2,349 notes

For many Western men — and women, for that matter — it is beyond unacceptable for a woman to have hairy legs or armpits: it is inconceivable. The perception that ‘normal’ women should be virtually hair-free is a young one: it began in the 1920s when the struggling Wilkinson Sword Company decided to boost its sales by targeting women, with an advertising campaign that claimed female underarm hair was unfeminine and unhygienic. (Of course, if the latter were true it would have equally applied to both genders, but then again advertising campaigns are notorious for preying on women’s insecurities.) This kind of attitude in advertising and the media is pretty one-sided: the target is almost exclusively women who are effectively told they are too ugly unless they buy into certain products or services, ranging from hair removal to diets to tanning creams and so on.