Unshaved : resistance and revolution in women's body hair politics / Breanne Fahs.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fahs, Breanne, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Body hair.

Beauty, Personal.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (309 pages)

Place of Publication:

Seattle, Washington State : University of Washington Press, [2022]

Summary:

"Body hair occupies a fascinating place between the seemingly trivial and mundane, and deeply entrenched views about gender, identity, beauty, and social norms. Unshaved: Resistance and Revolution in Women's Body Hair Politics looks at the politics of hair, how it moves from a personal grooming choice to something with wide resonance in the cultural politics of reproductive rights, feminist battlegrounds, and tensions about women's "place" in society. Popularly emerging in the United States in the 1920s and becoming a compulsory practice by the late 1950s, women's body hair removal came to signify gendered expectations surrounding desirability and adult womanhood. For Fahs, body hair removal is the ultimate example of "the personal is political," as the everyday practices of women's lives intersect with stories about entitlement to women's bodies, corporate/capitalist intrusions onto the body, liberal versus radical feminist battles over bodily autonomy, and tensions about who controls bodily choices. Fahs examines resistance to body hair norms and the deeply entrenched feelings people have about body hair, incorporating historical materials and qualitative interviews to question the assumptions we make about "normal" bodies, talk about oppression, social identity, patriarchy, biopolitics, and power. Throughout, Unshaved interrogates the meanings attached to hair, the reproduction of gendered social norms, and the everyday workings of corporeal resistance"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: revolting bodies or bodies in revolt?

Part one. Revolting bodies

Hairy subjects: imagining versus experiencing body hair rebellion

Body hair battlegrounds: the consequences, reverberations, and promises of women growing their leg, pubic, and underarm hair

Part two. Art and activism

Hairy, not so scary: situating body hair zines and drawings as activism

Expanding the body hair imaginary: photography as social intervention

China's armpit hair contest: body hair resistance as global contagion

Part three. Body hair rebels

Growing a thicker skin: emotional qualities of body hair with women who openly defy body hair norms

"The only opinion that matters is my own": the social regulation of women's body hair

"In the revolution, we will all be hairy": smashing norms, reclaiming feminism, and redrawing the politics of body hair

Epilogue: they are going to be mad at us.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Fahs, Breanne Unshaved

ISBN:

9780295750293

OCLC:

1268545827