To Shave or Not to Shave: Armpit Hair and How We’re Brainwashed

Let’s talk about armpits. Specifically, let’s talk about why women shave their armpit hair into (temporary) oblivion. And by “talking”, I actually mean “let’s think about this”.

150 years ago, women wore high-necked, long-sleeved, corseted dresses with masses of petticoats, and never dared to expose an ankle, lest they ruin their delicate reputations. There was no point in shaving anything, anywhere, during a time in which many men probably never saw their wives completely naked at any point.

100 years ago things had loosened up a bit, and ankles and arms started to see the light of day. As an aside, this alarmed a segment of society that was certain that those exposed ankles and arms were an affront to decent society and things were going to hell in a handbasket. Every new generation does this to the older generation of course, and will continue to do so long after we’re all gone. So keep on twerking kiddos, because it won’t cause society to collapse, whatever people my age might say.

Anyway. The change in the dress code created a bright idea in the head of a fervent capitalist named King Camp Gillette. Yes, that Gillete, and yes, I know you know where this is going. With a huge and prolonged advertising campaign, our savvy businessman created the illusion of “need” in the minds of millions of women. They needed to shave their armpits in order to be beautiful, pure, and attractive to men. While it would take decades longer before women saw the need to shave their legs, thanks to the idea that stockings were necessary, armpit hair faced its final days in the sunlight, and Gillette became very, very wealthy.

Fast forward to the present day and the prevalent attitude is that armpit hair is gross. Like, totally disgusting. New York Magazine more than adequately covered the topic in an article titled, “Why Are We Grossed Out by Women With Armpit Hair?” The answer appears to be for no really apparent very good reason, but like so many other things it might be about sex.

So, shaving our armpits isn’t something we’ve always done, and there’s no health or hygiene reason for the practice. The bottom line is that we’ve been brainwashed our entire lives to believe armpit hair is disgusting. Of course, we recoil at the idea that we’ve been brainwashed, so let’s use a better term: social conditioning.

Wikipedia states that:

“Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society.”

Any woman who survived the locker rooms of middle school and high school can attest that the approval of peer groups is important to well-being, and even if we never gain that approval, we will mimic the behaviors that could potentially gain us that approval. In other words, if the popular girl next to you says something like, “Oh my god, why don’t you shave? That’s gross,” you’re going to go home and shave. Trust me on this. Even if your mother doesn’t think you need to shave yet and won’t buy you a razor, you’re going to “borrow” hers. (Was that just me?) Some girls had mothers who taught them to shave as a matter of course — they were passing on what they were taught as young girls. I envied them.

This is how social conditioning works. You never had a choice. You are supposed to shave your armpits and you are supposed to believe that women who don’t are gross because razor manufacturers wanted to make a lot more money a hundred years ago. It worked.

It worked so beautifully that even intellectually knowing full well I’m the victim of unnecessary social conditioning, I still shave my armpits. Even though I fully support women who don’t shave, I still take a second look and have to tell myself exactly why it isn’t gross. Luckily, there’s a growing movement of young women who are ditching their razors and posting their pictorial fuck-you's to society all over social media. I applaud them. Seriously, this deserves a standing ovation.

Plenty of research over the years has shown that we’re fairly good at recognizing how peer pressure and society influences the choices that other people make, but we basically suck at recognizing the same thing in ourselves. Things like fashion trends, car styles, and hair styles clearly go in and out of style, but most people follow them in some fashion, and disregard the existence of a whole slew of cognitive biases.

Basically, we don’t take the time or make the effort to question our own behavior and beliefs. Does it really matter when it comes to shaving your armpits? No. No, it doesn’t. Armpit hair, or lack thereof, hurts no one.

But, think about it in another way and you might start to see how that kind of thinking can indeed be hurtful. If you can recognize that your reaction to armpit hair was conditioned into your brain and you never had a chance to objectively judge for yourself, what other conditioning might you have been subjected to, and, most importantly, what beliefs do you hold that are the result of conditioning?

The idea amongst old farts of every generation that “things have always been done that way” is just plain wrong. Nothing is the same as it always was, going back to the beginning of human history. Times always change. Women stopped wearing hats and gloves every time they left home. But it’s often even harder to face the origins of our opinions and beliefs than it is to stare at an armpit full of hair. The important questions to ask yourself are these:

Who profits from our opinions? Does it matter?

Think about it.

If you enjoy thinking about thinking, you might enjoy some of my other articles.