Mildly Infuriating

I didn't criticize their individual choice.

I am criticizing the media for only showing women as hairless.

Do I need to explain this again in different words for you to understand I'm not attacking the actresses' personal choice?

Subsequent ad campaigns of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s worked hard to rebrand armpit hair and leg hair as the enemy, pushing prepubescent bareness as the American ideal, along with toxic depilatory creams like “Sheer" (which contained mercury and bromine) and Koremlu, which contained a now-banned chemical — a rodenticide! — known to cause neuromuscular damage and blindness.

Those advertising campaigns paid off when silk and nylon shortages during World War II made stockings a luxury and bare legs a necessity. A widely-cited stat suggests that by 1964, a staggering 98% of American women were routinely shaving their legs. Today, the global market for hair removal products and services is a impressive $5.42 billion.

Though some feminists of the ’60s flaunted armpit and leg hair as a political statement, the demand for hairless bodies only grew more intense over time. In the 1980s and ’90s, the “the Brazilian,” an especially painful practice of using wax to remove some or all pubic hair, became popular. Millions got on board, including in Europe, where a 2018 Belgian study found that 80% of women reported removing at least some of their pubic hair. The increased pressure to be fuzz-free sometimes resulted in fierce reactions — ranging from shock and disgust to ridicule and mockery — for those who didn’t comply. (You may recall images of Julia Roberts lifting her arm to wave at fans at the 1999 “Notting Hill” premiere. The backlash was not cute.)

“Women often don’t realize how much friends, family and society weigh in on what we do with our body,” Breanne Fahs, a professor of women and gender studies at Arizona State University told CNN in a 2020 interview. “Often, what we think is a choice — as in ‘I choose to shave’ — has actually been…enforced upon us for generations.”

Here, some reading for you