zondag 18 februari 2018

Hair in women's shaving advertisements

In Ways of Seeing Berger argues that in European nude paintings women are generally painted without body hair in order to appeal to the man's sexuality: "Hair is associated with sexual power, with passion. The woman's sexual passion needs to be minimized so that the spectator may feel that he has the monopoly of such passion" (55).

Similarly, in contemporary advertisements for shaving products women are shown shaving their legs or armpits that aren't even hairy to begin with (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5wzBElY0k0; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsyP9UucYhM). This illustrates that women in the 21st century are still not depicted with body hair. Even if the sole purpose of the advertisement is to sell a product that would get rid of the hair it is apparently too inappropriate or grotesque to see these women actually shave their hairy legs. Wouldn't an advertisement that demonstrate that the product can in fact do what it promises be more convincing?

This raises the question whether it is still the case that hair is associated with sexual power or passion and therefore has to be suppressed, or minimised, in women, as Berger suggests, or that women's body hair has become something that doesn't fit in with the beauty ideal and therefore cannot be appear on television. Either way, the ads emphasise that there is a difference in the acceptability of hair in men and women. This advertisement for men's shaving products shows the contrast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T1CaF4TsWE. Firstly, in this advertisements we can actually see the hair before it gets removed by the product in question. Secondly, basically all advertisements for men appear to be concerned with facial hair, not body hair. This suggests that body hair isn't even a issue with men, whereas with women it is. It  also clearly shows a contrast between the beauty standards for men and women.

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