Body hair removal has been embedded in our culture for centuries. While eyebrow threading originated from eastern cultures within India and Iran, the process of getting rid of body hair was not about hiding your hairiness but celebrating it. In traditional Iranain culture women were gifted with hair removal before their wedding day in a ceremony called “band andazi”. Similar to a bachelorette party, the bride's closest female friends and family would gather for a day of pampering and celebration, with eyebrow shaping, waxing, plucking, music playing, dancing, and a feast of traditional sweets. The ceremonial eyebrow threading acts as a right of passage for a soon to be married bride, as she enters womanhood. This tradition however is not as common now for modern day Iranains as it was for their ancestors.  

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Another example of Persians celebrating body hair was during the nineteenth century, the Qajar king, Naser al-Din Shah would photograph his two daughters, Princess Fatemah Khanum and her half-sister, Princess Zahra Khanum, who sported moustaches and thick eyebrows. The King considered his two daughters the beauty standards and declared Persian Society to think the same. Facial body hair became extremely desirable and “a sign of beauty” according to Iranian historian and author of Women With Mustaches and Men Without Beards, Dr. Afsaneh Najmabadi. Meanwhile across the globe in England, author Rebecca Herzig, who wrote Plucked: A history of hair removal, revealed that “Charles Darwin used body hair to imply that hairier races were inferior and more likely to be violent.”

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Modern day Iranain body hair and beauty standards are vastly different to its Persian predecessors, what was once a celebration of youth and beauty is now, like most of the world's ideologies of beauty, seen as “unattractive” and “dirty.” The majority of the postcolonial world now follow a westernised beauty standard and idolise eurocentric features. Although never directly colonised, Iranian women still participate in this eurocentric image of beauty, with many women paying thousands for laser treatments yearly, dying their hair bleach blond and dreaming of getting a rhinoplasty from the day they hit 18. In an interview with i-D, Naz Riahi, an Iranian-American writer and filmmaker suggests "Our discomfort with the body hair, especially that of black and brown women is not just influenced by patriarchy but is also a remnant of colonialism, a system in which we were taught that fairness, lightness, whiteness and all that comes with it—blue eyes, blonde hair, less body hair—is more beautiful, appealing, better." Of course there are other standards of beauty pocketed around Iran and even Europe, but when looking at the global picture, eurocentric standards of beauty and “Whiteness” dominate. Although waxing your body hair may seem like an unproblematic beauty regime, these standards are not only skin deep. The eurocentric standards of beauty and “Whiteness” is not just about governing standards of skin colour, or removing body hair, but it's also about endorsing superiority over others. The normalisation of these standards have othered those who don’t fit into this category of beauty, making them feel inferior and as though they need to alter their appearance to fit in. 

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Simultaneously the media encourages the demand for hairless women, to feed the pockets of the beauty industry; selling at home waxing kits, razors separate for men and women, tweezers, laser hair removal technology and more.  

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Another factor that exacerbates the need for women to have hairless bodies is society's infantilization of femininity. Author of Foucault, femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power, Sandra Lee Bartky states, “women in contemporary Western patriarchy must try to assume the body of early adolescence, slight and unformed, a body lacking flesh or substance. The requirement that a woman maintain a smooth and hairless skin carries further the theme of inexperience, for an infantilized face must accompany her infantilized body.” Society's obsession with the ageing of women and “keeping young” plays into the infantilization of femininity, due to the fact that the removal of pubic, armpit, arm and leg hair are all imitations of a prepubescent girl. Body hair is a marker of womanhood, but society refuses to accept the beauty of the natural female body, instead creating this narrative that body hair is “anti feminine” and “undesirable.” Author of The Hairless Norm, Marika Tiggemann suggests “hairlessness and sexiness...is entirely artificial, as sexual maturity is signaled by the presence, not absence, of pubic hair” A smooth hairless body shouldnt equate to “womanly,” instead allude  to “childlike,” these proposals of feminity can become very problematic when compared to traits of masculinity. 

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The regulation of body hair has triggered women to reconsider the harsh policing of the society they were brought up in. Pop idols such as Willow Smith, Mylie Cyrus, Grimes and Madonna have all participated in the movement to grow out their body hair, in particular armpit hair. Yet this is not a new phenomenon, feminists of the 60’s and 70’s displayed their unshaved armpit hair and facial hair as a form of protest against the restrictive beauty standards they faced at the time. While this is all a step forward in the direction of liberation, Fariha Roisin, a queer Muslim writer debates whether it is a white womans battle to fight, she states in a conversation with i-D, "White women not removing body hair is quite laughable to me. White women don't have the history, or the baggage of growing up with visible body hair, so their announcement of it, or political positionality of it, seems insincere. Many brown folks, including me, were bullied growing up for being too hairy. When there's no history of subjugation or even cultural abuse, it seems premature to align yourself with something that essentially has no consequence for you, irrespective of how vocal you are with it." 

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Whether one chooses to side with this debate, a role model you can certainly subscribe to for her authenticity, and ability to oppose society's beauty standards is Kurdish model, Deba. Growing up in the UK as a second-gen migrant came with its challenges, as she experienced bullying at school and felt unrepresented in the media. Despite the adversities she faced as a child, Deba became a strong-willed and free-spirited woman, she states in an interview with Dazed “I’m 5’5”, hairy as f*ck, I have a unibrow, and a lot to say.” By growing out her unibrow, Deba has opened up conversations around the traditional standards of beauty she was raised in, and her once-heavily-bullied unibrow evolved into a sign of hope and defiance for her and those who look up to her. As part of her goal to change the narratives of traditional beauty and serve as an example of diversity in the fashion industry, Deba continues to express to Dazed she hopes to “help young women of colour to love themselves in a society where beauty standards are still so backwards and non-inclusive. I want young girls to believe that they are the change for a more inclusive and safer world.” 

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Whether you decide to let your underarm hair grow out or only wax your top lip or a singular brow, or none at all, what it comes down to is choice and the ability to differentiate your standards of beauty from the policing of society's standards. Body hair is natural and therefore beautiful and feminine, it is yours and consequently you should be the only one to decide how you want to exhibit it.