In this episode of Chin Chats, Spencer Moore delves into the complex topic of female body hair, exploring its historical context, societal perceptions, and personal experiences. The conversation highlights the evolution of hair removal practices, the impact of cultural norms, and the importance of empowerment and choice in how women approach their bodies. Spencer shares her own journey with body hair, emphasizing the need for self-acceptance and challenging societal expectations.

TAKEAWAYS

• The perception of female body hair is deeply rooted in societal norms.
• Historical practices of hair removal reflect cultural values and status.
• Women often face pressure to conform to beauty standards regarding body hair.
• The pink tax highlights the financial burden of female grooming products.
• Personal experiences with body hair can lead to feelings of shame and embarrassment.
• Empowerment comes from making choices about one's own body.
• The conversation around body hair is layered and intersects with issues of race and class.
• Women should feel free to choose how they manage their body hair without societal pressure.
• Visibility and acceptance of body hair can challenge traditional beauty standards.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction to Body Hair Conversations

02:25 Historical Context of Female Body Hair

04:49 The Impact of Societal Norms and the Pink Tax

06:55 Personal Journey with Chin Hair

09:12 Exploring Hair Removal Options

10:22 Cultural Perspectives on Body Hair

11:47 Empowerment and Choice in Body Hair Removal

14:16 Redefining Beauty Standards and Self-Acceptance

LINKS:

https://womensmuseumca.org/the-history-of-female-hair-removal/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6921585/

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Welcome back to Chin Chats. I'm your host, Spencer Moore. And yeah, it's been a minute. I took a break this summer. This is my first Chin Chats back since season two started. And I'm really happy to be here. And of course, I'm so grateful for all of your support along this journey. I'm diving deep into a personal topic. It's so personal, in fact, I named my podcast after it. And that's right, we are talking about chin hairs.

And in fact, it's not just chin hairs, we're talking body hair, specifically the perception around it, the history, and the real shame around female body hair. Now I have to say, I've learned so much this past year, just about kind of the perception of female body hair

the understanding of chin hairs when I talk to people about this podcast. normally when I'm asked by a man, what is the name of my podcast? And I say the hairy chin.

They kind of look at me like a head tilt and say, ⁓ that's nice. ⁓ But in contrast, if I say it to a woman, they say, what's your podcast about? What's the name? I say, it's called The Hairy Chin. They laugh, they give me a high five, they touch their chin and say, I have those! ⁓ It's a totally understandable concept to them. Because look, it's, Women get it because we've lived it.

We've plucked, we've waxed, we've shaved, we've burnt hair off our faces and our bodies since that hair started sprouting in our adolescence. you know, it's been interesting to me. It's so obvious when I have those conversations. want to talk about a shocking statistic that I learned about recently

age 17 to 25. 98 % of those young women who had been participants in this study had removed part or all of their pubic hair. And now look, I realize that this is a totally different part of the body than our chin and our face, but it is telling about the relationship between women and their body hair and age. These are young women, 17 year olds.

And in fact, I'd like to talk a bit about how that relationship with female body hair has evolved over Hair removal is by far nothing new for women. There's a really long historical context of it. There's a really wonderful essay written

the San Diego Museum for Women's History and essay is called The History of Female Hair Removal.

And there's so many things it talks about. I'm going to share it in the show notes if you want to read it. It talks about how ancient Egyptian and Roman women, they used copper razors, they had tweezers back then, they had all these pastes to remove body hair. They really believed that smooth skin symbolized status and civilization. Now, if we fast forward to our modern time, if we talk about Charles Darwin, actually, he had a say somewhat in women's hair removal because in his 18

for female body hair removal.

in a magazine, I believe it was Harper's Bazaar, and in the book Plucked written by Rebecca Herzeg, I mentioned this in the newsletter last week, she found in her research that 99 % of American women have removed body hair at some point in their lives. Now, look, it's cultural, it's societal, you know, this isn't really though about hygiene, it's about

hierarchy in a way, and it's about saying that I'm refined, I'm feminine, I belong. It has become part of that social construct that we live in in our societies. And here's where it gets frustrating, because it's not only that women are told that they are sexier or prettier or more compatible without hair, we are also charged for it.

when all of this started about female body hair, there were three industries that really encouraged female hair removal. and these were the women's fashion industry, the men's hair removal industry, which I'll talk about in a second, and the women's magazine industry. As I mentioned, it was a female magazine that first advertised female hair removal, right?

because what followed after these bushy and playboy

But let's go back for a second to the men's hair removal industry because here's where it starts to get really annoying. you know, as I mentioned, women are being told that smooth is sexy and

a husband and having babies, but we are also charged for the privilege. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the pink tax. This is where women's hygiene products cost an average 7 % more than men's.

the biggest offenders in the studies they've done of the pink tax are razors. So if you go to a grocery store, if you go to a drug store and you look at the prices between female and male razors, you will see that females tend to be charged more. Look, hairlessness is marketed for women as being empowering, but it is honestly just driving billion dollar industries built on female shame and female anxiety.

So I'm gonna take a break from history for a second because I can feel my blood pressurizing gonna talk about my chin hair journey. Look, my first realization of a chin hair was when I was in high school. I was around 17 years old. I was in the senior girls bathroom with other girls my age and one of them saw a hair on my face. She went to move it. It was attached.

It was traumatic for us all. She screamed, my gosh, you have a chin hair. And I was absolutely humiliated. This was my first chin hair. I didn't even know it was there. humiliation was amplified by her screeching voice and shock and disgust. And look, really did, it did kind of stick with me.

when I was thinking about the name of this podcast and I knew that I wanted to talk about female empowerment and kind of taking weaknesses and turning them into strengths, I thought what better name than the Hairy Chin because I do think that women carry a lot of shame around their physical appearances and body hair is definitely

really big there know, I was really ashamed, I was really embarrassed. I felt manly, I didn't feel feminine. know, looking back, I'm sad for that young woman that was just so humiliated by this experience. ⁓ I wish that I had had somebody come and hug me and say, this is normal. You know, this is nothing to be ashamed about.

But I hope that in doing this podcast, in naming it The Hairy Chin in doing what I'm doing now, that it is letting other people know that there's nothing to be ashamed about about this, that this is normal, it's part of our bodies, that they're natural and they're beautiful. ⁓ And that's a really important message for me to put out there into the world, not only to heal my own issues and to not only let those go.

but to help other people realize that they can let them go as well.

I'll be honest here, in my era of shame and embarrassment, which lasted for a while about my extra facial hair, I did try a lot of things to eliminate body hair. Now, I grew up in the era of Nair. I remember when I was a teenager, maybe in my 20s, I would use Nair this cream that would burn off my hair and legs and all over, mustache.

would say now I haven't used Nair in probably 20 years. ⁓ My skin is really sensitive now. I have quite severe eczema and so I don't think I would ever put Nair on my body these days just for fear of a reaction that I could have. I have typically just used tweezers. I have shaved my face in the shower with just regular

Laser hair removal is not the best option for hormonal hair growth, which is what my chin hairs have have been I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was my late teens early 20s and I have high androgen levels So we're talking chin hairs ⁓ mustache hair on my stomach hair on my toes

It just, it depends. They just kind of pop up in different places. so the laser hair removal did not do much for me in that area. What I have been reading lately and seeing a lot of online is women with facial hair using electrolysis. It's a different process. I guess that it targets the individual hairs. And I have seen women with PCOS that are responding really well to electrolysis to remove facial hair.

I do know that that's an option, although it's not one that I have done.

But look, here's the thing I think of all of this. I think that

I feel about all things related to the body, specifically to your body, is that it's yours. And I think that you should do with it what you feel is best for you. I really believe options and choice plays such an important part of our journey as women and also permitting yourself and allowing yourself to have those options. If you want to shave, shave. If you don't, then don't. You know, I really...

believe that women should have the choice to do with their bodies what works best for them. Now, I also realize and appreciate that this is not widely acceptable across the world. And I also accept that there are societal norms that can prevent women from feeling comfortable making choices for their bodies. I've lived in Europe now for almost 10 years and the difference here with body image and body hair is

is interesting when compared to the United States. It's not ⁓ uncommon here to see women wearing short skirts with unshaven legs, or women in the summer with tank tops and unshaven armpits. I'm not saying it's everyone, nor am I saying that women here don't shave, but I do see more of a spectrum compared to what I grew up with in the United States.

You know, I really do feel that hair removal is societal, it's cultural, and it's deeply personal. And this conversation is just one entry point into a much deeper layered conversation can branch out into many topics. And I do hope to have many more of those. I hope this is the beginning of many more. What I will mention though is that I did purposefully release this Chin Chats along with the theme of social connections.

which was my newsletter last week, and the latest podcast episode which was about female friendships. The truth is that the removal of female body hair has often been wrapped in these pseudo-scientific ideas like Darwin and his theory of desirability. But we do know better now. know, times have changed and this was never just biological. It's culture, it's class, and it's control.

another way that we could look at this also is that female hair removal is somewhat deeming who is appropriate to be visible in And this can go even wider. So we can talk about, you know, race and

body size and disabled bodies and all of it. I mean, it's like I said, this is a very layered conversation, but I do think that it's important to think about it in these terms because otherwise we are just blindly accepting and following these social norms that perhaps we don't realize how we really feel about them. I do think it's very important to open up the dialogue and have these conversations.

when I talk about all of this, I talk about the history, I talk about the pink tax, I talk about that this is a very layered conversation that crosses all of these areas of society and class. But here's the part that I'm really excited to talk about, and that's kind of what we can do about it. Because the truth is, is we can do whatever the hell we want. I do believe that we as women have so much more power in our personal choices than we think we do, or than we permit ourselves.

And I say this speaking as an American living in Europe, understanding that not all women are free to make the choices that I'm free to make.

conversation. But my point here is that women are placed into boxes. We are told what we should be doing or what we could be doing instead of perhaps being asked what we want to be doing. so do we want to shave our legs?

Do we want to wax our faces? Because, like I said before, if it makes you feel good, if it makes you feel strong and empowered, then do it. But if you feel chained to the wheel of societal expectations, breaking the bank to fit the mold of a smooth, hair-free, and porcelain body, then maybe it's time to pluck the expectation and not the hair. Here's the shift. Stop asking if it's permissible and ask if it's powerful for you.

Because the truth is, is that hair removal has long been about discipline, disciplining women's time, their money, and their confidence.

We've been told to erase ourselves, to be accepted. And I ask, what would happen if you just showed up as you are and you let the world adjust? In the end, my point comes to this. It's not about conformity. It's about choice. There's no moral high ground when it comes to removing or keeping body hair. So shave it if you want, tweeze it if it makes you feel good, try electrolysis if it feels right, or don't remove anything at all. Your worth doesn't change by how smooth your body is.

So maybe the next time you see a chin hair in the mirror, don't see a flaw. See it as a sign that you're done being disciplined into disappearance, like a little protest strand.

And also to perhaps chat with your doctor to check in on your hormones. I'll say it until the cows come home. Our bodies are always talking to us. Okay, that's it for chin chats today. Thank you so much for spending this time with me and if you've ever felt ashamed of your body hair, your face, your stomach, your skin, then this episode is your permission slip to stop apologizing. Message me, tell me your story. Let's make visibility contagious. Until next time, you're bold, you're beautiful and your chin hairs are feminist as hell.