Can Everyday Body Hair Practices Have Revolutionary Implications?

Breanne Fahs on Unshaved

Though body diversity, body acceptance, and embodied revolt have long informed feminist politics, women’s body hair removal nevertheless occurs at rates I would classify as extraordinary compliance.¹⁰⁰Between 92 and 99 percent of women in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and much of western Europe regularly remove their leg and underarm hair, while from 50 to 98 percent of women report that they removed some or all of their pubic hair. Women also remove their body hair at great cost: American women who shave spend in their lifetimes more than $10,000 and two months of their lives managing unwanted hair; that number increases to a full $23,000 for women who wax once or twice per month. Women throughout the world have seen increases in the mandate for women’s body hair removal. Chinese women have become targets of advertising campaigns that teach them to feel shame about their bodies, while Japanese women have become huge proponents of laser hair removal. Hair removal in India has become ubiquitous, with increased use of depilatories and laser hair removal for the chin, upper lip, underarms, cheeks, and bikini area. For German women, who were once averse to removal, 69 percent now remove their body hair. Given what is known about the influence of American television on body shaming and eating disorders in women throughout the world, one can surmise that norms of hairlessness are also being exported with equal intensity.

Though I have studied the social norm of body hair removal for nearly fifteen years, I continue to find it remarkable that women have been so wholly convinced to adhere to a norm that is purely social and aesthetic, with no notable health or hygiene benefits.¹⁰¹ In fact, doctors have recently begun to urge women to reconsider removing body hair, especially pubic hair, due to the link between hair removal and adverse medical risks, including shaving injuries, lacerations, rashes, abscesses, and abrasions. They also caution about the risk of unnecessary and risky hospitalizations due to uncontrollable staph infections due to body hair removal. And yet, women who removed their body hair reported feeling cleaner, more hygienic, sexier, more attractive, smoother, and more “normal.” Most women remove their body hair not because someone else tells them to but because they want to. Most women argue that removing their body hair is their personal choice, that they enjoy it, and that they would feel “dirty” or “gross” by not removing it.

But, of course, that isn’t really the story. People do not typically make informed and rational choices about grooming, beauty, and aesthetics based on logical outcomes or careful personal analysis, and choices are not all equally choose-able. Body hair removal has become compulsory. Those nonconformists who choose to go against the grain often face great social penalties and find themselves in a condition of, at minimum, exerting effort just to be themselves. At times, they face even more severe forms of social punishment, including derogatory comments, discrimination, social isolation, harassment, threats, and assault. These are the conditions to which we subject women who defy social norms and expectations, who delineate the boundaries of their own bodies on their own terms rather than someone else’s. These are also the conditions within which people make routine, everyday choices about their bodies, as the expectations of rejection, disapproval, and social punishment become possibilities.

The story of women’s body hair removal connects at its core to the story of women’s oppression, to the insidious ways that women’s bodies are controlled, managed, shaped, restricted, constrained, and dictated by outside forces. Hair is tangled up with a wide variety of powerful institutions that shape the choices women make about their bodies—cultural practices, institutions, formal organizations, families, workplaces, relationships, the beauty and fashion industries, governments, and capitalism, to name a few. Cultural stories about hair—particularly women’s body hair—have their roots in the fundamental belief in the gendering of subject/object relations, where women are told (and then internalize) the story that their bodies are fundamentally wrong in their natural state, and, in tandem with this, that they must alter their bodies in order to be seen as attractive, worthy of love, and inoffensive.

Body hair is an emotional subject. In every interview I have done and in every piece I have written on this subject, my overwhelming impression is that body hair incites fervor. People feel strongly about their own hair choices and often react badly when women use body hair as a form of rebellion against the status quo. Body hair is also a tool, something that peels away the layers of the culture people live in, revealing its deeply held beliefs about rigid gender roles and normative body choices. Ultimately, body hair is also a place of possibility. It is the perfect site for exposing readers to the allure of social norms, the invisible workings of power, and the possibilities of resistance. Because everyone can relate to the subject of body hair—as we all negotiate the tiny daily choices around managing and grooming our body hair—this work serves as a springboard for more serious conversations about oppression, social identity, patriarchy, biopolitics, and power. Small aspects of our bodies have wide reverberations in the political and social landscape; more importantly, decisions about bodies matter not just to us as individuals but also to the wider political landscape. The workings of how gender operates, how the deep imprint of culture is felt in the individual’s experience of the body, and how cultural stories are made and remade, become visible when looking closely at the story of women’s body hair. And maybe, though this work is never complete, by seeing these stories more clearly, we can render them fragile and vulnerable, and we can see how easily they break apart and are remade anew.

[100] Merran Toerien, Sue Wilkinson, and Precilla YL Choi, “Body Hair Removal: The ‘Mundane’ Production of Normative Femininity,” Sex Roles 52, no. 5-6 (2005): 399-406.

“Women Spend up to $23,000 to Remove Hair,” UPI.com, June 24, 2008, https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2008/06/24/Women-spend-up-to-23000-to-remove-hair/64771214351618/?hsFormKey=6c236b2fe21f331cdf53ce23f1415097&ur3=1.

[101] Allison S. Glass, Herman S. Bagga, Gregory E. Tasian, Patrick B. Fisher et al., “Pubic Hair Grooming Injuries Presenting to U.S. Emergency Departments,” Urology 80, no. 6 (2012): 1187-1191.

Breanne Fahs is professor of women and gender studies at Arizona State University. She is the editor of Burn It Down!: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution and author of Firebrand Feminism, Out for Blood: Essays on Menstruation and Resistance, Women, Sex, and Madness: Notes from the Edge, and several other works. Her latest book, Unshaved: Resistance and Revolution in Women’s Body Hair Politics, is available now.

Brooke Schedneck, author of Religious Tourism in Northern Thailand

Temples, like many places in Thailand, have seen reduced activity since March 2020 but are slowly filling with tourists again. As tourism returns to Thailand, with restrictions to enter the country completely lifted on July 1, 2022, how are Buddhist temple residents feeling about opening their temples again? What are the ways Buddhist monks are rethinking the role of tourism for their temples?

In my monograph, Religious Tourism in Northern Thailand: Encounters with Buddhist Monks (2021), I analyzed the ways tourism, education, and urbanization were part of the experience for student monks in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, with fieldwork conducted from 2013 to 2018. I investigated sites of what I term “cultural exchange programs.” These programs are developed by individual monks and temples in order to take advantage of tourism for activities like chatting with a monk, staying over at a temple as an individual or with an educational tour, being temporarily ordained as a novice monk, or teaching English as a volunteer in a temple school.

I visited Chiang Mai again in June and July 2022, and asked student monks about how the lack of tourism and attendant economic effects during the last two years affected their daily lives. I specifically asked,

How has Covid-19 affected life at your temple?
What have you missed about talking with tourists?
What are the benefits of having fewer tourists?

Their answers reflected the loneliness they felt during the pandemic and the benefit of cultural exchange programs, of which tourists are a necessary part.

The main issue for Buddhist communities during the pandemic was the breakdown of the merit economy, an essential part of Theravada Buddhism that connects laypeople and monastics. The offering of food and material goods to monks is an integral part of the daily practice of Buddhism in Thailand. The belief is that through the act of giving, lay Buddhists receive merit. Merit is believed to negate the effect of past evils in the giver’s present life and in the next. Lay Buddhists make merit in many ways, such as donating time, goods, and money, depending on their circumstances. Monks, for their part, are at the top of the Buddhist social hierarchy and are considered to have the most merit. Through a disciplined lifestyle and dedication to study and practice, they are considered worthy recipients of gifts and offerings.

With laypeople and monks afraid of the possibility of catching and transmitting Covid-19, the necessary relationship between these two groups was strained. Many temples closed four or five times for a month or two each time, resulting in monks having to cook for themselves. Overall, there was a lack of connection and communication with laypeople, especially in city temples with many monks and novices to feed.

Phra Boon of Wat Sompow in Chiang Mai experienced periods of up to three months when his temple was closed and he could not receive offerings on alms round. However, life was easier at small village temples outside the city with fewer monks and dedicated supporters. Phra Jor said that Covid did not affect him and his temple too much. In this village temple, which is thirty minutes outside Chiang Mai city, people in the community, for the most part, continued to give. This was due to the close connection of the three to four monks in the temple to the small village.

At Wat Phra Singh the lack of tourists created less income for the temple, which needs funding for the temple school located on the premises. In contrast,Wat Palad has the support it needs without being dependent on tourism. Without tourists visiting Wat Palad, the monks were able to develop the temple further with landscaping and building projects and had more tranquility and time to focus on their environment.

Several months ago, tourists started to return to Wat Palad as part of private tour groups. These types of tourists, Phra Thavy finds, are more peaceful because they are shown how to observe the monks’ life through their guide. But lately more individual tourists have come with a different attitude that says, “Why are there so many rules here?” They ride into the temple on their motorbikes without a guide to explain how to behave appropriately and respectfully. Tourism produces varying responses, depending on the temple and local situation. Tourism can be necessary as a source of income. It can also be distracting, offensive, or a welcome addition to the temple atmosphere depending on the levels of respect and awareness of the tourists.

Monk Chat—a program where curious tourists and monks who are college students engage in casual conversation—was closed for two years at Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Srisuphan, and Wat Suan Dok. Many of the student monks choose to attend the monastic universities in Chiang Mai because of the Monk Chat program, where they can practice English with native speakers. Covid-19 made it difficult to recruit new students and created a less than ideal learning situation, where monks lacked motivation to practice and apply English.

Phra Kyo, a teacher at Wat Suan Dok’s Monk Chat and Meditation program, loves to teach. Being forced to stop doing what he loves was hard, and he lost confidence and motivation. However, he tried to meditate on the Buddhist truth of impermanence as the ups and downs of tourism along with a global pandemic certainly provided possibilities for reflection on these deep Buddhist teachings.

This period of time without tourism was challenging in many ways, even with peace and quiet as compensation. As restrictions lifted, most monks were just happy to see people again, making merit and receiving offerings. The student monks at Chiang Mai’s monastic universities were excited to be able to talk with tourists again and explain Buddhism in English to curious listeners.

In addition to exploring tourism and urbanization, my book also looked at the effects of tourism for student monks. Through their participation in cultural exchange programs, they felt more open and understanding toward different cultural and religious groups. They also were proud to be able to spread Buddhism to new audiences. These possibilities are especially exciting for student monks currently attending monastic university, who were unable to take advantage of the urban educational possibilities of Chiang Mai for the last two years.

Brooke Schedneck is assistant professor of religious studies at Rhodes College and author of Thailand’s International Meditation Centers: Tourism and the Global Commodification of Religious Practices. Her latest book, Religious Tourism in Northern Thailand: Encounters with Buddhist Monks, is available now.