This week, the girlies are hairy on main to address the question: why are we so obsessed with being smooth? From ancient sugaring practices to TikTok lasers, they trace the cultural history of body hair and explore how whiteness, misogyny, hygiene myths, and beauty marketing all converged to make your stubble a moral failing. Digressions include Eliza’s ongoing war with air travel, Lena Dunham’s latest press tour, and non-qualified med spas that will definitely leave you botched.

This episode was produced by Julia Hava and Eliza McLamb and edited by Allison Hagan. Research assistance from Kylie Finnigan.

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SOURCES:

A full Brazilian or all natural: understanding the influences on young women's decision to remove their pubic hair 

ASU professor encourages students to defy body hair norms 

Body Hair Removal: The 'Mundane' Production of Normative Femininity. 

Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture 

Darker-skinned people urged to take extra precautions as laser hair removal industry booms 

From flint razors to lasers: a timeline of hair removal methods

Hair or Bare?: The History of American Women and Hair Removal, 1914-1934

History of Hair Removal 

How the beauty industry convinced women to shave their legs 

How Much A Beauty Editor's Hair Removal Routine Actually Costs 

Male Stigmatization of Female Body Hair

Mapping 'Gross' Bodies: The Regulatory Politics of Disgust 

Plucked: A History of Hair Removal by Rebecca Herzig

‘Plucked’: Race, gender, science, medicine converge in history of hair removal

Pubic Hair Grooming Prevalence and Motivation Among Women in the United States 

Shaving and fashion: A storied history

The Casualties of Women's War on Body Hair

The Hair-Raising History of Women's Body Hair 

The History of Female Hair Removal 

The Naked Truth: Why Humans Have No Fur

The Strange Secret History Of Hair Removal Will Blow Your Mind 

Trends in body hair removal as depicted through art

UNSHAVED resistance & revolution in women’s body hair politics 

Why women feel pressured to shave