THE MEDIA AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE HAIR REMOVAL PRACTICES OF

AMERICAN WOMEN

Madeleine Pelissier
United States History
29 April 2019
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Hair removal for cosmetic purposes has been a part of the American female identity for

over a century. Looking back to the first print advertisements about female hair removal all the

way to today’s media, one would think that all women are born as smooth, flawless, airbrushed

goddesses who have never heard the words “stubble,” or “razor burn” in their lives. The truth

about this idealized and shiny female body is quite upsetting; it is one steeped in misogyny,

money making schemes, homophobia, and the male dominated desire to profit from the control

they have over women’s bodies. Hair removal has been a part of the human experience since the

very first homosapiens, but the pressure women feel to change their bodies and mold into the

societal constraints of what is deemed as desirable is a much more modern phenomenon. This is

where the media and large companies looking for anyway to make more money come into play.

Hair removal as a means of control and oppression is still a contemporary issue that continues to

plague American and other Westernized cultures today. The forms of media and equipment used

may have changed, but the underlying message is still the same: Women need to remove their

natural body hair in order to be successful, sexually desirable, and recognized as a “real” female.

Over the course of roughly one hundred years, media companies have used hair removal as a

form of oppression over women to control them and idealize female sexuality.

The idea of women removing their hair is not a new one. In the Elizabethan era, women

would pluck out their eyebrows and shave their foreheads to achieve beauty standards set by the

Queen. Before that, cave women would use sharp rocks to shave their heads in order to help fight

off the chances of frostbite. The difference between these instances and the trends of today is

where they originate from. These forms of hair removal were either set by strong women in

power, or were for survival. More recently, beauty standards have been set by men. In the U.S.,
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the idea of women shaving their underarms started to circulate throughout popular culture in the

early nineteen-hundreds.1 It began with an ad in ​Harper’s Bazaar in 1914 for Gillette’s first

female razor called “Milady Dècolletè.”2 The ad called women’s underarm hair “unsightly” and

“objectionable,” urging women to shave so that they would not need to be constantly worried

about their body hair.3 This one advertisement, accompanied with the prevalent misogyny of

everyday life, kick-started the entire anti-hair movement that American culture is all too familiar

with today. The ad was also able to sink its claws into popular culture because of the drastically

changing fashion trends catching on in the nineteen-twenties.

Fashion played a large role in the evolution of hair removal as sleeveless dresses were

gaining popularity and hemlines were rising in the 1920s. Along with the changes in clothing,

women were becoming more sexualized and the standards for a Perfect Woman were becoming

less and less natural and harder to attain. Women were not seen intelligent humans but instead as

heterosexual symbols of sex and desire. The Flapper was a perfect example of this. Flappers

were supposed to be fun, exciting, and full of lust and mystery. They were meant to exemplify

every man’s desires, and, soon, they became the peak beauty standard. Flappers also started the

trend of shaving legs.4 So far women’s legs had always been covered by layers of long skirts and

stockings. When WWII broke out, factories were being repurposed to aid the war effort, and the

1
​Women's Museum of California, "The History of Female Hair Removal," Women's Museum of
California, November 22, 2017, Accessed April 15, 2019.
2
​"The Unusual and Deeply Sexist History of Women Removing Their Body Hair." Mic, August
12, 2016, Accessed April 15, 2019.
3
​Women's Museum of California, "The History of Female Hair Removal."
4
​Breanne Fahs, "Dreaded Otherness: Heteronormative Patrolling in Women's Body Hair
Rebellions," ​Gender and Society Vol. ​25, no. 4, (2011): 451-72.
 Pelissier 3

manufacture of women’s nylon stockings stopped to produce military equipment and uniforms.5

Now that legs had to be bare, removing the hair became the norm.

Many people have asked the question: How can a couple of razors be a means of social

control over a whole group of people? Isn’t it just leg hair? The issue is that the decision to begin

shaving was never a woman’s choice. Shaving was a beauty standard pressed upon women from

a very young age. It told them that if they wanted to be considered feminine and desirable, they

must adhere to these rules of how to take care of their bodies. Breanne Fahs explains this in her

article, ​Dreaded Otherness. ​“That hair removal seems trivial and relatively unnoticed makes it

all the more potent as a means of social control, as women adopt ideas about idealized femininity

without considering the ramifications of those ideologies and accompanying practices.”6 The

control that the media has over what it means to be feminine is baffling. Print ads, and more

recently televised commercials and social media pop ups, have dictated what being a woman

should look like. These ads make body hair feel like a dirty secret that all women share and

collectively need to combat.

Thinking about body hair as a secret is demonstrated in an ad for hair removal cream

from the 1920s (see ​“Without Embarrassment” ​in the appendix). Not only were products like

these extremely bad for consumers at this time because of the strong chemicals in them, but they

also promoted the ideology that women should be more than willing to essentially burn the hair

off of their bodies to please someone else’s beauty standard. Aside from the sheer medical

immorality of this advertisement, the language used is also highly offense; the very first thing

readers see suggests that they should be embarrassed about their bodies in their natural state.

5
​Women's Museum of California. "The History of Female Hair Removal."
6
Fahs, “Dreaded Otherness.”
 Pelissier 4

Directly after that, the advertisement says: “An Intimate Talk to Women.” This shows that

women are not a part of the conversations about their bodies. They are being told what to do and

how they should go about doing it. This advertisement follows in suit with many others by

saying that body hair is ugly and undesirable, as well as sexualizing women’s bodies for the male

viewer. The ad later goes on to say that women need this product because femininity renders

them incapable of using razors without hurting themselves.

Telling women that they need to prove their femininity can breed major misconceptions

about what femininity actually is. Not only is this damaging to women and girl’s self esteem, it

also propagates sexism, homophobia, and classism.7 In the sixties and seventies, there was a

strong feminist movement promoting the Anti-Shaving Woman, which was largely intertwined

with the Hippie and anti-war movements that were circulating at the time. This movement was

short lived and received a lot hate from the public. The media very quickly decided that hairy

women were more masculine, and therefore cursed by homosexuality.8 If these women were not

lesbians then they were perceived as man hating feminists who wanted to rule world, rather than

women who simply wanted to be the leaders in the conversations about their bodies, a problem

that the world is still dealing with today.9 The natural progression was that if you were widely

considered homosexual, society would disregard you.

The media was, and still is, strongly dominated by the male gaze. An ad from the 1930s

demonstrates this quite blatantly (see ​“Unloved!” in the appendix). The ad depicts a

conversation between a man and a woman, who are talking about another woman’s facial hair.

7
​Fahs, “Dreaded Otherness.”
8
​Virginia Matteo, "When Did Women Start Shaving? The History of Female Hair Removal,"
Owlcation, February 06, 2019, Accessed April 15, 2019.
9
Fahs, “Dreaded Otherness.”
 Pelissier 5

The image is promoting a book about how women can deal with and remove their body hair, as

well as be socially accepted as a woman of good standing. The ad shows very clearly how

closely women are scrutinized, and further perpetuates body hair as a scandal or taboo.

Additionally, this tells society that hair removal is normal and choosing to let it grow or simply

not groom it is a wild notion that should be prohibited. Not only does the ad send a harmful

message to women, it also promotes harmful heteronormative standards for the male population.

It tells men exactly what they should be attracted to and what they should be repulsed by, which

only restarts the cycle of women’s trends being set by what heterosexual males are supposed to

find desirable.

The reality is that women shave their bodies for a multitude of reasons. However, women

should neither be forced to shave their legs if they do not want to, nor be criticized by other

women if they do choose to shave. The idea that women only shave to please men is highly

flawed and continues the toxic mindset that women are sexual beings made to please the desires

of men. An advertisement from the 80’s shows a woman who is very clearly being told to shave

for the male gaze (see ​“Just Whistle” in appendix). The ad shows a woman seductively lying on

the beach, with the shadow of a large man looming over her. Beneath her the words “Just

Whistle” are printed in swirly letters. The product being sold is a new razor called Just Whistle,

and the marketing ideas behind the product is that to gain a man’s attention, a woman must only

whistle, and the men will come running. This ad suggests that a clean shaven woman is the only

way females can be desirable and that hairier females will go completely unnoticed by potential

sexual partners. The image of the man standing over the woman in the picture is also extremely
 Pelissier 6

intimidating. It creates a very clear power dynamic between the two and showing how the man

holds a dominating role over the woman.

From the first female hair removal advertisements, the messages promoted have been

extremely negative. They have told women that they need to alter their bodies to be desirable and

that their natural state is inherently ugly and something to be embarrassed by. This has a

damaging effect on the self esteem of young girls and women, as well as creating a rift in the

power perceptions among men and women. Large companies have been exploiting women with

these products, telling them that such products are a necessity to be considered a woman.

However more recently the media has started to change. More women run razor companies are

being brought to the public eye, which have a much more wholesome approach to hair removal

as a choice for women who want it, but also empower women who choose not to engage in it.

The dialogue about body image and body positivity is also starting to change, due largely to

social media. However, the issue has not been erased completely. There is still an expectation

that upstanding American women must look and are required to take care of their bodies in a

specific way. Moving forward, it is important to remember the history that this empire was built

on and to cultivate a society that continues to open up to different forms of expression.

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Appendix

“Without Embarrassment”

Komar, Marlen. "Photos Of Shaving Ads From The Last 100 Years." Bustle. December 17,
2018. Accessed April 26, 2019.
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“Unloved!”

Komar, Marlen. "Photos Of Shaving Ads From The Last 100 Years." Bustle. December 17,
2018. Accessed April 26, 2019.
 Pelissier 9

“Just Whistle”

Komar, Marlen. "Photos Of Shaving Ads From The Last 100 Years." Bustle. December 17,
2018. Accessed April 26, 2019.
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Chou, Jessica. "The Bizarre History Of Body Hair." History of Body Waxing. May 8, 2015.
Accessed April 17, 2019.
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/body-grooming-history#slide-1​.

FAHS, BREANNE. "DREADED "OTHERNESS": Heteronormative Patrolling in Women's

Body Hair Rebellions." ​Gender and Society 25​, no. 4 (2011): 451-72.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/23044206​.

Komar, Marlen. "Photos Of Shaving Ads From The Last 100 Years." Bustle. December 17,
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Matteo, Virginia. "When Did Women Start Shaving? The History of Female Hair Removal."
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https://owlcation.com/humanities/When-Did-Women-Start-Shaving-The-Painful-History-
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"The Unusual and Deeply Sexist History of Women Removing Their Body Hair." Mic. August
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https://mic.com/articles/151191/the-unusual-and-deeply-sexist-history-of-women-removi
ng-their-body-hair#.OEVsUKmT8​.

Women's Museum of California. "The History of Female Hair Removal." Women's Museum of
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https://womensmuseum.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/the-history-of-female-hair-removal/​.