Leí este libro por curiosidad. Los temas de género me atraen mucho recientemente, y siendo un libro breve, decidí darle una oportunidad. Lo más valioso para mí son los datos duros que presenta el libro, y que sustentan una serie de reflexiones que no son nuevas, pero que están bien presentadas y organizadas en este texto, que explora un tema eminentemente femenino, pero que nos muestra, con una honestidad que hay que agradecer a la autora, el impacto avasallador de un mundo construido desde el patriarcado, aún en las mujeres que más se oponen a este.

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Manifesto for Hair
Review of the Polity Press Kindle eBook edition (February 2022) translated by [a:Laura McGloughlin|3432041|Laura McGloughlin|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] from the Catalan language original [b:A contrapelo. O por qué romper el círculo de depilación, sumisión y autoodio|55837703|A contrapelo. O por qué romper el círculo de depilación, sumisión y autoodio|Bel Olid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1604342275l/55837703._SY75_.jpg|87055711] (Against the Grain: Or Why Break the Cycle of Hair Removal, Submission and Self-Hatred) (November 2020)

I was so impressed with the variety in Bel Olid's collection of short stories [b:Wilder Winds|59473034|Wilder Winds|Bel Olid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1635448896l/59473034._SY75_.jpg|49638244] (orig 2016/translation Jan 2022) that I immediately looked for further translations of her work. I found it in Hairless, which is also a translation by Laura McGloughlin. This later work though is non-fiction and is Olid's essay about the social norms and perceptions that drive the hair removal industry for women. It was fascinating to read about how these views change over time especially from earlier centuries when female bodies were more covered and how peer pressure (often driven by forces such as the cosmetics and 'beauty' industry) can manipulate reactions and practices.

But the long-term effects on the self-esteem of future women are clear: we are teaching girls to give way to the autocracy of society’s control of their bodies, to reject their bodies as they are and modify them (even through painful procedures) in order to conform to an increasingly inflexible norm and submit to the tyranny of external ‘desirability’. Because, if indeed, among the ‘body police’, there are boys and girls, women and men, this police always argues in favour of the male gaze and appoints the heterosexual man as a judge of what is desirable: ‘no one will want you with that hair’ (assuming that ‘no one’ equates to ‘no real man’).

Regardless of sexual orientation, showing body hair publicly is a kind of neon billboard saying ‘I don’t follow the gender norm of hair removal’, and any derailment in gender expression breaks the mirage of heterosexuality by default. For that reason, the supposed choice between shaving or not is never innocent. Not doing so places you on the side of the rebels.

Obviously this is completely outside of my bailiwick, but the entire essay was food for thought about these issues, esp. the creepy and somewhat pedophilia-implied inference that a desire for hairlessness is a return to prepubescence.

It’s fascinating that the hairless body, the fruit of a social mechanism such as hair removal, is considered a sign of innate femininity. It would be logical for body hair, which separates the girl from the woman, to be considered intrinsically feminine (and even sexy). However, we’ve reached the point where it’s the contrary. And I find that deeply worrying.

Un ensayo super cortito que me encantou e me fixo reflexionar un montón. Me dou máis motivos para odiar ao patriarcado. Ten citas que me impactaron, como as seguintes:

La primera vez que te depilas es un rito de paso: reconoces que dejas atrás la infancia y aceptas que has llegado a la edad que puedes ser considerada objeto de deseo.

A la vez que sexualizamos a las niñas avanzando la edad en la que se les exige el uso de sujetadores y la depilación, infantilizamos a las adultas, haciendo desaparecer una de las señales inequívocas que indica que ya no eres prepuber: el vello púbico.

Eliminar todo el vello corporal de las mujeres y exigirles vulvas de niña, contribuye a borrar la frontera de la pubertad como límite socialmente inviolable que los adultos no pueden sobrepasar a la hora de tener relaciones sexuales.

Decir que la depilación es una opción personal, que lo hacemos libremente y que nadie tiene que meterse en eso, puede darnos una cierta sensación de libertad. Pero nos estamos engañando a nosotras mismas. Sería una decisión personal sin transcendencia si las consecuencias que comportara hacerlo o no hacerlo fuesen equivalentes. Cuando depilarse tiene premio social y no depilarse atrae el castigo, la decisión deja de ser inocente y pasa a ser política.

La idea de que las mujeres tienen que estar siempre guapas tiene que ver con la disponibilidad sexual permanente. Como objetos de deseo, tienen que estar a punto por si algún hombre las mira.

A short but effective look at why women shave, and whether it really is "because we want to." Coming in at just over 60 pages, Olid describes her own increasingly hairy journey while also looking at the pressures that encourage femme-presenting people to go hairless. She points out the high creep factor involved in regularly removing an adult feature in order to appear simultaneously more sexy and more child-like. She needles the double-standards (although too-hairy men are also subjected to ridicule and pressure of their own), and reminds the reader that all femme-folk do not face the same smooth-skin expectations. Olid discusses the calculations involved, pointing out that if one decides to remain hairy, one can avoid most ridicule if one follows every other feminine practice and/or is already extremely conventionally attractive.

A lot of what she writes resonated with me, since during the pandemic and recently 40, I tried to answer the question of why I was bothering to shave my legs. I could come up with no satisfactory answer other than I always had, and it was permanently lodged in my brain as a thing that made you look better/neater/cleaner. But it's no healthier, and ultimately for many of us: will anyone die if we are not "pretty?" The answer is (usually) no, and for those of us not immediately at risk for presenting as less conventionally feminine, we can help move the needle by embracing a range of hair displays.

Translated from Catalan.