Caught by the fuzz
Why are people still freaked out by hairy women, asks Caroline Sullivan
Friday February 11, 2005
The Guardian
What a lush little nest of underarm hair Drew Barrymore showed off at a New York fashion show this week. Flirtatiously peeping out of a sleeveless dress, it aroused much comment backstage, where her failure to maintain a properly hairless state was "all they talked about".
All they talked about? What could they possibly have said, beyond: "God, she's hairy"? By real-world standards, her small tuft of fuzz was actually well managed, rather than an ape-like thatch. The commotion about it was so disproportionate you would think it was 1972, when Linda McCartney caused universal horror by venturing out with unshaven legs.
More than 30 years later, deliberate hairiness is still not most women's choice, and certainly not that of most celebrities - which is why that picture of Julia Roberts flashing her furry pits in 1999 still does the rounds - but if Barrymore wants to bare the hair, shouldn't she be allowed to without comment?
Yet while many would spring to her defence regarding underarms, how many would encourage her to be loud and proud about a much more delicate issue: her moustache? She almost certainly has one; most women do, whether it is a dusting of peach-fuzz or out-and-out Groucho Marxian bristles. But she will never advertise it, and, among women, it is rarely talked about, being deemed too sensitive a subject.
The female moustache is the ultimate body taboo. Just because the odd arty type, such as Frida Kahlo or Patti Smith, is happy to display fur above her lip doesn't mean most women aren't faintly repelled by their own. Speaking for many, Bridget Jones waxed disgusted about it in her diary: "I fear that if left to revert to my natural state, I'd have a handlebar moustache."
Even the redoubtable journalist Rosie Boycott, who will present a 60 Minutes documentary on feminism and ageing this month, finds the subject off-putting. "Anyone who has a [visible] moustache is seen as low-rent and slovenly and slightly obscene. There's no culture of facial hair, not even as a tribal thing."
Yet, when compared with the relative acceptability of other hairy bits (think of German women and their legs), it seems perverse that so small an area causes such self-consciousness. But nearly a million jars of Jolen Crème Bleach, the UK's best-selling bleaching product, were sold last year, and every beauty salon offers various removal techniques.
You might assume that there are centuries of tradition behind this attitude, but, according to Dr Philippa Berry, a former lecturer in early modern cultural history at King's College London, this isn't the case. "I'm not aware of any cultural references to excessive hair on women in 16th- and 17th-century England," she says. "The late 16th century was a time of enormous sexual licence, so from the lack of references to it you could perhaps infer that hairiness wasn't an issue."
Things had certainly changed by the 19th century, when female facial hair was considered so freakish that the only place for women with abnormal hirsuteness was the circus. In the US, bearded ladies were still part of travelling freakshows until at least the 1970s. But come the miniskirt era, the only place hair appeared was on the head.
The 21st century, though, has seen a relaxing of once inflexible hair etiquette - unless you're a celeb, nobody cares any longer whether you're hairless or a veritable Godzilla.
Except when it comes to moustaches. They still provoke the most visceral reactions. Meg, a music manager, admits to feeling combative towards her upper lip, and plucks it daily, "as soon as the hair appears on the surface". The radio presenter Harriet Scott, who is 'tache-free, shudders: "It isn't acceptable. People don't talk about it." Jane Moore, an author and broadcaster, is even more forthright. "On TV, overhead lighting makes any smidge of facial hair give you a Hitleresque shadow over your top lip. It's considered so freakish."
Think she's exaggerating? Then don't read these comments from a couple of male friends of mine, who gag at the M-word: "Moustaches on women are horrible. You'd no sooner kiss a woman with one than someone with a running cold sore," says one, while another is reminded of "eastern European shotputters". One did allow, after much musing, that "it might actually be cute if it was groomed and waxed".
Isn't it a bit rich, though, for men to be revolted by facial hair, when the current "sexiest" female body type (slim-hipped, tiny-bottomed) is that of a young boy? You'd have thought a hint of facial bum-fluff would only add to the attraction. But it just does not work that way, and maybe the explanation can be found in the famous Vanity Fair cover depicting lesbian singer kd lang being "shaved" by Cindy Crawford. That picture said it all: moustache equals butch; smooth face equals feminine.
Consider, also, the lesbian photographer Della Grace's decision to grow a beard (which she was able to do, she claimed, because of her unusually high testosterone levels) during a study of reactions to "transgenderism" a decade ago. Some of the most negative responses were from women, one of whom wrote in the Guardian in 1995: "My inner voices chanted, 'You can't catch beardness, you can't, you can't.'"
Terri Apter, a Cambridge University psychologist specialising in gender studies, believes the stigma of furriness diminishes as women age. "If you get a young woman who can easily be made to worry about her appearance, she'll worry about facial hair, whereas a 60-year-old would say, 'This is the result of less oestrogen, and I'll just deal with it.'" It can even be attractive, she suggests. "If it's provocative to wear it, it could be sexy. Blurred boundaries between what's masculine and what's feminine are what we all play with every day."
An interesting idea, but it will be a long time before even the suavest Clark Gable 'tache can be added to a woman's beautification arsenal. The writer Susie Orbach points to the current culture of "hyper-femininity", which proscribes anything even faintly masculine. "What moustaches evoke in an individual who sees one is that you can't categorise the [wearer] properly. Femininity does not look like that. Moustaches desexualise a woman - you have to have the appearance of hyper-femininity, which is [perceived to be] hairless, almost the appearance of a young girl. That's very disturbing in an era of paedophilia."
Depilation isn't considered imperative only by image-obsessed westerners. Middle Eastern women are also fanatical about whisking away hair, while Asians are industrious bleachers. The comedian Shazia Mirza says she has never visited an Asian woman's bathroom without seeing "a big pot of Jolen". She says: "So many times I've stood in a lift and seen Asian women who've bleached their facial hair blonde and looked like Father Christmas."
The decision by Mirza, a former secondary school teacher, to have her own moustache zapped by laser was partly spurred by the boys in her class calling her Mr Mirza. "The kids would ask me: 'Miss, are you a man? Why don't you get rid of your moustache?'" When she began to do stand-up, she used it in her act. "I'd say: 'Someone said I look like a terrorist. Don't be stupid - terrorists have bigger moustaches!'"
It would take a modern-day Kahlo to pull off a moustache with style. Her lover, Diego Rivera, may have thought she was sex on (bristly) legs, but how many of us today are willing to go beardy in the hope that some modern-day Diego will fancy our fur? Until somebody like Barrymore sprouts one (go on, Drew, grow it out), it will continue to be hand-to-lip combat.
) about a football club where all the member had got their chests waxed. It's becoming very popular for guys to be completely hairless - something far more un-natural than hair on women, I'd think - men having beards, chest hair etc. Seems a little infantilistic to me.
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