Plucked: A History of Hair Removal

297 Pages·2015·3.622 MB·English

by  Herzig, Rebecca M

PLUCKED
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P L U C K E D
A History of Hair Removal
REBECCA M. HERZIG
a
new york university pressS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2015 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that
may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Herzig, Rebecca M., 1971-
Plucked : a history of hair removal / Rebecca M. Herzig.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4798-4082-3 (hardback)
1. Hair—Removal—United States—History. 2. Hair—Social aspects—United
States—History. 3. Body hair—Social aspects—United States—History. 4. Human
body—Social aspects—United States—History. I. Title.
RL92.H49 2015
617.4’779—dc23
2014027535
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Also available as an ebook
For Jill Hopkins Herzig
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Contents
Introduction: Necessary Suffering 1
1. The Hairless Indian:
Savagery and Civility before the Civil War 19
2. “Chemicals of the Toilette”:
From Homemade Remedies to a New Industrial Order 35
3. Bearded Women and Dog-Faced Men:
Darwin’s Great Denudation 55
4. “Smooth, White, Velvety Skin”:
X-Ray Salons and Social Mobility 75
5. Glandular Trouble:
Sex Hormones and Deviant Hair Growth 99
6. Unshaven:
“Arm-Pit Feminists” and Women’s Liberation 115
7. “Cleaning the Basement”:
Labor, Pornography, and Brazilian Waxing 135
8. Magic Bullets:
Laser Regulation and Elective Medicine 153
9. “The Next Frontier”:
Genetic Enhancement and the End of Hair 171
Conclusion: We Are All Plucked 187
Acknowledgments 193
Notes 199
Index 275
About the Author 287
vii
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INTRODUCTION:
NECESSARY SUFFERING
in the closing months of 2006, representatives of the Interna-
tional Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) traveled to the intern-
ment facility at Guantánamo Bay run by the U.S. Department of
Defense. There, the representatives conducted private interviews
with fourteen “high value” detainees held in custody by the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in accordance with the ICRC’s
legal obligation to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conven-
tions. Their resulting forty-page report on detainee treatment, sent
to the acting general counsel of the CIA in February 2007, con-
cluded that the “totality of circumstances” in which the detainees
were held “amounted to an arbitrary deprivation of liberty.” Other
aspects of the detention program “constituted cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment,” while “in many cases” the combined treat-
ments to which the detainees were subjected “constituted torture.”1
The report devoted a separate discussion to each of the “main el-
ements” of detainee abuse, including beating and kicking, pro-
longed shackling, confinement in a box, and deprivation of food.
Listed among these elements of abuse was another category: hair
removal—or, as the report’s authors termed it, “forced shaving” (fig-
ure I.1). The report explained how the heads and beards of at least
two of the fourteen detainees were shaved clean but for a few, ir-
regular patches of hair, deliberately left to create an “undignified,”
humiliating appearance.2 Other descriptions of detainee treatment
outlined similar practices. A 2005 feature story in Time maga-
1