Hairless: Breaking the Vicious Circle of Hair Removal, Submission, and Self-Hatred

This excellent, snappy treatise by Olid (Wilder Winds), a professor of philology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, explores the politics of female body hair and hair removal. Expectations of hairlessness compel women into relationships with their bodies that they neither choose nor control, Olid contends as they reflect on living with body hair as someone assigned female at birth. They recall years of “absolute failure when it came to keeping my hair in line” and note that this contributed to a perceived “failure of my femininity.” Maintaining the illusion that hair has never existed on the body has become a vital part of modern femininity, Olid suggests, remembering that they felt “ugly and ashamed” when they first stopped shaving. They also posit that expecting women to be hairless sexualizes young girls—Olid mentions swimsuits with padded breast cups for preteens—and infantilizes adult women “by requiring them to remove one of the unequivocal signs that they are no longer pre-pubescent: pubic hair.” Olid pulls off a masterful balance of academic erudition and accessible, crisp prose. Persuasive and thought-provoking, this brisk volume deserves a broad audience. (May)