I was 13 when I started shaving religiously—legs, arms, armpits—whatever hair I could reach, I would remove.
I had the razor burns, cuts, and ingrown hairs to prove it. But no matter how hairless my body was, I never felt more beautiful, and I just felt… obedient.
Like, I was following a rule no one had actually explained to me.
It wasn’t until I was 20 that I stopped.
Not because I wanted to make a statement, not because I had a radical awakening, but simply because I wanted to see what would happen if I did nothing–if I let my body be.
The result?
I felt more feminine, more confident and more in control than ever.
But I also noticed something else.
Other people didn’t like it.
How advertisements made shaving expected
Women removing their body hair isn’t just an innocent grooming choice.
Advertisers, patriarchal control, and Eurocentric beauty standards have built the expectation that women should remove their body hair.
In fact, for most of history, body hair on women wasn’t a big deal. Ancient Egyptian and Greek women practiced hair removal, but in much of pre-modern Europe, it was not widely expected.
Marketers and fashion influencers in the early 20th century changed that expectation, turning body hair into a problem–and hair removal products into the solution.
How hairlessness became a symbol of femininity
In 1915, Gillette launched the first women’s razor: the Milady Décolleté.
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Alongside its release, magazines like Harper’s Bazaar ran ads targeting visible underarm hair as a grooming issue.
One ad for a hair removal powder warned that “modern dancing and summer dress” made it necessary to remove “objectionable hair.”
The overall tone was clear for women: underarm hair was something embarrassing, undesirable and in need of correction.
By the 1920s, sleeveless dresses made shaving more common. By the 1940s, pin-up culture cemented hairless legs as the beauty norm.
And by the 1990s, the Brazilian wax had taken over.
At every stage, the beauty industry found new ways to capitalize on evolving societal standards and women’s insecurities.
From colonial bias to modern beauty norms
But the roots go deeper.
During the colonial era, European scientists and anthropologists used racist pseudoscience to draw false lines between “civilized” and “primitive” bodies.
Black women were often described as “more animalistic” or “less evolved” – and body hair was weaponized as supposed proof. In contrast, hairlessness came to represent purity, whiteness, and femininity.
It was a tool of dehumanization and helped shape a standard where smooth skin meant social superiority.
This connection didn’t disappear. It only seeped into modern beauty ideals. The less hair a woman has, the more feminine – and acceptable – she is.
How hair removal became a broader issue for women
But there’s something even more unsettling beneath this ideal. By encouraging women to remove one of the most visible signs of puberty, the hairlessness standard subtly sexualizes youth. Body hair is a marker of maturity, of womanhood.
So, what does it say when society praises women most when we look like we haven’t grown up yet?
Today, the hair removal market is worth billions of dollars.
Women spend thousands of dollars in their lifetime on razors, waxes, and laser treatments. But the cost isn’t just financial.
The expectation of being hairless silently eats away at women’s time, comfort, and self-worth.
Women of colour, especially those with darker, thicker hair, have long faced extra scrutiny.
Many were teased as kids, pressured into painful removal routines, or made to feel like their bodies needed fixing.
Controlling femininity through shaving
Gender-nonconforming people also face unique forms of stigma when it comes to their body hair.
Trans women often feel pressured to remove body hair to be seen as valid, and even to ensure their personal safety.
Non-binary individuals use body hair as a form of self-expression, but often face pushback for doing so.
At its core, removing body hair isn’t about appearing desirable. It’s about policing bodies that step outside traditional beauty standards.
Corinne Mason, a professor of women’s and gender studies at Mount Royal University, says the pressure to shave isn’t just about appearance – it’s part of a broader system that reinforces narrow ideas of what femininity should look like.
“I think women don’t really recognize how much anti-trans legislation, anti-trans cultural politics, is actually about cis women in a lot of ways,” Mason explains. “Disciplining, confining, constraining cis women into particular forms of femininity.”
In other words, this pressure to shave isn’t just about appearance, it’s about controlling how femininity is allowed to exist at all.
Breaking free and redefining beauty on our terms
When I stopped shaving, I noticed the shift immediately–the stares.
The looks of disgust from strangers, even the discomfort and offhand comments from loved ones.
A 2021 Brandeis University study asked heterosexual men to rate women with and without visible body hair.
An overwhelming 95.2 per cent said the hairless women were more attractive, and 87.3 per cent thought they looked younger.
To me, that reflects how body hair has been weaponized to link desirability with youth. It shows just how deeply embedded these perceptions still are, how women’s natural bodies continue to be judged against a manufactured ideal, and how unshaven women are still often seen as radical or unhygienic.
But why? We don’t feel disgusted when we see a man’s hairy legs.
We don’t question his hygiene, assume his sexual orientation or think he’s making a statement. Women’s body hair is treated differently because we’ve been conditioned to see it that way.
I’m not saying no one should shave.
If shaving makes you feel good, then do it — but women deserve to know that their preference for smooth skin may not be entirely their own.
I stopped shaving because I wanted to know what it felt like to make a decision regarding my body without shame or obligation, and I’ve never felt more myself.
Women shouldn’t feel ashamed of their body hair, because that shame was never ours to begin with.