Caucasian Body Hair Management: A Key to Gender and Species Identification in U.S. Culture?

J. MI. Lewis
A first distinction drawn for any human is the biological one of gender. From the moment of birth, humans elaborate and make further distinctions to conceptualize gender by way of a cultural menu. Often the alterations humans impose on the body convey statements such as who we are and to what group we belong. This paper is an exploratory study to investigate attitudes towards and treatment of body hair among Caucasians in U.S. culture, to examine what kinds of messages and gender statements are being communicated through this specific form of body alteration. T h e information was gathered through informal interviews and is limited to Caucasian heterosexuals. The variety that members of other groups would introduce is potentially fascinating but beyond the scope of this particular study. Within the limitations posed by not focusing on all of U.S. culture, these informants appear to represent and conform to mainstream gender ideals. The paper is presented in sections, beginning with a description of the interviews, including what informants could and could not discuss routinely, points of consensus, and the emergence of safe and unsafe hair categories. Separate sections examine the very different attitudes toward male and female body hair. The paper concludes with a discussion linking body hair attitudes to larger issues concerning nature, culture and gender. T h e Interviews The interview study was comprised of twentyfour Caucasian, middle-class, heterosexual males and females ranging in age from 27 to 55, residing in the midwest and on the east and west coasts. The interviews, lasting one to two hours, were informal discussion interspersed by specific questions such as, How old were you when you became aware of body hair on yourself and others?, What feelings do you recall concerning body hair at that age and how have your attitudes changed?, On what parts of your body do you remove body
hair, how often and why or why not?. On what parts of the female and male body do you expect to find body hair and what is your reaction?, What is your response to hair in the least expected places?, Does hair color or abundance make a difference? The informants were assured that this was not a test, that there were no right or wrong answers and that they would remain strictly anonymous. My primary interest was their personal attitudes about body hair. There was absolute agreement among the 24 informants on several points: 1) hair in or around food is taboo; 2) female balding and protruding ear/nostril hair on anyone is repulsive; 3) and hair must be clean no matter where it is on the body. The overriding fear for males themselves is balding. And the overriding fear for females is uncontrollable hair growth any where on their bodies except the scalp. According to the informants, the male ideal occupied a wider acceptable range for location and amount of body hair. The female ideal is more fixed; and the equation is the least amount of body hair, the more feminine. All of the informants, when agreeing to speak about body hair attitudes, focused immediately on scalp hair, male facial hair, female underarm and leg hair. This is not to say that the informants were not aware or interested in hair on other parts of the body. But other parts of the body were not voluntarily mentioned at the outset. When specific areas of the body were presented for consideration, the informants typical joking response was, Oh, you want me to think below the neck. Most certainly, underarms and legs are below the neck. But a concept appeared to be at work. A safe body hair category had been formed in the minds of the informants. The safe category included: the scalp, male facial hair, female underarms and legs. This safe category may exist, in part, because of routine focus. We maintain our scalp hair daily. Most men have facial shaves daily. Many women routinely remove underarm and leg hair. There are other areas

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of the body that informants were uncomfortable volunteering information about, possibly because of the anxiety over control. These other body parts fell into an unsafe category. It was this category where the informants expressed the most uneasiness, the most concern and anxiety, and sometimes obsession in the effort to control body hair. The unsafe category list for males is brief. They were most anxious about and feared balding. If necessary, they routinely clipped nostril and ear hair, but did not indicate that i t was an obsession. The men, however, exhibited an enormous amount of anxiety regarding females. They were very concerned about hair in anomalous places on females, especially females with whom they were close or intimate. Several males confessed to refusing intimacy with females because the women had, for example, chin or nipple hairs. The men did not want to see it or know that it existed and had been removed. The unsafe category for females was far more extensive. Females fear uncontrollable hair growth and go to great lengths to remove or lighten body hair as they are fearful that their bodies will betray them. They routinely controlled i t by plucking between and under eyebrows; clipping ear and nostril hairs; using electrolysis, plucking, shaving or bleaching facial hair; plucking or shaving breast and nipple hair; shaving, waxing or using lotions on upper and inner thighs; shaving, waxing, trimming, and dying pubic hairs; plucking hairs from moles and birth marks; and shaving, bleaching, waxing or using lotions on abdomen, arm and toe hair. Regarding male body hair, most of the men claimed that they rarely think about it when they view other males unless the situation is very unusual. Overall, the male informants claimed indifference toward body hair on other men, with the exception of feeling disgust at protruding ear and nostril hairs. When any references to body hair are made among men, informants reported that it would take place among very close friends and in the form of friendly teasing. I was unable to determine whether this overall claim of indifference is true or if men feel they should not be interested in the looks of other men because it would be considered unmanly, and thus they could not or would not relate any concerns or opinions in the interview. The women stated that they did not talk routinely about their fears with other women and most certainly not with men. Many women expressed the desire to confide or share problem area information, but were too embarrassed to initiate such conversations. There seemed to be an unspoken taboo which blocks women from comfortably exchanging this information. The attitude seems to be, Its not supposed to be there, so lets pretend it is not. The primary fear is of being too masculine or looking like a monster. This fear of uncontrollable hair could be focused, for example, on one solitary chin hair or a chin full of hairs. It did not matter. Women fear uncontrollable body hair. Men shared this fear regarding female hair growth. Are both males and females fearful of losing control of their bodies or the loss of control of the female body? And, thus, does the female body represent imperfect cultural control?

Male Body Hair Attitudes: It is acceptable among both males and females for a male to have hair on almost any part of his body, as long as it does not protrude from ears.or nostrils. In addition, male hair becomes least acceptable to females when it is found on the back and shoulders, and to a lesser extent on the hands and feet. Male hirsutism places the male in an animal category. The amount of hair determines acceptability. Many hirsute males are merely considered more masculine. If a man has scant torso hair, he is still considered quite masculine. Females generally develop secondary sexual characteristics earlier than males and one cannot help but wonder what impact this might have on a young male. When asked, only one male informant recollected that at twelve years old a girlfriend of the same age had underarm hair and he recalled being worried because he had none. With this one exception, the male informants did not express hair growth fears in pubescence nor did they specify fears of the possibility of not developing body hair. According to the male informants, it was anticipated and it grew, they shaved and became men. They also did not have the drama of the menarche experience as a time marker. Only a few of the men recalled the first time they shaved, and several claimed that they suspected that they shaved secretly before. it was needed. Quite possibly the male informants had fears of not developing body hair, but did not recall these fears or did not feel comfortable speaking about them, although that was not indicated in the interviews. Perhaps, too, the wide variance of culturally acceptable amounts and places for body hair on the male reduces the overall level of fear regarding body hair development. This is not to

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suggest that males do not hold other fears regarding pubescent and adolescent development, but such fears and concerns were not the subject discussed by or with the male informants. When a young boy develops his secondary sexual characteristics and shaves, it is a measure of budding manhood. However, if a man doesnt shave his facial hair, he remains manly. It is only the lack of facial hair growth that is considered less masculine or more feminine. The style of the beard or a mustache suggests a certain type of man who might be considered spiritual, intellectual, scholarly, or the outdoors-type, to name a few. Beards are equated quite often with intelligence and strength. Some females preferred clean-shaven faces over beards and mustaches, or were indifferent. If a man wore a beard or mustache, it absolutely had to be clean and free of debris. Most of the women stated that they would be uncomfortable marrying a man with a beard, if they had never seen his shaven face. The goatee, however, was considered repulsive by many of the female informants. One woman claimed that it looked like the hairy, stringy penis on an animal. There is stigma in male balding, especially for younger men in their teens and early twenties, and men are most likely to be anxious about balding and its possible reflection on their virility and sexuality. T o avert or hide balding, men will sometimes, but not always, make enhancing or concealing efforts such as using various hairstyles to hide the balding, submitting to hair transplants, to wearing toupes, shaving the head, growing facial hair, or body-building for compensation. The women indicated that as they approached their midto late twenties, they became more tolerant toward balding in males of any age and did not link balding to a lessened male attractiveness/sexuality. The women were more comfortable with a man who accepts the balding in himself. Balding in males, in general, was acceptable to female and males because its natural or in the genes. Female Body Hair Attitudes What was considered to be the adult female body hair ideal? The informants indicated that the least amount of body hair on a female, the more feminine she is considered to be. According to the informants the idea includes the presence of scalp hair, eye brows (not too thick or meeting at the bridge of the nose), eyelashes, and pubic hair. Hair found on any other parts of the female body becomes marginal or controversial, with varying degrees of acceptability and uneasiness experienced by both

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males and females. Female hirsutism is considered by females and males to be unfeminine, masculine and even monster-like. When asked at what age body hair was first noticed, female informants often spoke of menarche as the benchmark. Hair grows gradually. But menarche is a sudden, dramatic, and memorable moment for all women. Others confided being obsessed with body hair as early as seven years of age, as body hair became more noticeable on themselves and their peers. One woman confessed that in her youth, she religiously cut her arm hair with scissors for several years. She said that she felt she would be hairy like Dad, and that at ages ten and eleven she wore a sweater to school every day to hide her arms. These pubescent fears have never abated for this informant, who does not have an abundance of body hair. The majority of the women related pubescent fears surrounding forearm and leg hairs or hair growing out of birth marks and moles. They likened these hairs to spiders, and feared that they were turning into monsters. It is intriguing that what is a natural, biological development in pubescence for both the male and female of our species, is looked upon with such fear and obsession by young females. As adults, these women still hold such fears, but focus on new parts of the body such as the face, breasts and nipples, abdomen, upper and inner thighs. Pubic hair showing on the edges of a bathing suit, for example, creates extreme anxiety. Female balding is an uncommon sight and is considered an anomaly. It is generally linked to illness or very old age. Although looked upon with genuine, heartfelt sympathy, female balding is repulsive to both sexes. What about underarm and leg hair removal? The shaving of female underarms and legs is a recent convention, becoming a fixed norm by 1945.2 But twenty years later this outlook changed. In addition to the many political and social issues of the 1960s and early 70s, women were being encouraged, particularly through the feminist movement, to reject the cultural ideal of femininity and to accept the female body as i t grew. Among many elements, that included the presence of female underarm and leg hair. Perhaps as a result, male and female informants indicated mixed attitudes about the presence of female underarm and leg hair. Based on political/feminist reasons, underarms and legs have become, if not acceptable, then understandable areas for female body hair. However, the majority of the informants found it aesthetically unappealing.

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When given a choice between the two areas, men and women preferred underarm hair to leg hair, and chose underarm hair because it is not visible as often as leg hair. Underarm hair was considered acceptable, if it is not much, too dark or too visible. Many claimed that female leg hair was distracting, and some commented that the legs looked funny, dirty, as if creepy things were crawling on the legs, or that the hair resembled varicose veins. Thus dirt, anomalous creatures, and disfigurement become metaphors for female body hair out of place. A number of times female underarm hair was associated with the pubic region by both males and females as a private place. Dark underarm hair, in particular, carried this association. One male informant confided that hairy armpits are delightful. .like surrogate vaginas. This erotic, pubic association was also a frequent reason given by informants for either liking or disliking female underarm hair. It appears that female underarm hair on some women is a private erotic stimulus for certain males, and these males were comfortable with the public exposure of this private female hair. Females who regularly removed underarm and leg hair were less tolerant toward and felt somewhat threatened by those females who did not. They viewed the females who did not remove underarm and leg hair as various types, such as feminists, hippies, odd, Mother Earth, foreign, or slovenly, and associated them with being more sexually and politically liberal. The few females who did not presently remove underarm and leg hair varied, but most of them had approached young adulthood by the 60s and 70s era. Some of the women compromised and wintered over, shaving only during the summer months. However, it must be noted that all the women interviewed practiced hair removal on some part (or parts) of their body. Not removing hair on legs and underarms might be a political, feminist or generational statement. Hair removal on other parts of the body was another kind of statement altogether. Whether or not female informants removed underarm and leg hair, they agreed that on other parts of the female body, hair must go or be controlled. The upper and inner thighs, the face, the nipples and breasts, the arms, the moles and birth marks, the feet, toes, pubic region and abdomen remain highly anxious areas of hair control. Did hair color affect acceptability? The level of tolerance for female underarm and leg hair depended on the darkness of the hair. (By contrast,

Journal of American Culture

the darkness or lightness of male body hair had no overall bearing on acceptability.) The majority of males and females did not like to see dark and abundant underarm and leg hair on other females. Even women who did not remove leg and underarm hair confided that they felt privately appalled when there was too much and/or too dark hair on another womans legs or underarms. One female who had blonde underarm and leg hair stated that dark, female underarm and leg hair was unappealing and another woman found it too contrastive. They did not like shaved dark hair on females either, as the skin looked like a plucked chickens. These women claimed that they felt guilty or like traitors for these conflicting attitudes toward other women. There was definitely a prejudice against dark body hair on the female torso and face, dark hair being totally acceptable only in the pubic region, the scalp, the eyebrows (not too thick or meeting at the bridge of the nose) and eyelashes. These are the very same body areas that summed u p the female body hair ideal at the turn of the century.3 Hair found anywhere else on the female body is considered with uneasiness, depending on the location, the color, and the amount. What body hair removal was practiced by the informants mothers? When confronted with the idea, male informants absolutely could not tolerate the thought of underarm and leg hair on their mothers. They found the very idea repulsive although all males were aware that their mothers routinely removed underarm and leg hair. One male informant replied, Please! Id like to think of my mother as antiseptically as possible. When discussing female body hair with males, mother was taboo. The charged responses from the male informants suggests an erotic association and the mother category is off limits, even for quasiacceptable areas like underarms and legs. The female responses to the same question were not emotional and they revealed that their mothers routinely removed underarm and leg hair as well. Those women who did not remove their underarm and leg hair claimed that it was either a point of conflict or indifference on the part of their mothers, depending on the mother-daughter relationship. Although men were more critical of women and less critical of other men, women were more critical of other women and themselves than they were of men. Females who saw women with problem hair, a mustache for example, were invariably judgmental and frequently thought, Why doesnt she do something about it? Doesnt she care? And women who have what would be

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considered extreme hair growth problems reported that there is very little that can be done to be permanently rid of it. Electrolysis is popular, painful, very repetitive, and successful for scant amounts, but not for extreme cases. Bleaching lightens and helps to soften a contrastive problem, but does not control heavy growth. Shaving, depilation and waxing invariably cause stubble or five oclock shadow. T h e control o f female body hair demands constant vigilance. A woman who has dark and/or abundant amounts of hair in unacceptable places is faced with the task o f monitoring and controlling. And she is constantly haunted by the fear of betrayal, that her body will take over and others will find her unacceptable, unfeminine o r monster-like. Several women attributed what they considered severe hair growth problems to hormonal changes due to birth control pills or child-bearing and felt angry and helpless about the consequences. In spite of the underlying fears, some female informants expressed positive feelings toward body hair removal. T h e practice has become a n important part of these womens personal hygiene regimen, and carries with it a clean feeling and a n erotic element. Some women noted that they felt very feminine, and reveled in the shaving and the plucking. One confided that she would not dream of leaving the house unless her body was as smooth as a babys behind. Others paid particular attention to hair removal when anticipating being with a man, as well as during the warm weather months when clothes were more revealing. T w o women described a similar sensual feeling after having waxed their legs, My legs are so sensitive. . . I want to be touched all over and I can feel fabrics, water.. .and every little breeze as I move. These women reported that they felt cleaner and liked the smooth, unfettered feeling. Some of the women had experimented with shaving, shaping or dying their pubic hair as erotic stimuli for the men in their lives. Several of the female informants expressed pleasure in looking and feeling feminine, but all expressed anxieties in meeting the feminine hair ideal. However, both males and females related deeper fears regarding uncontrollable hair growth in culturally inappropriate areas of the female body. What distinctions are being made?

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he lacks facial hair growth. As a males body hair increases in abundance, he moves into a friendly animal category. For example, the women who adore hairy men linked them to cuddly teddy bears. But teddy bears can become unfriendly. With increasing amounts of body hair, the male moves into a n unfriendly animal category where he oversteps the boundary of acceptability, becoming too much like a real animal. Male hirsutism was not considered monster-like. A female with hair growth in anomalous body areas is placed in categories of masculine or monster. When a female body produces what is culturally considered too much hair and/or in the wrong places, the hair growth blurs and offends the boundaries of gender identity. It is further indicated that the human and animal/monster boundaries are threatened by both males and females. While males grow more body hair than females and enjoy far more cultural leeway in hair growth, the female body, which grows less hair, is considered problematic and mediates both the gender and the species categories. In her exploration of the mediating role of the female, Sherry Ortner states that the females pancultural second-class status could be accounted for, quite simply, by postulating that women are being identified or symbolically associated with nature, as opposed to men who are identified with culture.4 Ortner also discusses the female role as being culturally perceived to be intermediate between nature and ~ u l t u r e . This ~ interview study proposes that the female is not being associated with nature. Or perhaps she is so very much associated with nature on a deeper level, that control is necessary. In any case, the study indicates a female mediation role regarding body hair control. This culturally prescribed mediation role perhaps partially explains the ambiguities and anomalous position of the female: she is not considered wholly of culture and not wholly of nature. If the female does not wholly belong to one category or another, the female of the human species becomes anomalous and taboo. T o borrow from Edmund Leach, the general theory is that taboo applies to categories which are anomalous with respect to clear-cut category oppositions. 6 T h e its n a t u r a l o r i n the genes explanation for male balding does not apply to female hair growth at all. Female body hair grows in the same places, although, in varying degrees, that male body hair is found. But for the female, it is considered unnatural for hair to be present in certain areas. Not only do female bodies have

Discussion When a male has scant body hair, he still occupies the adult gender category. He is not perceived as less masculine or as feminine, unless

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anomalous areas, it appears that the female body itself is considered anomalous. What is considered species-specific for humans regarding body hair applies to males, for it is acceptable for the male to remain in the natural hair growth state and unacceptable for females. If it were otherwise, then most females would not be chasing after every stray hair that pops u p on their bodies. If the genes of a female do not comply with the cultural ideal of female body hair, than the offending female must do something to be acceptable. Instead of altering the cultural ideal of what is feminine, she must alter herself. Why is the female portrayed as abnormal when the female body produces what it is programmed to do? It is as if someone somewhere long ago looked at the female body and said, It is unnatural. It is dangerous. Control it. Food sources in early forager groups were primarily plauts and gathered by females. Quite possibly there might have been an early connection between plant life7 and female fertility and sexuality,8and the need for control over both. The need for strong cultural control suggests a precarious position. That there is an underlying cultural notion that a female is equated with uncontrollable behavior leading to wantonness and immorality is further suggested through an historical look at our language.9 Female body hair removal behavior may be a metaphoric statement of control over female sexuality through the removal of the signs of maturity and adulthood. Christine Hopes study traced the historical origins of female body hair removal through advertisements in upper- and non-upper class womens magazines such as Harpers Bazaar and McCalls. The study designated four major periods of female hair removal behavior: The Ivory Complexion (Prior to 1915); T h e Great Underarm Campaign (1915-1919); Coming to Terms with Leg Hair (1920-1940); and the Minor Assault on Leg Hair (1941-1945).10 U.S. consumers do not buy everything advertisers try to sell. But over a short time, the public bought this concept. In other words, why did female body hair in U.S. culture become a focus of gender identification? At the turn of the century, when female body hair removal behavior was fostered in U.S. culture, advertisements addressed a population who traced their origins to European cultures, which at the time did not focus on female body hair removal as an element of gender identification. It is not original to suggest that it was advantageous for the human species to assign gender distinctions to support the business of earning a living. Perhaps

Journal of American Culture

to establish a more pronounced national identity, there was a need to reassert gender roles and to make class distinctions. The acceptance of removing female underarm and leg hair was a process which took hold in a generation. There were many changes occurring in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. A first consideration is the influx of over twelve million immigrants, particularly from Southern and Eastern Europe, from 1890 to 1910. Perhaps the descendants of our countrys founders felt a need to set boundaries which would keep them apart from the incoming masses. Immigration and national identity, the transformation of our economy to one based on consumption, suffrage and the emergence of the advertising industry occurred in the same time frame as the effort to establish female hair removal behavior. I view the cultural changes as a catalyst striking a much deeper chord concerning attitudes toward gender identity in U.S. culture. What existing pattern or system did female body hair removal appeal to? Physical and mental cloistering behavior has been historically imposed on the anomalous female body and with enormous variety, such as early Chinese footbinding, the purdah through veiling, Western cultures corsets and stays, to name but a very few. Quite appropriately, Mary Douglas notes that the body is good material for symbolic replication o f other structures in a culture.12 The focus on body hair evolved as womens clothing gradually revealed more of the female body. Christine Hope found that in U.S. culture it was advertised that superfluous hair was attributed to bad character. And women were encouraged to feel less embarrassed, to practice good hygiene, and were told that body hair was ugly. . .and. . .disfiguring. By the 1940s when legs were a focus of beauty, a mans eye view was stressed.3 The appeal seems to have been based on an accepted notion that the female body in the natural state was inherently unclean, immoral and unattractive. Through alteration, the removal of body hair in this case, the female would become more feminine and culturally acceptable. Many consider US. culture obsessed with cleanliness, when compared to other cultures. Our embrace of the cleanliness factor could very well have been an offshoot of the American Dreams promise of success, wealth and luxury for all. Maintaining cleanliness not only includes an awareness of a concept, but it involves time, money for products, and an access to cleaning facilities. Hellerstein, Hume and Offen wrote that one is struck time and again in Victorian writing by how

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strong the associations are between cleanliness, neat clothing and class; fresh, well-fitting garments were the badge of middle-class status and, for those in the working class who possessed them, a sign of upward mobility.l4 The upper-class was the first to adopt female body hair removal behavior,15and after an initial reluctance, the behavior was emulated by the non-upper class. However, if U.S. culture considered body hair dirty, than it seems logical that males, who have so much more hair growth, would have been encouraged to remove what the culture prescribed as unclean. One may point out the cultural norm for male facial shaving. Yet neither a male with a beard nor one with a facial shave challenges the category of gender or species. A female who does not practice body hair removal behavior challenges both categories. According to the interviews, it is female body hair which fits the category of what Mary Douglas describes as dirt being matter out of place.16 She argues that in chasing dirt.. .we are.. .positively re-ordering our environment, making it conform to an idea.7 The female appears to have been assigned the role of controlling matter out of place and in this case, it is body hair. She guards the boundaries between male and female, animal and human. Ironically, to do so, she blurs the boundary between child and adult. Body hair is a secondary sexual characteristic of the human species and is an indication of oncoming sexual maturity and adulthood. In meeting the cultural ideal of femininity, a female is expected to remove all overt signs of sexual maturity except for breasts and pubic hair. Female breasts in U.S. culture have a sexual focus, and there are temporary (clothing) and permanent (surgery) alterations to correct or enhance female breasts. However, female breasts serve the biological function of child-nurturing and remain intact. Pubic hair is trimmed or removed depending on its pervasiveness on the abdomen and thighs. If pubic hair is revealed by clothing such as swimwear, pubic hair is expected to become invisible. In addition, it appears that female body hair removal behavior is a further expression of the concept that the adult female body is not quite acceptable, and perhaps anomalous at the same time. Power, strength and intelligence are but some of the high cultural values placed on masculinity. Youthful beauty and docility have been two like values attributed to femininity. For acceptability, a great deal of value is placed on the youthful appearance of the female body. It appears that female body hair removal behavior, in part,

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subscribes to the youthful beauty concept. The hairless, smooth-skinned female retains her culturally prescribed femininity, yet she is relegated to a non-adult or child-like appearance.

Conclusion It was found that body hair and its control is heavy with taboo, but primarily the taboos concentrate on females. There is the taboo against female balding and openly discussing female body hair problems; the quasi-taboo of the presence of female underarm and leg hair; the taboo against hair found on parts of the female body other than the pubic area, the scalp, the eyelashes, and the eyebrows (not too thick or meeting at the bridge of the nose); and the taboo on dark hair on certain female body areas. There is a taboo on an overabundance of hair for males and females alike, and a taboo on unclean hair, and hair in or around food. In the minds of the male informants, linking mothers and body hair is also taboo. Body hair remains a controversial, marginal substance, particularly for females in U.S. culture, as the informants exhibited anxiety and deep fears regarding the boundaries of what is gender-specific and species-specific. It is suggested that the U.S. practice of female body hair removal behavior expresses an underlying concept that the female is anomalous in regard to well-defined categories. She is problematic as a full adult member of the human species. This chronic adjunct placement of the female leads to a female exclusion principle embedded in the cultural perception of gender, species, and sexual maturity. The female applies for membership by subscribing to an ideological superstructure of femininity. The anomalous treatment of females and their linkage to males for identity is deeply embedded in U.S. culture and can be demonstrated in other cultural structures such as in the languages and legal system.19 The informants have demonstrated that the female is expected to have a non-adult or childlike appearance. Whereas the male body is primarily permitted to remain in its natural hairy state, the female body must be cleaned up to become not only gender appropriate, but species appropriate as well. Thus, the female becomes the guardian of what is culturally considered species-specific by converting disorder into order by way of body hair removal behavior.

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Notes
IAlthough womens fashion magazines may currently average two hair removal ads per monthly issue, depilatory and bleaching products abound in the market place. In addition to razors, shavers, tweezers, and electrolysis apparatus, one may find (in gentle and extra-strength) creams, lotions, press-on pull-off strips, wax, roll-on, brushon depilatories, as well as cream and lotion bleaching agents. Many products are advertised as containing finishing creams, moisturizers or collagen to leave skin soft and silky. 2Christine Hope, Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture, Journal of American Culture 5 (Spring 1982):93. 3Hope, Caucasian Female Body Hair, 94. Sherry B. Ortner, Is the Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?, in Women, Culture and Society, ed. Michelle Zimbalist .Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (Stanford, Calif., 1974). p. 73. 51bid., pp. 75-85. 6Edmund Leach, Anthropological Aspects of Language: Animal Categories a n d Verbal Abuse, i n Anthropology and Language, ed. Eric H. Lenneberg (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), p. 64. 7One discovers many plant and animal referant words which apply to human hair, such as roots, corn rows, flaxen, towhead, crop, peach fuzz, plant beard, tendril, forest, cowlick, forelock, pigtail, mutton chops, goatee, rats tail, rats nest, fleece, mane, pony tail, down, etc. 8Mary Jane Sherfey, A Theory of Female Sexuality in Sisterhood is Powerful, ed. Robin Morgan (New York, 1970). Also see Annette Kolodny, The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters, (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1975).

gLaurel Richardson Walum, The Dynamics of Sex and Gender: A Sociological Perspective (Chicago, Ill., 1977). See also Muriel Schulz, The Semantic Derogation of Women in Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance, ed. Barrie Thorne and Nancy Henley (Rowley, Mass., 1975). IOHope, Caucasian Female Body Hair, 93. A few occurrences reflecting national and gender identity: 1890, the Daughters of the American Revolution founded in Washington; 1895, interestingly enough, King C. Gillette invented the first safety razor; 1902, the founding of the Anglo-American Pilgrims Association; 1903, Pankhursts National Womens Social and Political Union; 1907, restriction by law o n immigration to U.S.; 1914, World War I; 1915, Margaret Sangers birth control pamphlets and clinic; 1920s, womens right to vote. *Mary Tew Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London, 1966). 13Hope, Caucasian Female Body Hair, 94-98. l4Erna Olafson Hellerstein, Leslie Parker Hume and Karen M. Offen, Victorian Women: A Documentary Account of Womens Lives in Nineteenth-Century England, (Stanford, Calif., 1981), p. 10. 15Hope, Caucasian Female Body Hair, 95. IjDouglas, p. 35. 17Ibid., p. 14. 18Walum, p. 18; and Schulz, p. 72. lgHaig Bosmajian, Sexism i n the Language of Legislatures and Courts, in Sexism and Language, ed. A.P. Nilsen, Haig Bosmajian, H. Lee Gershuny, and Julia P. Stanley (Urbana, Ill., 1977),p. 79. Also see Hope, Caucasian Female Body Hair, 98.
My gratitude and thanks to Dr. Brett Williams for her unwavering enthusiasm, support and conceptual guidance; and to Dr. Ruth Landman for her supportive comments. Judy Lewis is a graduate student of cultural anthropology, American University.