“You look like a monkey with your hairy arms.” “Jeez, you’ve got a unibrow.” “Your brows give you a boyish appearance.”
These are just a few of the lovely things I learned as a girl with thick, dark hair growing up. We are all indoctrinated with such ideas about body hair as children: hair on girls is disgusting, and boys without hair are gay. When you’re 12, this makes complete sense.
I used to be self-conscious about my hair in middle school. My hands, legs, and eyebrows were all covered in fur, and I looked like a caterpillar. I’m proud to say that by the time I graduated from high school, I was already over it. Who cares if my arms are covered in hair? Of course, a rude child I was babysitting would always point it out now and then, but it didn’t annoy me as much as it used to. I thought that someone else who had experienced these insecurities had also moved on. I didn’t know this was still an issue for women my age until I heard that one of my best friends shaved her arms just as much as she shaved her legs.
Why do we care so much about female body hair regulation? It all begins with razor manufacturers. In 1904, Gillette invented the safety razor. Being clean shaven became a sign of basic grooming as it gained popularity. This made some sense at the time: shaving was seen as a way to avoid lice and bacteria since many people lived in close quarters and had little access to bathing. This concept was heavily promoted among men, who were told that shaving was a sign of being hygienic and civilized.
Things started to change in the 1920s. New fashion patterns accompanied each decade, and we all know what the 1920s are known for: flapper dresses. Women’s hairy armpits and legs were on full show as a result. Razor manufacturers saw this as an opportunity to sell more razors, so they started convincing women that they wanted to be smooth. From there, the disease grew, and now generations of women are concerned with everything from the hair between their brows to their toes’ knuckles, and everything in between. Men may still have beards and be attractive a century later, but women are supposed to look like prepubescent girls.
To be honest, it’s absolutely ridiculous.
I figured I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, so I wanted to speak to other women about their experiences with body hair and whether or not they’d come to accept it.
Nisha Jagota, a fourth-year student at UCSB, was the first woman I spoke with. Jagota recalled a conversation she had with her peers in fifth grade about whether or not they could shave before a pool party. “We all got together as a group and spoke about, ‘Well, what’s acceptable, what should we do?’ Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knows what’s ‘true,’ so all is really muddled,” she said.
Girls as young as ten or eleven years old are aware that they will be judged. They understand that there is a “right” and a “wrong,” but the standard is so vague that they are left wondering.
Since coming to UCSB, Jagota hasn’t thought too much about her body hair, she told me. Participating in the Vagina Monologues and spending time with other women who wear their hair as they wanted was one of the most pivotal moments in her evolving relationship with her body hair. “It was fantastic to be surrounded by so many different types of women, as well as nonbinary people,” she said. “And seeing women with unshaved armpits wearing tank tops and bras visually… I’m not going to say they were making a point because maybe they weren’t, or maybe it was just for them, but for me, they were.”
Madi Braum, another UCSB student, had a similar experience after graduating from high school. She explained, “I started shaving my legs regularly when I was in sixth grade, before I even needed to.” “However, for years after that, I refused to wear shorts outside the house unless my legs were shaved.” Braum said something “clicked” when she graduated from high school, and she hasn’t shaved since. She hasn’t rubbed a razor blade against her shins in three years.
Dana Laufer, a third-year UCSB undergraduate, recalls being shamed for her body hair for the first time in fifth grade. “When I raised my hand to answer a question in class, a girl exclaimed, ‘Oh my god, Dana has armpit hair.’” Dana’s mother told her what had happened when she returned home that day, and she showed her how to use Nair to extract the hair from her armpits, resulting in painful burns that prevented her from attending school the next day.
Shaving became more of an option than a requirement once Dana reached high school. “My brother used to think it was disgusting when girls didn’t shave their legs,” she said, “but my friend and I used to compete in high school to see who could go the longest without shaving their legs.”
I have no need to advise others about how to keep their body hair in good condition. Personally, I like my legs to be smooth. It would have been a different story if I hadn’t been socialized to think that hairy legs are disgusting. Above all, I want everyone to be able to make decisions that are right for them without being influenced by others. Let’s just give hairy girls a chance.
Anabel Costa believes that women should be able to do whatever they want with their body hair.
– Anabel Costa