The Constructed Body
last updated Sept 2006

Why do women feel they should be hairless? Even if a woman has identified why she, personally, feels
the need to remove her body hair, there is still the question of why our culture as a whole supports
the idea that hair on women is unattractive and unfeminine even though body hair is part of
biologically mature female sexuality.

INTRODUCTION
What do I mean by ‘the constructed body’?

A constructed body is the result of aspiring to a particular ‘look’, fashion, style, image, or ideal. At one end of the scale you have dying your hair and at the other, plastic surgery. These are both obvious methods of image construction. Methods that are common enough to be taken for granted include body hair removal and the application of make-up.

Sometimes the constructed body is an image you borrow, like a costume that is obviously not your natural appearance. In rare circumstances the constructed body is the product of practicality rather than a desire for the resulting aesthetic. Other times the constructed image is designed to mask your true appearance and replace it with what is supposedly a more desirable image. Examples of the latter include,

• airbrushed models in magazines
• people who have undergone surgery for aesthetic rather than practical reasons
• painted-on eyebrows
• the absence of female body hair
• even hair styling and dental braces

Women and girls have been altering their bodies to construct appearances for centuries. Their motivation usually stems from a specific desire to feel and be considered beautiful, feminine, and attractive. Many of them try to achieve this by seeking belonging and approval from the general public by conforming to whatever fashion is being encouraged by the society and culture of their time.

To put our modern idea of femininity in perspective it is important to understand that what defines feminine beauty, does change according to what time or culture is being looked at. (See: Cultural fashions in other times and places).