Why Hairless - Role Models and Majority Rule

The approval of fellow females has the power to give women and girls the confidence to assert themselves, but it also has the power to strip them of that confidence. Women and girls are informed of their place amongst themselves according to the judgement of other females. For that reason women usually seek approval and confidence in their appearance from women before they do from men.

Although most men wouldn’t dare pass judgement on a woman’s appearance, they still seem to get credited (and blamed). While many women think all men like women to be hairless, the idea does not come from the mouths of men as often as it comes from women.

“Women have latched onto the stereotype of what they should be. Clean cut, professional, etc… they like being on a pedestal. It’s almost like having too much hair makes us too normal. They want to look pure; something they are seeking in totally the wrong way I think. Women generally tend to be much more spiteful than men too, and the occasional nasty egg will keep all the weaker women in line, and ‘teach’ them how to behave. It’s like this underground elitist group not dissimilar to the old-fashioned housewife groups that existed in the past. Keeping each other in line, ‘as a woman should be’. I think it's almost a protest against equality; they don't want to be so similar to men, they wan t to be objects of desire. This only draws on human nature and its selfishness really. Women really aren't the meek beings that the stereotype suggests; their current status (how both men and women react to an attractive female) is actually extremely powerful. I think women want to sustain this elevated position. They want to remain a secret almost, something still mysterious and undiscovered to men. To hold so much of our natural selves back in this behaviour, maintains this almost untouchable illusion of a woman.” ~ Jo, 18, ENG

Because the television, popular magazines, and most of the women we know, are all upholding the hairless norm. This leaves little room for any woman to change the way she views her body and makes it harder for her to reclaim confidence in her natural body.

On her website completely GORGEOUS Kaz Cooke explains that, unfortunately, in this day and age,

“Part of the initiation of growing up, part of watching adult women and learning how to be an adult, is learning that we are supposed to dislike our bodies, or at least bits of them. Or at least have one bit that you don’t like (pick a part, any part)… the natural body is seen as the enemy. It is something that has to be fought against, or ‘fixed’. This is part of the reason plastic surgeons think they can get away with saying small breasts are ‘deformed’. Technology is [seen as] always good and any invention should be tried out, but the natural body is bad, defective, primitive, must be made to submit to drugs, obsessive dieting, being cut open and having foreign bodies inserted.”

Shaving, plucking, waxing and mystery creams that dissolve your hair are also part of the war many women are waging on their natural bodies. All the messages that encourage us to hide, damage and ‘improve’ our natural body are marketing, not facts. “You’re too hairy” is marketing, not a fact.

This picture comparison between two photos taken in the 90s demonstrates that young girls see how adult women behave and aspire to look and behave the same way. The message young girls are getting from a lot of their role models is that sexualised feminine behaviour is the what being female is all about no matter what your age or circumstance. See also, Femininity: The Sexual Feminine: CASE STUDY