Fourth Wave Feminism is Full of Facial Hair
In a fourth grade classroom in Appleton, WI, a teacher dismisses her students for recess. After a flurry of papers jamming into desks, most students hurry to pick up where they left off outside. Left behind, a timid but curious girl drags her feet on the way out the door. Chloe Allyn’s brow is wrought with contemplation, her eyes are far away for a fourth grader, and her upper lip is covered in many thin black hairs. She dreads the sun in the sky catching her hairs for her classmates to see.
I am now 24, but I still can recall the first time a male student pointed out my mustache. I was finishing my spelling home work with some friends in class and one boy asked me why I had a mustache if I was a girl. To my horror, I realized I did and the more they brought it up, the smaller I felt myself getting.
Frequently, young girls will experience this same scrutiny in their lives, especially brown girls with darker hair. Often the pressure of female beauty standards influences girls to hide the hair. A psychological study from 2006 reported finding “high levels of emotional distress and morbidity,” in women who spend long amounts of time manicuring facial hair. Among wealthier populations, there is increase in girls, as young as eight, having hair professionally removed. For many seasoned women, this is a familiar sadness, recalling pubescent years as the most insecure. The parents of the girls report seeing them far happier, but permanently removing hair before adulthood sends the wrong message, especially to the young girls and their bullies.
Yet there are some women who made it through the bullying into adulthood who are taking a more vulnerable stance by rejecting facial hair grooming. Bri Crofton has PCOS, a hormonal imbalance that causes excess hair growth, especially on the face. After a lifelong battle with their mother, the world and their beard, they have ceased removing the hair. “I was very quickly amazed by how confident I felt, just being myself and not caring what others thought,” says Crofton freely, “All I had to do was stop shaving and let go of the shame that had been instilled in me at such a young age. I didn’t think that it would happen so quickly or effortlessly.”
For me and many other women, a recent “Movember” ad for a razor company called Billie, was very exciting. The ad took a brazen and cinematographic approach to destigmatizing female facial hair. Being one of the first razor companies to advertise with hair present on the models, as well inclusive representation and even an attack on destigmatizing pubic hair, Billie is making (fourth) waves.
“As a brand out to destigmatize women’s body hair, getting involved in Movember made a lot of sense to us,” said Georgina Gooley, founder of Billie, “A lot of women we’ve talked to since launching (our first ad campaign) last year have said that they felt facial hair was actually the most taboo — this felt like the perfect opportunity to help normalize it.” This is a common millennial sentiment, as many millennials have embraced the freedom of body hair, regardless of gender and the connotations.
Bay Area photographer Monika Oliver often explores the beauty of #girlgaze, especially in a series of photographs with body hair representation. “When I posted this, I received negative feedback about the pubes. Originally when taking the photograph, it wasn’t something that I considered too heavily,” She recalls regarding an infamous photograph, “I loved the way the pubes, leopard, and sky came together so ostentatiously. Kait, the subject, is so vibrant and herself, an image like this is a perfect representation of her presence in the world. After sharing the image, it quickly became apparent that this type of imagery is something that needs to be seen, made, and celebrated.”
Although Billie is a razor brand, they push what many women who have taken control of their body hair are advocating for: the freedom to shave, wax or leave it. The day I made the choice to stop worrying over my mustache — and all of my body hair — is the day I could finally breathe. If I feel self-conscious now, I remind myself that there is a younger girl like me out there who could see my face and feel that release of pressure too.
