Mo'Nique's recent public display against depilation has caused a stir – but why are women so attached to the razor? writes FIONA McCANN
THIS JUST IN: women have hair on their legs! Who knew? Well now we alldo, thanks to one careless Hollywood star who flaunted her hirsute pegs at the Golden Globes this week. When Mo'Nique pulled up her long gold dress to reveal that her perfectly pedicured toes were topped by – gasp! – legs unshaven, the intake of breath across cyberland was practically audible.
And with the exhale came the insults. “Nasty”, “gross” and “sick” were some of the more polite comments that littered the internet in response to pictures of the grinning Golden Globe winner proudly showing off her pegs. We hadn’t seen this much hair since the famed Julie Roberts underarm incident, back in 1999, a moment that traumatised so many that Roberts was back on the razor before you could say “wax on, wax off”.
So why the furore? Given that it’s recession time, and women across the world spend millions annually removing body hair from various parts of their anatomies, shouldn’t we all be embracing the cost-saving measure of just letting it grow and show? And isn’t it gratifying, after years of watching perfectly coiffed starlets take to the red carpet as if all that hair uppery and spray tannery and skin smoothery didn’t cost an arm, a leg and a whole team of stylists, to see someone buck the beauty trend for once? It’s a long, long established trend at that, with evidence pointing to hair removal among women dating back to ancient Egypt.
Apparently, Nefertiti and her ilk used beeswax to remove their leg hair, and if Greek sculptors are to be believed, ancient Greece didn’t look too kindly on women’s pubic hair. Some say it was the Romans who got us into razors, and are therefore responsible for every ankle nick and shin scar to the present day.
Yet though much of the world has been depilating for centuries, the custom was for a long time practically unheard-of among Caucasian Europeans. So what happened our happy-to-be-hirsute ancestors that has given birth to today’s frenzied, painful, skin- stripping cultural obligations? Fashion. Of the flesh-revealing kind. It turns out that the historical imperative to cover up from neck to ankle protected not only a woman’s modesty, but also her body hair. Once the sleeves came off the evening gowns, the hair was quick to follow.
An ad in Harper's Bazaarin 1915 featuring a woman with hair-free armpits set the trend, and generations of women followed.
What began with the arm continued to the leg, creeping upwards towards a line that only started to matter with the invention of the bikini in the 1940s. Then came the thong, and more had to come off. The only thing that may have saved us from head-to-toe depilation has been the modicum of modesty or indeed repression remaining that has yet to make nudity a fashion statement.
There have been those who fought back. The feminist movement in the 1970s brought with it a return of female body hair, and though depilation is still a thriving industry today, there are those who are unafraid to drop the pretence. Like Mo’Nique, who reportedly told US talk show host Barbara Walters, as far back as 2006, that she was going to “show America what a real leg looks like”.
Following her Golden Globe display, Mo’Nique has laid down a marker. Forget the increasing encroachments on your body hair and downtime, and embrace the new fuzzy philosophy: from now on, sisters, Mo’ is more.
