Women/Beauty Standards
This is The Best Commercial Depicting A Woman Shaving That I’ve Ever Seen
It’s not perfect — but it’s progress.
As a woman, I’ve tried almost every kind of hair removal method there is over the years. There are multiple methods on the market for women to try and get rid of unwanted body hair such as wet shaving, electric shaving, depilatory creams, waxing, threading, epilating, and light/laser treatments.
I’ve written a few articles regarding women’s body hair and the societal expectations surrounding the subject of a woman getting rid of or keeping the hair on her body. I’ve dealt with how to handle my own daughter asking me about why I shave my legs as well as my own personal conflict with how I’ve felt, reacted, and dealt with my own body hair over the course of my lifetime.
One of the most notable moving parts of the multi-billion dollar hair removal market machine is, of course, its advertising. The commercials for razors, creams and epilators practically assaulted my young mind when I was growing up — and this was before the internet.
Back in my pre-internet days, magazine and television ads practically screamed out to every female viewing them that they must have smooth, gleaming, hairless skin — and that rhetoric still goes on today.
As much progress as women have made over the last century, the push for women to have abundant, lustrous hair on their head yet also be expected to have much less to no hair on their bodies is still starkly evident.
That said — and despite my feelings about whether or not I think women should or shouldn’t have to get rid of their body hair — I’ve always felt that the commercials depicting the way in which women remove their body hair was incredibly unrealistic.
For instance, when ads show women with already shiny, hairless legs shaving or using a hair removal cream it looks utterly ridiculous. Obviously, it would be much more realistic if they showed a woman like me shaving, who has black stubble all over her legs if I don’t shave for more than a day.
I know that there are many women out there who don’t get the dark stubble on their legs like I do but I’d like to see that reflected back to me in some of the advertisements.
That’s why when I saw a razor commercial created by The Dollar Shave Club, I got pretty excited.
It’s actually an ad for a men’s razor however, in the commercial, it shows a man’s female partner getting into the shower and choosing to use his razor instead of hers while proceeding to shave almost every part of her body. She shaves her underarms, her legs, her navel, and in my favorite part, she even shaves her big toe!
This is a big deal to me as a hairy woman because although many women have never dealt with this problem, a lot of us women out there do have hair on ALL our parts, including our toes!
The ad isn’t perfect and it still depicts an already hairless woman shaving which is ridiculous — however it IS a start.
It’s absolutely true that many women borrow their male partner's razors (I do!) because they simply work better and it’s also completely accurate that lots of women shave a ton of other places on their bodies besides just their legs, underarms, or bikini area.
We’re obviously still quite far away from commercials showing really hairy women shaving or commercials where you might see a mother discussing the subject of getting rid of body hair with her daughter and the societal pressure of that choice. That’s obviously not a profitable angle for an industry built upon removing hair.
However, with this more realistic and entertaining commercial, I do feel we may be getting a little bit closer to showing the realities of what women who do choose to remove their body hair are dealing with.
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