My first experience with a razor was when I was about eight years old. I’d been force-fed lies about the nature of leg hair and made to feel as if I was a disgusting animal while still in elementary school. I remember picking up the razor and just gliding it a little bit below my kneecap, as gently as I could. I lifted the razor up, and sure enough, that little skin patch was as bare as ever. Somehow frightened, I threw the razor to the other side of the room and never spoke of the incident to anyone.
As I got older, more and more of my friends started shaving. It seemed to be the “mature” thing to do, especially with all the girls around me going through puberty deciding to shave. My mom shaved, my best friends shaved, my grandmothers shaved; nearly every woman and girl in my life took a liking to the razor.
Despite their susceptibility to shaving, I was unconvinced. It was idiotic, I thought, to spend so much time on changing something that no one paid any attention to. They were such small, fine hairs that caused no trouble besides not “looking nice.” I was sure that no one was looking at my leg hair and judging it, so I resisted the razor for as long as possible.
Then came quarantine. Most of us fell into pits of unhappiness, forced to deal with our bodies as if they were a disease that needed to be treated. Many girls like me spent their days consuming media that told us what would make us more appealing to the male gaze. As much as we covered our ears to block out this societal chant, a part of us was listening, too.
In the early 1900s, shaving wasn’t as popular as it is now. Because of how modest the clothes that women were expected to wear were, body hair didn’t cause any “issues” to the outside gaze. According to Vox, it took until the mid-1910s to early 1920s, as women’s clothes became more and more revealing, for shaving to become a novel phenomenon. Many brands at the time used the popular slogan, “the woman of fashion says the underarm must be as smooth as the face.” Then, in the 1940s, bare legs became the norm. “Let’s look at your legs—everyone else does,” one ad taunted. This sensation only grew in popularity—in 1964, ninety-eight percent of women ages fifteen to forty-four said that they removed body hair.
Ads and society also contributed to women’s choices when it came to hair removal. In the United States, there was an attempt to make it mandatory for women to shave. White men took it upon themselves to make sure the women around them shaved too, as The GrassRoute puts it, “ensure their pristine image of innocence and gentility remained intact.” Breanne Fahs, a professor of gender studies at Arizona State University, says that women “often don’t realize how much society, family, and friends weigh in on what we do with our bodies. And how much of what we think is a choice—that “I choose to shave”—has actually been imparted to and enforced upon us for generations.” Even now, the media that we consume influences us more than we think it does.
Shaving is also costly. We all know that the beauty industry itself is just one marketing tactic after another, preying on people’s insecurities. But surely shaving wouldn’t add up to much compared to our other living expenses, right?
Wrong. The average woman who shaves spends about sixteen dollars per month on shaving supplies, which is around the same price as two pounds of coffee. It seems like a small price, however, this adds up to nearly two hundred dollars per year. If one person spends two hundred dollars every year for fifty years, that is ten thousand dollars used solely on razors and other shaving products–enough for a used car, six months of rent, or 1,250 pounds of coffee.
Another aspect of shaving that many people don’t consider is its racist roots. The logic of Darwinism categorized body hair as animalistic. Genetically, women of color tend to have darker, thicker hair than white women, and because of this, their body hair was seen as unkempt and dirty. The hair of women of color has often been criticized in society, but it also plays a big part in the stigmas around body hair and targets women of color in a gross attempt to force western beauty standards onto them.
Along with this, we must discuss the audience. Body dysmorphia is more common in pubescent girls than when they were younger, and now that their body is becoming hairier, it becomes less desirable to the male gaze. This notion, as with many other male gaze phenomena, can be traced back to pedophilic roots. Naturally, prepubescent girls do not have as much body hair as girls who have gone through puberty, so the sexualization of hairless women also sexualizes minors, in particular girls of color. Appealing to the male gaze is the base of many women’s beauty standards, and this is no exception.
Additionally, shaving isn’t all that safe. Anyone with shaving experience knows how painful it is to get nicked by a razor. They also spread skin germs and bacteria. Having a personal razor isn’t the most hygienic, but sharing razors is even worse, according to dermatologist Dr. Cynthia Bailey. Sharing a razor with someone else leads to risks of virus transmission, infection, and internal illnesses like Hepatitis B and C.
So, is the conclusion that all shaving is oppressive and dangerous? Not necessarily. Shaving should be a personal choice, and all I’m asking is that people examine their actions and what is influencing their decisions. Considering the history of razors and hair removal, the cost, and the labor, body hair is of little importance to me. That said, it’s important to give everyone the information they need to make these decisions for themselves- instead of enforcing toxic standards on them.