Sexy, Smooth...Ten Year Olds?

Posted by Jill Filipovic at 1:00 PM on September 19, 2007.

This post, written by Jill Filipovic, originally appeared on Feministe

Well this officially ruined my day: Nair is marketing hair-removal products to ten-year-olds. And their ad campaign is all about how "empowerful" it is to have smooth legs when you're a pre-teen.

Their ad campaign is also really pathetic:

"I am a citizen of the world," reads the ad copy. "I am a dreamer. I am fresh. I am so not going to have stubs sticking out of my legs."

Um. I know ten-year-olds are ten and all, but do advertisers think that they're also illiterate and innately drawn to non-sequitors?

They're going after the mens, too, and "manscaping" is apparently in vogue. But somehow even that has gotten twisted in a woman's responsibility:

"We've done some studies where we've removed the hair on men's knuckles, and some of the men like it so much they keep doing it," Ms. Frankel said. "I wax my husband's knuckles every time I give him a manicure, and have for about five years."

Right after he gives you a pedicure. ...right?

Of course the article ends with the idea that a hairless body is "cleaner," which is, quite frankly, bullshit. I've written before on my semi-obsessive body hair removal in the past, and I did start shaving my legs well before I was a teenager -- mostly because, as I know many other dark-haired and olive-skinned women can attest, I felt like a hairy freak when the hair on my arms and legs was visible, while my lighter classmates, friends and family members (my mother and my sister are both fair and blonde) didn't seem to have any body hair at all. That fear of hair is subsiding slowly but surely, and a nice part of finally being a grown-up is that the body hair that so disturbed me when I was younger has thinned and lightened, so immediate and regular removal is less of an issue. But I remember being ten or eleven and totally horrified at my dark arm and leg hair. So I feel for the girls who are buying this crap. I don't feel for corporations that are exploiting their self-consciousness and trying to build a consumer base on self-hatred.

On women (and increasingly on men) lack of hair is directly associated with cleanliness and attractiveness. Hairiness is still pretty maligned -- and it's consistently used as an insult to feminists. It's sad enough that adult women are taught to despise their body hair. It's not helpful to push men in the same direction. And it's disgusting that we're raising girls to hate everything natural about themselves.

Tagged as: gender, women, marketing, body image, nair

Jill Filipovic is a New York-based freelance writer and a law student at NYU. More of her writing is available online at her blog, Feministe.