Kate Demolder looks at the history of hair removal and how the pandemic has affected our desire to depilate…
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“Constant hair removal,” I joked with a male friend of mine, who once earnestly questioned what it’s really like being a woman. I was winding him up, naturally, but couldn’t help but consider it as an immovable framework of my then 21-year-old life.
Years have past since then, and, thankfully, a more laissez-faire attitude when it comes to my appearance has set in, but a recent consideration into image policing has unearthed a curiosity into the gargantuan female-centric hair removal industry – namely, do we strip our skin of body hair for our benefit, or for everyone else’s?
Body hair removal is not new. In the Stone Age, it was deemed a survival tactic. Archaeologists believe that men and women removed hair with sharp, angular stones to avoid an opponent grabbing them during battle. In Ancient Egypt, sugaring (mixing sugar, water and lemon juice to create a sticky paste) was used to remove hair for hygienic purposes. And given the low class status of pubic hair in Ancient Greece and Rome, wealthy women and men made use of razors, tweezers, pumice stones and depilatory creams to create a completely hairless base. So yes, pubic hair was policed from the get-go – considered uncivilised and in need of management as far back as 3000 BC. But why?
In his 1871 book Descent of Man, Darwin proposed that we evolved with reduced body hair through sexual selection, as men chose mates unburdened by hirsutism. This laid the groundwork for men of science to obsess over racial differences in hair type and growth (among other aspects of physical appearance), and the press to popularise the findings. Darwin’s evolutionary theory transformed body hair into a question of competitive selection—so much so that hairiness was deeply pathologised. “Rooted in traditions of comparative racial anatomy, evolutionary thought solidified hair’s associations with ‘primitive’ ancestry and an atavistic return to earlier, ‘less developed’ forms,” so says Rebecca Herzig, author of Plucked: A History of Hair Removal. Post-Descent, hairiness adopted a survival-of-the-fittest narrative, further perpetuating the connotation of unsophistication.
Female body hair was then villianised further as we learned the hormonal implications. Hairier women were deemed to have “higher anthropological development” in a race which became indicative of deviance, Herzig explains. In her book, Herzig tells the story of an 1893 study of 271 cases of insanity in white women, which found that insane women had excessive facial hair more frequently than the sane. Their hairs were also “thicker and stiffer,” more closely resembling those of the “inferior races.” Havelock Ellis, the scholar of human sexuality, claimed in a study in 1893 that this type of hair growth in women was “linked to criminal violence, strong sexual instincts … [and] exceptional ‘animal vigour.’”
Thus hirsutism was linked to barbarism and mental health issues. No wonder some 99% of American women voluntarily opt to go bare, spending up to £23,000 (€26,470) over the course of a lifetime on hair removal treatments.
When it comes to the upkeep of pubic hair removal, one woman who knows more about your vulva – and its enforced maintenance– is Debby Herbenick, PhD. The Principal Investigator of the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behaviour in the US, and author of Read My Lips: A Complete Guide to the Vagina and Vulva, Herbenick recently put together a study of 2,453 adult women in the US which revealed that pubic hair removal was associated with more positive scores on the Female Genital Self-Image Scale (FGSIS) and also more positive female sexual function as measured by the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI). In particular, women who sometimes removed all of their hair tended to have higher scores even after controlling for things like younger age that are known to be linked to positive sexual function.
In working on this piece, I asked men and women in my life and those online about their grooming habits and how things have changed in lockdown. Reaction was varied, albeit still shrouded in shame. Many continued the act of removal, opting for different methods, given the extra time spent at home, while others question this absurdist act of supposed ‘self-care’, choosing not to rip hair follicles out of their body. “I haven’t shaved my legs in months,” one woman told me, “whereas before COVID I shaved weekly. My opinion on body hair has now completely changed. I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to go out in a dress with my legs yet but it wouldn’t have even been a question for past-me, which feels like progress.”
“Throughout the first lockdown,” another woman commented, “I bought at-home wax strips which were surprisingly non-painful, but throughout the next lockdowns we (my vagina and I) were a lot more go-with-the-flow. Now that my waxer is open again, I realise how much I enjoy the routine. The difference is now I decide what hairstyle I want to go with, rather than go full Phil Mitchell.”
“Definitely shaving less,” one man said. “Have stopped conflating being shaved with being ‘prepared’ for having sex. I’ve noticed the guys I’ve been with this year haven’t shaved as much either and I am totally okay with that.”
Others grew hair out in the comfort of their own home, only to become disgusted when catching a glimpse of themselves. What this writer found most interesting, however, is that a number of women––who were self-admittedly previously repulsed by the idea of hair-filled legs or bristly underarms––grew to address their bodies in natural states and feel an inner resilience at brushing up against the oppressor, namely their own hair.
“I’ve grown incredibly attached to my pubes at this time,” a woman told me. “You could say they became my emotional comfort blanket during the turbulence of lockdown.”
“I see now what a time-consuming, expensive, painless and pointless task it is,” another shared. “But I’ll still remove it all post-lockdown as it’s such a strong beauty standard to uphold.”
A mixed bag, certainly, but a newly considered one. While many women – and men – confided in me that their newly embraced body was a sight to behold, others felt the need to maintain societally-encouraged perfection in an uncontrollable time.
Body hair removal, at its core, is a form of gendered social control. And a steadily inclining one at that. It is no coincidence that the pressure for women to constantly and consistently self-ameliorate (according to societal standards) parallels the rise of their freedom, according to Herzig. She writes that the effect of this hairlessness norm is to “produce feelings of inadequacy and vulnerability, the sense that women’s bodies are problematic the way they naturally are.”
With brands like Billie and Fur brushing up against the Gillette-constructed norm of continual hairlessness (Billie is the first shaving brand that has models with actual hair in their campaign images. Fur treats shaving as optional), the cogs are in motion for body hair to be an option for the female-presenting rather than forbidden territory.
And still, as hinted earlier, if you ask many women why they remove hair – they will often insist it is a form of self-care. Self-enhancement, even. That it is a personal choice and they simply feel better when they do. At a fundamental level, this seems harmless. Who are we to tell others how to maintain their bodies? But this is the thing, women have been told how to distort their bodies in order to feel better for centuries. Deciding that hair removal is simply another facet of self-care might be the biggest lies women, and men, buy into. It keeps us in check; an impossible standard to maintain, allows us only to feel beautiful when society nods its head.
Three years ago, I committed to six sessions of full body laser. My underarms, legs and pubic region were subjected to short, sharp pains in an attempt to maintain the moral virtue of cleanliness, permanently. It was costly, time-consuming and painful – but the good kind. The type women are told is worthwhile, every single day of their lives.
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