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Who decided women should shave their legs?
The Staight Dope ^ | 1/05 | cecil adams

Posted on 03/02/2005 12:56:15 PM PST by pissant

Dear Cecil:

Why do women shave their legs and underarms? When did this custom begin? If it's for hygienic reasons, why don't men to it too? Is it all a big conspiracy by the razor companies? I've heard some European women don't shave. Please clarify this mystery. --A., Chicago

Dear A.:

I knew if I procrastinated long enough on this often-asked question somebody would eventually do the legwork for me. Sure enough, Pete Cook of Chicago has sent me a 1982 article from the Journal of American Culture by Christine Hope bearing the grand title "Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture."

The gist of the article is that U.S. women were browbeaten into shaving underarm hair by a sustained marketing assault that began in 1915. (Leg hair came later.)

The aim of what Hope calls the Great Underarm Campaign was to inform American womanhood of a problem that till then it didn't know it had, namely unsightly underarm hair.

To be sure, women had been concerned about the appearance of their hair since time immemorial, but (sensibly) only the stuff you could see. Prior to World War I this meant scalp and, for an unlucky few, facial hair.

Around 1915, however, sleeveless dresses became popular, opening up a whole new field of female vulnerability for marketers to exploit.

According to Hope, the underarm campaign began in May, 1915, in Harper's Bazaar, a magazine aimed at the upper crust. The first ad "featured a waist-up photograph of a young woman who appears to be dressed in a slip with a toga-like outfit covering one shoulder. Her arms are arched over her head revealing perfectly clear armpits. The first part of the ad read `Summer Dress and Modern Dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair.'"

Within three months, Cook tells us, the once-shocking term "underarm" was being used. A few ads mentioned hygiene as a motive for getting rid of hair but most appealed strictly to the ancient yearning to be hip. "The Woman of Fashion says the underarm must be as smooth as the face," read a typical pitch.

The budding obsession with underarm hair drifted down to the proles fairly slowly, roughly matching the widening popularity of sheer and sleeveless dresses. Antiarm hair ads began appearing in middlebrow McCall's in 1917. Women's razors and depilatories didn't show up in the Sears Roebuck catalog until 1922, the same year the company began offering dresses with sheer sleeves.

By then the underarm battle was largely won. Advertisers no longer felt compelled to explain the need for their products but could concentrate simply on distinguishing themselves from their competitors.

The anti-leg hair campaign was more fitful. The volume of leg ads never reached the proportions of the underarm campaign. Women were apparently more ambivalent about calling attention to the lower half of their anatomy, perhaps out of fear that doing so would give the male of the species ideas in a way that naked underarms did not.

Besides, there wasn't much practical need for shaved legs. After rising in the 1920s hemlines dropped in the 30s and many women were content to leave their leg hair alone.

Still, some advertisers as well as an increasing number of fashion and beauty writers harped on the idea that female leg hair was a curse.

Though Hope doesn't say so, what may have put the issue over the top was the famous WWII pinup of Betty Grable displaying her awesome gams. Showing off one's legs became a patriotic act. That plus shorter skirts and sheer stockings, which looked dorky with leg hair beneath, made the anti-hair pitch an easy sell.

Some argue that there's more to this than short skirts and sleeveless dresses. Cecil's colleague Marg Meikle (Dear Answer Lady, 1992) notes that Greek statues of women in antiquity had no pubic hair, suggesting that hairlessness was some sort of ideal of feminine beauty embedded in Western culture.

If so, a lot of Western culture never got the message. Greek women today (and Mediterranean women generally) do not shave their hair. The practice has been confined largely to English-speaking women of North America and Great Britain, although one hears that it's slowly spreading elsewhere.

So what's the deal with Anglo-Saxons? Some lingering vestige of Victorian prudery? Good question, but what with world unrest, the economic crisis, and the little researchers having missed their naps, not high on Cecil's priority list. Here's hoping some all-but-thesis Ph.D. candidate will pick up the trail.

--CECIL ADAMS


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: legs
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To: pissant

I have chunky hair meaning I have a combo of Blonde Brown hair that I am thinking of cutting because it has grown pretty long!


141 posted on 03/02/2005 5:01:16 PM PST by missyme (imho)
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To: F16Fighter

LOL no I promise I'm not turning into a womyn ;-)


142 posted on 03/02/2005 5:01:16 PM PST by cyborg (http://mentalmumblings.blogspot.com/)
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To: pissant



Being a girl I wouldn't know what a guy does with it. But I have watched enough Springer to know that some men are good enough to fool a man. LOL


143 posted on 03/02/2005 5:01:36 PM PST by SouthernFreebird
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To: F16Fighter

And it could probably kick your butt! ;o/


144 posted on 03/02/2005 5:01:43 PM PST by pissant
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To: mhking
"Most black women who shave their legs end up with stubble that ends up looking and feeling like my face."

Sure -- after not shaving after a few days...While it's smooth it's niiice..

I guess it's a matter of...ahem...personal taste.

145 posted on 03/02/2005 5:05:15 PM PST by F16Fighter
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To: SouthernFreebird
Like the "chick" in the Crying Game. Had me fooled til he dropped his skirt...
146 posted on 03/02/2005 5:05:26 PM PST by pissant
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To: pissant

BTTT


147 posted on 03/02/2005 5:05:33 PM PST by Fiddlstix (This Tagline for sale. (Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: cyborg

Heh!


148 posted on 03/02/2005 5:06:05 PM PST by F16Fighter
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To: pissant
"And it could probably kick your butt! ;o/"

IF it could catch me!

149 posted on 03/02/2005 5:07:01 PM PST by F16Fighter
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To: pissant

Did you hear about the girl who shaved her legs and wrecked 'em?
(this is meant to be spoken)


150 posted on 03/02/2005 5:08:19 PM PST by EveningStar
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To: EveningStar

very funny


151 posted on 03/02/2005 5:10:35 PM PST by pissant
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To: Barney59

What happened to his/her bellybutton???


152 posted on 03/02/2005 5:15:19 PM PST by closet freeper
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To: exnavychick

You'll love silk hose and the entire outfit is very comfortable. Pantyhose sets my teeth on edge. In re: how it looks.. ah yeah.. really romantic. Uh, wonderful for the self-esteem to look like a confused burglar with the pantyhose on the wrong end... lol!


153 posted on 03/02/2005 5:21:30 PM PST by Alia
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To: pissant

I agree with you. I have always been a fan of many of the older do's. Which I do, French Twists, highbuns with wisps.. depends on what I'm dressing for. But windblown? Eh. around the house, gardening...


154 posted on 03/02/2005 5:26:47 PM PST by Alia
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To: Alia

Wow. You're AOK in my book


155 posted on 03/02/2005 5:29:14 PM PST by pissant
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To: Alia
Uh, wonderful for the self-esteem to look like a confused burglar with the pantyhose on the wrong end... lol!

FOFLMBO!! You owe me a new keyboard for that one!

156 posted on 03/02/2005 5:29:21 PM PST by exnavychick
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To: pissant
Something is amiss with this article.

I know for a fact certain,that Hungarian women,in the 19th century burned off the hair on the arms and legs of female babies,over small stoves and also used that method to get rid of underarm hair as well.Though I don't know how it was done,the method was such,that the hair never did grow back! This knowledge was brought to America by Hungarian immigrants,though it was discarded once wood stoves were no longer used here...the early part of the 20th century.

The ancient Egyptians and Romans used depilatory methods;many based on mixtures of several things,but made mostly of honey. Today,there are "new" depilatories based on sugar.

Far earlier to the early years of the 20th century,women wore sleeveless, deep decolletage evening dresses,which would show underarm hair. None of the paintings or photos show that they had any.

In Goya's painting, THE NAKED MAHA, with both arms raised,there isn't a sign of underarm hair visible. An artistic choice,or a realistic portrayal of the woman?

157 posted on 03/02/2005 5:30:02 PM PST by nopardons
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To: Alia

BTW, I love a French Twist, too...they're really quick and easy. I got used to putting my hair up all the time when I was still in, and still find it to be a quick and easy way to look nice. It's really easy to make it casual, too.


158 posted on 03/02/2005 5:30:50 PM PST by exnavychick
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To: exnavychick
...I hate it when some "womyn" complain that EVIL MEN oppress us into wearing them...ugh. Whatever. :)

Yep, victimist "Do-Me-Feminism". Hated it the 70s, through the 80s, even yet in the 90s.. and now.. it just falls on deaf ears..... uck. It's so pathetic, isn't it. Grown up women asserting "oppression" by men because they are choosing to wear heels, get a job, stay at home, have babies, do it all.. yep. "Do-Me-Feminism". ick (translation: I'm miserable and I did it to myself, I cain't figure it out, so maybe if I blame HIM I'll figure it out cause it'll make him mad, and then I'll get mad and finally figure it all out!)

159 posted on 03/02/2005 5:31:07 PM PST by Alia
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To: escapefromboston
Because the ancient Greeks used depilatory methods.
160 posted on 03/02/2005 5:31:22 PM PST by nopardons
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