Hairless

Razors, tweezers, wax and hair removal creams: these are the tools for the initiation rites that signal the passage from girl to woman. Today the only acceptable places for a woman to have hair are on her head (preferably long), her eyebrows (not too wild) and eyelashes (not too sparse). All kinds of cosmetics are sold to achieve the desired effect of localized luxuriance. At the same time, the industry of removing hair everywhere else on the body advances relentlessly. Hair is no longer a sign of joy but a battleground of cosmetic surgery.

In this short book, the Catalan writer Bel Olid draws on personal experience to dismantle preconceived ideas about the supposed benefits of waxing and shaving, and to lay bare the social penalties that are meted out to any woman who allows their body hair to grow. With clarity and courage, Bel Olid exposes the contradictions and hidden costs of hair removal, and issues a rousing call to women everywhere to set themselves free from the urge to please everyone else and to focus, instead, on what pleases them.

1 History of an Obsession 1

2 From Happiness to Shame 9

3 Is a Hairy Femininity Possible? 21

4 Because I Want To, Sure. But Why Do I Want To? 39

5 A Hairy Road to the Future 55

‘Insightful, ferociously feminist and always humane. I devoured this.’
Kerry Hudson, author of Lowborn: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain's Poorest Towns

‘This smart, funny, thought-provoking book tackles a serious social and political problem: once you start reading it, you won't want to put it down.’
Aurélie Vialette, Stony Brook University

‘Excellent, snappy treatise. Olid pulls off a masterful balance of academic erudition and accessible, crisp prose. Persuasive and thought-provoking, this brisk volume deserves a broad audience.’
Publisher's Weekly

“Olid’s account is thoughtful and thorough: through the prism of her own experience, she convincingly articulates the stakes of this ordinary predicament and makes a robust case for the centrality of body hair to interlocking forms of oppression, both real and symbolic.’
Times Literary Supplement

Bel Olid is a Catalan writer and translator who stopped trying to be the woman the world demands and started trying just... to be.