Fuzz and Feminism

Why can't they just leave women's body hair alone? From Cameron Diaz to American Apparel, they are being intrusive.

To think that the Hollywood star has discovered feminism via down under is a bit much. She is selling her book, and just like propping up the smooth skin is a big ticket there is a market for fuzz when these views come pregnant with adjectives. It is almost always "shocking images", and about being raw.

If Lower East Side Manhattan is going to curl up with embarrassment over a clothing store that shows mannequins in transparent lingerie showing off pubic hair, then it has little to do with reluctance to accept the natural.

If natural is what we want, then why restrict it to hair on the privates? Where is the fuzz on legs, arms, face? Where is the pigmentation, the natural contours of the belly, the hip? You can't create a woman, or a mannequin, to look like a stereotype and then talk about how liberating it is not to depilitate.

American Apparel's statement is:

"We are a company that celebrates natural beauty...We created it to invite passerbys to explore the idea of what is 'sexy' and consider their comfort with the natural female form."

For all the liberating talk, they are telling women that it is okay, that this is sexy, and they ought to just lie down and be comfy. It is such a magnanimous gesture that girl power will rush to buy the stuff. It happens to be the Valentine's Day window display, much in advance. Those women who have made the horrible decision to get themselves into a pre-pubescent stage have enough time to redeem themselves and grow it all back, so that when their boyfriends or spouses get these itsy-bitsies gift-wrapped for them, they can 'fit into' the role that the show window wants them to. All this, including celebrity endorsement, amounts to talking down to women.

The New Age man is always ready to experiment, therefore he would probably walk into American Apparels and imagine a fresh from mother earth sensation.

Also, do notice that the hair is dark, very dark. Why are there no red heads, blondes? Does 'nature' and its connotations imply only a shade that is perceived as belonging to the untamed? Is this not racism?

Somebody has called the display retro. We might have a pop version, a blues version, a nirvana version.

Cameron Diaz has a chapter in her book titled 'In Praise of Pubes' where she asks, "Do you really want a hairless vagina for the rest of your life?" Had this been a serious question, one might have attempted an answer. There is some merit in bringing it out in the open, but she refers to pubic hair as "pretty draping" and "mysterious". She obviously knows what evolutionists or creationists, depending on how she swings, intended it to be, if not god her/himself. What if some do not find it pretty?

She says such hair is like having a nose. The comparison ought to have been with nose hair. Will the big studios like to see poky little hairs sticking out from every part of the body? More importantly, where does one stop at grooming or start?

The idea behind grooming anyway amounts to interfering with what is available material. From head to toe, we meddle in the affairs of the body. It could be to please others, but to a large extent it is also what we are comfortable with. One is not contesting how social brainwashing might affect us, but will those using such images to get us back to basics show us a complete picture where nothing at all is groomed, and not just the sexual organs?

Whichever way you look at it, the obsession is with the female form. Clean-shaven men are seen as metrosexual. Clean-shaven women are now deemed unnatural. From grooming too much to now not grooming, we are sought to be objectified.

This is a private matter between us and our bodies. Do not tell us what to do behind the fig leaf.

© Farzana Versey

A close shave?

 
Imagine if one fine day men turned around and said they want all women to wear lipstick or they will not listen to them. Sounds bizarre? Something quite similar is happening. The “No Shave, No Lipstick” movement by a razor company is reducing women, men and relationships to such basic common denominators.

It is true products use several tactics to subliminally convince potential and existing customers to go for better options. Will an ad such as this convince men who like their facial hair to shave? If it does, then it reflects rather poorly on male self-esteem, and much more poorly on how women strike a bargain. This is a strike of a petulant kind. The women will let go a bit of vanity, a cosmetic, to ensure that men turn up the way the majority supposedly like them. The implication in the words is that women are exercising this power. In fact, they are denying themselves something. Or, worse, assume that their appeal lies in what they wear on their lips. They are limiting themselves.

The “common platform” is an “aversion to stubble”. The basic philosophy is that if men cannot groom themselves for women then they must not expect the same from them.

Is there a single yardstick to measure grooming? Is it all right for the man to be unhygienic, loud and crass so long as he shaves? What exactly does the ad wish to convey by saying that men think a woman looks less appealing without a lipstick? There are thousands of women who do not wear lipstick, and I mention this because the ‘movement’ has talked about middle-class women too. And don’t we often read in style magazines how the nude-lips look is so in? What about it, then? Besides, the lipstick is an external object that can be applied. A stubble grows naturally. A man may not be able to deal with it immediately or everyday – he could be unwell, he may not be in the mood, he might be busy with other things. This is a kind of pressure to perform, and it is unfair.

I also dislike the manner in which words are used to describe the hirsute man as untrustworthy, giving rise to suspicion that he could be hiding something. He is hiding his chin, if at all, and sometimes this could be the real reason. Like women opting for a fringe if they have large foreheads. Although clean-shaven is mentioned, I am intrigued by the reference to stubble, and not a moustache.

On the other hand, guys who shave are confident, affable and hardworking. There is a small little footnote which says the ad is not intended to hurt the sentiment of any gender or community. This is about men and men with hair on their face. So, forget the hurt, the message could rule out the good qualities of people from certain communities. Are Sikhs not trustworthy? Are Muslims not hardworking? Do cultures where many men sport beards, like Malayalis or the goatee among Bengalis, less affable?

Perhaps the women who are taking part in this silly movement, wasting their time to support it, should ask the organisers to give them a list of criminals in the past few years who have not been clean-shaven. Ask them to provide a list of wife-beaters, drunken drivers, those with poor performance in the office, those who slink in corners waiting to molest, rob, even kill. Ask them to check out what the clean-shaven men wear, if their shoes are polished, whether they bathe regularly.

Let us not forget, there are women who might like men with facial hair. Think about some artists, philosophers, scientists, academics, and even pop stars. If, in the latter case, women can cry out of sheer joy if they get hold of a sweat-soaked T-shirt, then they certainly cannot really mind the stubble.

And if they really care about ‘issues’ they should wake up to reality. I know, I can hear those smirking voices say, chill, this is an ad. But an ad is not just an ad, especially if it purports to be a movement. We have reached a stage where everything is a movement, and it assumes the stupidity of women by making them seen like ‘concerned citizens’, in charge of the whole ‘clean up’ operation, so to speak.

And the poor dears are sacrificing their lipsticks for this. They do not realise that some smart chap might flash the razor in front of them as bait. They are just fishes in the huge sea…

PS: I wonder whether men trust women who do not shave.