A Slave to the Shave and Shame?
Taking advantage of women's embarrassment over their body hair, pop culture and the media have pushed the hairless trend as the acceptable beauty standard over time
By Rashilta Singh
Why is hairlessness connected with femininity? Who gendered body hair? Fashion has a huge role to play. With the rise of women's liberation movements, which saw women rebel against limiting corsets and seek simple silhouettes, sleeveless dresses were fashionable in 1915, and patriarchal society decided that ladies needed hairless armpits to go with them. Tapping into this demand, Gillette launched its first razor for women in the 1917s claiming white and smooth underarms. Later in the 1960s with shorter hemlines, came the need for shaving the legs.
Taking advantage of women's embarrassment over their body hair, pop culture and the media have pushed the hairless trend as the acceptable beauty standard over time
By Rashilta Singh
Why is hairlessness connected with femininity? Who gendered body hair? Fashion has a huge role to play. With the rise of women's liberation movements, which saw women rebel against limiting corsets and seek simple silhouettes, sleeveless dresses were fashionable in 1915, and patriarchal society decided that ladies needed hairless armpits to go with them. Tapping into this demand, Gillette launched its first razor for women in the 1917s claiming white and smooth underarms. Later in the 1960s with shorter hemlines, came the need for shaving the legs.
Big Screens worldwide showed female celebrities and models with flawless glossy skin and perfect features. In India also, movies, magazines, digital media, even hoardings, and commercials showed models with no body hair. Even today, Indian commercials about hair removal never show any hair on the model’s body.
In the Netflix Original, Masaba Masaba, the protagonist, fashion designer, Masaba Gupta is asked to shave her legs while shooting for the Geetanjali WaxStrips, because according to the director, showing hair even for a wax strip commercial wasn’t acceptable.
Though it was different in mainstream India, earlier grandmas and moms didn’t wax or shave their body hair and advocated against this practice. One of the main reasons for this was the Indian fashion at that time, it was more conservative and hence women didn’t need to remove their body hair. Another reason was the lack of grooming parlours and tools available to pluck out the body hair. Also, they knew about the need for body hair as it serves multiple purposes from regulating body temperature and is meant to protect us from bacteria.
The 1990s are remembered as the decade when Indians began to adopt more westernized fashion trends, adopting bold and trendy choices. With the westernization of India, Bollywood, fashion models, magazines, tv markets the idea of flawless, hairless bodies sold by the media. This has caused almost all the Millenials and GenZs females to be disgusted by the idea of body hair and pick up their razors or wax strips to feel accepted by modern Indian society.
Pranati Sinha, an engineer working at Wipro, based in Bangalore, says, “I feel you shouldn’t “have” to wax because you are a girl, but if you want to get waxed that shouldn’t be an issue either.”
Advertisements have profited from our insecurities and targeted our vulnerabilities. They show women who have had their body hair removed attaining joy and happiness. Quoting Advertising and Media Insider, in an article published on, 21 April 2021, titled, “Leg hair, don’t care: Why showing women’s body hair in Indian ads is long overdue”, written by Karuna Sharma, says, “According to ResearchAndMarkets, the Indian female grooming market stood at $152 million in 2018 and is projected to grow at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of over 26% to surpass $623 million by 2024.”
Now, school teenage girls are targeted by various grooming companies like Veet, Venus by Gillette, and n number of options available online and in retail stores. It's aimed at young, impressionable minds, implying that you can't go to a party until you shave your entire body.
Quoting the Youth ki Awaaz, in an article published on, 22 November 2016, titled, “Hair Is What Men Think Of Women Who Don’t Wax Or Shave”, written by Sourodipto Sanyal, where Rajkanya, aged 22, says, “There is an industry which sells the notion that women without hair on their body are more desirable than the ones with it.”.
The pandemic helped women question the unreal standards of smooth skin as most of the parlors were shut down because of lockdown restrictions. Women started getting comfortable in loungewear and with their hairy legs and upper lip.
With growing awareness and acceptance, women all around the globe are advocating body positivity and calling out on the flawless skin standards set by digital media, magazines, movies, and commercials. Body Positive activists like Harnaam Kaur and Alok V Menon, are champions for normalizing body hair. Hashtags like hairy and bodyhairdontcare are trending on Instagram.
With growing awareness and acceptance, women all around the globe are advocating body positivity and calling out on the flawless skin standards set by digital media, magazines, movies, and commercials. Body Positive activists like Harnaam Kaur and Alok V Menon, are champions for normalizing body hair. Hashtags like hairy and bodyhairdontcare are trending on Instagram.
Since 2014, Madonna has been an early campaigner of body hair acceptance. International celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Julia Roberts, also including Indian celebrities like Malaika Arora Khan seen posing with their body hair. In 2019 singer Halsey showed off her armpit hair on the cover of Rolling Stone. At Met Gala 2021, Lourdes Leon flashed her armpit hair. These incidents have made body hair on women more acceptable to the crowd but we still have a long long way to go.
Brands like Nike, and Adidas have run ads to normalize hair growth in women. Many wellness brands such as Billie and Fur have also cropped up in recent years to promote products that allow people to feel confident in their personal preferences around body hair.
Shradha Keshri, a graduate from George Mason, aged 22, says, “I feel like bodily hair is a personal choice. I like having as little body hair as I can because I feel more hygienic that way. But my personal opinion doesn’t define the concept. People should do whatever they are comfortable with! I know so many men who wax as well so it’s gender-neutral! My personal preference is no body hair on me or my partner but I would never impose my opinion on someone else! It’s a very personal choice!”
While we advocate for choice for hair removal we almost forget that it has been imposed for too long that it is deeply embedded in our minds. While some women are out there sporting body hair, other women still feel dirty and not their best self with body or facial hair growth.
Rashika Singh, a fashion enthusiast, aged 29, based in Pune, says, “We have grown up with this environment where hairy girls are not pretty, and there is this obsession with hairless woman’s body. I wish I could unlearn the silky no hair body idea, and start to embrace my body hair. But before all this, the first step towards girls being able to grow their body hair is if as a society we stop judging people especially females for something as normal as body hair”.
We need to introspect whether we're doing it for ourselves or because we're afraid of being rejected by society if we don't. Consider whether the decision we're making is truly a choice, given how strongly it's been influenced all our entire lives and if there is only one societally acceptable option, it isn't a choice.
