She says we’ve been socialised to think of female body hair as “unhygienic, disgusting, unfeminine, and contaminated”. It took another academic, Professor Karin Lesnik-Oberstein, 20 years to find a publisher for her 2007 book The Last Taboo: Women & Body Hair. If they mention it at all, it’s to advocate either “not practising hair removal in order to return to a ‘natural’ body, or celebrating hair removal as “an enjoyment of beautification”. Pic: iStockHistory of hair-removalHumans have always removed their body hair: The ancient Egyptians invented sugaring, a precursor to waxing, as they associated body hair not with gender but with social hierarchy (only servants were hairy). As the second wave of feminism began in the 1960s, female body hair became a battleground.

Source: Irish Examiner June 21, 2024 16:01 UTC