a practical or medical value to wax or shave. We are told that our body hair is disgusting, dirty, unsanitary. This truth is actually the opposite: pubic hair has many purposes for your health. It serves a purpose to have you believe those myths, a capitalist one. Hair removal is a profitable industry. Think about it: epilator devices, wax, laser procedures, bleach, tweezers, disposable and electric razors, depilatory creams, etc.
