The Power of Advertising

I, like many other women, shave my legs nearly all year round. I have done for a while now, and it never crossed my mind not to. The very idea of allowing the spiky black hairs to grow as nature intended is not one I find attractive. In fact quite the opposite.

Nowadays unshaven legs on a women does not have positive connotations. Most men find it unattractive, and I certainly do not know of many young women who are brave enough to expose hairy legs in public.

However, what surprised me, is that the idea of shaving one's legs has in fact only been around since the First World War (about 1915). Before this it would seem that both men and women went about their daily lives without casting a second thought to the hair on their bodies - something that may seem strange to us now.

When skirts became shorter and sheer stockings came into fashion it became obvious when a women had unshaven legs. However I am not sure as to what extent this would have influenced societal norms had it not been for the advertising.

Big companies soon realised that they could exploit this new 'hair removal' culture, and thus the fashion was born. Endless advertising campaigns begun, with captions such as: "the fastidious woman today must have immaculate underarms if she is to be unembarrassed." This idea of shaming women into removing hair from their bodies is what caused such a dramatic cultural shift. Whereas before it had been acceptable to be hairy, now it was something to be ashamed of. Moreover the reasons for the shame were always centered around the idea of pleasing men. Some adverts read "he'll never guess you shave." And the principle message was that shaven legs and underarms were essential for pleasing a man.

I think that the strength of this pressure, and the fact that it revolved around an issue which preoccupied the majority of women at this time (namely finding a man to marry), is why we feel obliged to have perfectly smooth skin at all times.

Regardless of your opinion, I think that is safe to say that the power of advertising is perhaps stronger than we might have guessed. That is to say that these clever companies highlighted a weakness in the minds of women worldwide, namely their desire to be deemed attractive, and thus harnessed this insecurity and used it to their own advantage, selling countless millions of hair removal products over the following decades...

Written by Lili

Picture credit: Ellen




http://www.dailylife.com.au/dl-beauty/hair/when-did-we-decide-women-should-shave-their-legs-20150526-gh9ao1 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/10968221/What-do-men-think-about-women-with-hairy-legs.html

Jenner and Beauty

I am a cis girl, therefore I will never truly understand the struggles that someone who does not feel comfortable in their assigned birth gender will experience but I will try my hardest not to make unfair judgement in this piece.

I am thrilled for Caitlyn Jenner that she can finally be her true self. I have great respect for her for going through something so challenging in the eye of the world’s media, but I am shocked at the way the media has treated it.

Before her transition, Caitlyn was an olympic gold medal winner, and any news articles written about her 20 or 30 years ago would describe her as an American sporting hero. Not once was there an article whose main focus was her appearance instead of her successes.

Now everywhere I look, on the train, in shops, on the internet; the only stance the media has now is how beautiful Caitlyn is. You’d be forgiven for forgetting that this is the same person who has won olympic gold medals. Naturally, because of societal norms and pressures, we all want to be deemed attractive, but it is important to remember that Caitlyn Jenner is part of a multimillion dollar family who have access to the world’s best surgeons. Caitlyn Jenner is still the same woman who appeared in the Diane Swayer interview, pre operations, but it seems only now that the newspapers dare to call her beautiful. Only now she has conformed to our society's expectations of how a beautiful women should look.

I think I’m trying to make two points here; the different way in which the media treat men and women, even when they have accomplished the same achievements, and the fact that people who are transgender are only fully accepted by society when they have spent a lot of money conforming to our idea of beauty.

Transgender people are still the least economically active group of people in the western world, so many people who find themselves in the same position as Caitlyn will not be able to afford all the treatment she has had, nor may they want it. Therefore it is important that we continue to fight societal pressures so that people can feel comfortable in their own skin, despite how they look.

Written by Georgina

Picture Credit: Ellen