Hairless Bodies Made by Female High School Students

Abstract

  This paper studies hair removal by female high school students through interviews with 32 female students at Minamikaze（pseudonym）, a Japanese co-ed private high school. Most of the students remove hair from their armpits, arms, and legs. They started and continued this practice to conform to the normative expectations related to body hair and construct their imagined selves. The imagined self identifies with not only the actual body but also the body that is attainable through beauty practices because hair removal has become the minimum grooming practice for specific classes of Minamikaze’s female students, they don’t have any choice other than to remove their body hair.

  Consequently, one student who does not meet this expectation ends up hating herself, even though she does not receive direct criticism from others. In Japanese society, hair removal in armpits, arms, and legs has become the grooming required for women in their teens and twenties. Therefore, even women who cannot remove their body hair for physiological reasons may receive criticism from others. Because this is unjust for women, it is necessary to change the norm that women should remove their body hair in order to be beautiful.