Why Does the Bearded Lady Always Join the Circus?

I vividly remember the first time I shaved my legs. At 12 years old, I was just like any other little girl that wanted to feel included in her circle of friends, and my circle of little girlfriends just started shaving their legs. I guess somewhere along the lines we learned that shaving our legs would make us more “feminine and grown up”. Being that I was only 12 years old, my mother refused to purchase a razor for me and told me to wait until I was old enough. So after a beach day with my shaved-legged female friends, I desperately sought out my dad’s razor so they wouldn’t continue to call me a baby and tease me for still having hairy legs. In retrospect, I wish I would have listened to my mother, but how was I supposed to know that just by that initial shave, I was signing up to be a slave to the razor for the rest of my life? As time goes on, I continue to endure the physical pains and monetary expenses of tweezing, waxing, and threading, and get anxiety if I have messy eyebrows or stubbly armpits. I am certain that most woman have similar stories, but why do we voluntarily pour hot wax all over our bodies and rip it off with a cloth? For many years all over the world, the perfectly smooth and soft skinned body is what has been socially constructed for women, and must be abided by in order to be accepted as feminine and beautiful, with advertisements and the media positively reinforcing the paradigm. While hair removal simply remains as an option for men, they’re allowed to reject us after figuring out we might have a hint of a mustache under fluorescent lighting.

It is true that men aren’t entirely immune to being seen as “unclean” if they have unkempt facial hair. However, if a woman has visible hair growth on her face, underarms, legs, and pubic region, it widely considered unattractive and masculine. I don’t have any real scientific or scholarly article to supply for evidence, but this is a well known fact of our lives in this day and age. So I ask, what about our dear sisters that just can’t get keep up with all the plucking and shaving? What about the women with a genetic make up and/or ethnicity that is one that includes “hairiness”? Furthermore, what about the females practicing a religion where shaving is prohibited, or a woman without the means to purchase hair removal products? Finally, what about the women who have Hirsutism, a type of hormonal imbalance that produces high amounts of testosterone which makes them end up with a beard? Are these women supposed to give up their religion, spend money they don’t have, or undergo laser treatments, just so they don’t get ostracized by our society? Society says yes. 

I remember feeling sorry for a girl in my 3rd grade class, who was being made fun of for the noticeable hair on her upper lip and excessive hair on her arms. By the same token, I still to this day always notice when women have untamed hair on their face and think to myself, “Can’t you see yourself in a mirror?” As it turns out, I am feeding fuel to the fire that our society can’t accept hairy women as normal, and now is the time that I stop doing this. Today I came across two stories on the web in my search for something to blog about today. First, back in September 2012 a Sikh college student of Ohio State University found a photo of herself on Reddit which was poking fun at her abundant facial hair and sideburns. She actually sweetly responded to the post, claiming that her religion refused the removal of hair, and that the Sikh religion regards the body as sacred and must not be altered. Second, I found a German woman’s blog, which captures her experience as a woman living with facial hair. After she had her son at 21 years old, her hormones greatly shifted, and the growth of her facial hair could not be stopped no matter what she tried. So, being that she was tired of her 20 minute morning ritual of tweezing her chin, she decided to see what would happen if she just let her facial hair grow, and ultimately embraced herself for who she was. She is now the self proclaimed “Bearded Woman” and has joined the circus.

These two women are the purest examples of self acceptance with the complete disregard of societies norms. Although these women are extreme examples, being that one is of the Sikh religion and one has joined the circus, I can’t help but ask if should we be living in this world where we as women need the excuse of religion or a crazy hormonal imbalance to accept ourselves in our natural state? I wonder what we would all look like had we never shaved our legs, armpits, face, and so on. I truly look up to these women, because they have forever changed my perspective on our societies obsession with hair removal. I most definitely will not stop shaving, tweezing, and threading in my personal care routine, but I will always remember that I do these things because society has basically brainwashed me into it. I will continue to do these things in fear of not being accepted, and not being attractive to my partner. I will continue to contribute to the theory that it is unacceptable for women to have body hair, with full awareness that it is denying the natural state of my body. Will you?

A few more questions:

Where, when and why do you think women’s hair removal originated?

If you are a woman that removes hair in unwanted places, wouldn’t you agree with how much of a nuicance it is and how it is frustrating that men do not have to go through the same process?

I would really like to know how women from the lesbian & transgender community feel about this. Please share your insight if you can.

And now some photos for fun...

And here are the many places in which you can get hair removed....