Keeping A Leg Up On Hair Battle Against Bristle Is Relentless, Painful Sacrifice To Fashion

There is a war waging in the United States: not a war on crime, drugs or poverty, but a war on hair.

For generations now, women in our culture have devoted large amounts of time, effort and money pursuing sleek, smooth legs and hairless bodies. The reason? We follow a long-lived fashion trend.

Sadly, our society dictates that women are more beautiful and thus acceptable in an unnatural state: wearing masks of makeup, crowns of tresses coiffed to the nines, yet bodies free of hair. In this quest for physical attractiveness, it remains essential that women’s legs appear not only thin, shapely and free of cellulite, but hair-free as well.

Regularly, women troop by the millions to local drugstores, corner beauty parlors and posh urban salons. Our purpose? We seek weapons to assist in this relentless battle. In fact, inside women’s medicine cabinets and under vanities, one may discover an arsenal. As the bathing-suit season comes to a close, I wonder if I am beginning to look a bit bedraggled - after all, I have been consistently fighting this war during these warm summer months.

I find it amazing the lengths women go to in order to become free of body hair. It seems we will undergo anything to get rid of it or give the illusion that it is not there - with little regard to the time, expense or pain involved. For example, during their high school years, both my mother and grandmother rubbed extra fine-grit sandpaper up and down their legs in order to remove hair.

In more recent days, we may pluck, bleach, shave or wax it. A friend of mine uses toxic depilatory creams. “Yeah, I get a rash and chemical burns,” she admits, “but there is no better way to deal with my bikini area.” Meanwhile, other women spend countless hours receiving costly electrolysis treatments. Is there no limit to what women will endure?

Recently frustrated by hair removal, I opted to try Torture-a-Lady (not its real name). This hand-held device has a rotating head that grips numerous hair strands by the roots and tears them out in clumps. As a result, this left a scene on my legs similar to a clear-cut area in a forest. In this battle, no pain means no gain.

It remains evident there are many choices of artillery in this war on hair. Unfortunately, not one is entirely quick, inexpensive and without some discomfort involved.

I question why women succumb to these societal standards of beauty. What is wrong with hair? Hair insulates. Hair protects. Hair is … natural.

At times I fantasize about raising a white flag and yelling, “I surrender! I give up on this war on hair!” I would stop shaving and run away to Europe, to another culture where the more natural state of women’s body hair is accepted. I would wear Birkenstock sandals 365 days a year, quit wearing makeup, and “go granola.”

In truth, I am not one to be squeamish and give up easily, and I don’t want to move. I will continue to join the ranks of other brave females and keep striving against this persistent enemy.

Our troops will stand united and proud of how we are serving our country: keeping America’s women’s legs and bodies free of unsightly, unwanted hair. We will do this with a spirit of patriotism and duty to country. We will even fight without concern to hurting ourselves.

Then again, perhaps someday the tide of fashion will turn and American women will quit fighting this war. Until that time, I look forward to the end of these summer months. I anticipate the approaching cooler weather when I can relax a bit in this battle, hang up my razor, and concentrate on what I consider to be the more important things in life.

MEMO: Jennifer Harris Bauman is a registered nurse and free-lance writer based in Spokane.