My daughter has that lovely sort of tawny-colored hair that goes blond after prolonged exposure to sun and chlorine. And despite my best efforts to slather her with sunscreen all summer long, her skin is currently quite tan. This confluence of events resulted in a horrified shriek from the backseat of my car one day a couple of weeks ago -- my 9-year-old had realized that she had hair on her legs. "Mom!" she screeched, "I'm all... hairy!"
For the record, she is not overly hairy by any stretch of the imagination. (Yet. I should probably apologize in advance for what lurks within her gene pool.) But blond hair against brown skin is more noticeable than her usual combination, I suppose.
I responded as best I could, telling her that everyone has hair on their legs and she is no hairier than normal. She seemed unconvinced, and asked how old she'd need to be to start shaving. I said we'd discuss it when she gets to middle school, and she nodded and seemed satisfied.
I'd forgotten about it, really, until I heard that Nair is now marketing to girls as young as 10. Have you heard about this? The insipidly-named "Nair Pretty" is for "first-time hair removers," and that apparently extends to girls still in elementary school.
Feministe wonders if anyone really believes kids are this dumb:
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?
Bridget Crawford at Feminist Law Professors points out that girls that young being interested in hair removal is hardly new, but she finds the Nair Pretty advertising language troublesome:
What surprises (and disturbs) me about the Nair ads is that consumerism is being packaged as self-love and self-determination. In addition to the “I am a dreamer” text quoted in the New York Times article above, the ads also proclaim, “I am pretty. I am determined. I am going to make a difference. I am unique. I am fresh. I am not going to settle for sandpaper skin. I am who I am. I am unstoppable. I am pretty.”
I like the “determined” and “going to make a difference” angles, but what does that have to do with being “fresh”? Fresh like young? Fresh like inexperienced? Fresh like impertinent? Fresh like virginal? Fresh like a baby, not the adolescent girl with thickening leg hair? I like the image of a great nation of girls proclaiming, “I am unstoppable.” But you can be unstoppable — at any age — and have hairy legs. And what precisely is the injustice implied by “settling” for “sandpaper skin?” If a girl or woman doesn’t like stubble, a depilatory cream may be preferable to shaving. As stance, however, refusal to “settle” is better suited (in my mind) as a response to substandard education or lack of access to health care.
[...]
Making a difference and being determined don’t have anything to do with hair removal.
Feministing is also zeroing in on the language of the campaign, though in this case first we have a bit of light-hearted fun-poking:
The Nair Pretty marketing scheme is half hilarious, half terrifying. Hilarious because of the obvious attempt to speak to young people in contrived slang:
It's not that you're obsessed or anything but maybe you've noticed that the hair on your legs (and other parts of your body) is just a little bit thicker and darker than before. Chill. You're growing up...it's all good.
I almost expected the next line to be about "getting jiggy" with hair removal.
This is immediately followed by a much more serious observation:
But it's still terrifying because the message of Nair Pretty is that you can't be pretty unless you're taking care of that unsightly leg (and everywhere else) hair.
Oh, right. That.
Sarah Et Cetera muses that it's not the hair removal itself at issue, here:
Those tweens and teens, the logic seems to say, should be outside playing games or at least not inside worrying about their leg and pit hair! And they sure as hell shouldn’t be reading magazines and associating hairlessness with prettiness.
[...] I can give on the last one easily– the advertising itself is disgusting. You don’t have to be selectively hairless to be pretty. And I can pretty well give on the second one, because yes, girls aged 10 should spend the majority of their time running around outside. But to say that they shouldn’t want to shave their legs, or that it’s not significant for them to come up on the age where they start shaving their legs is wrong-headed. Is it significant for a young man the first time he shaves his face? They why would it be any less significant for a girl the first time she shaves her legs.
[...]
Is it wrong for 10 year olds to use Nair, especially if Mom goes out and helps her buy it with her own allowance. No. No, no, double no, and don’t forget to moisturize. And don’t forget to talk about how pretty’s on the inside, even if smooth legs do feel really good.
I find Sarah's take really refreshing, because -- like her -- I can remember wanting to shave my legs at a younger age than my mother felt was appropriate. So as horrified as I am at the notion of little girls using hair removers, yes, let's remember that it's not the hair removal itself at issue here, but why and how we talk to our daughters about it.
DearSugar is running a reader poll on whether Nair Pretty is a good idea or a bad one, and I was surprised to see (with around 450 votes when I last checked) that "bad idea" is out in front, but not overwhelmingly so.
I have just two last thoughts to leave you with on this issue.
First, I've not seen any discussion out there about the fact that depilatories are made with harsh chemicals. I suppose slathering on something that smells like kiwi is preferable to your kid nicking an artery, but honestly, these are toxic substances we're discussing, even if they do smell like fruits or flowers. Hair aside, I'm not sure I want this stuff touching my kid.
Second, my daughter wandered into my office while I was reading the above-referenced pieces and asked me what I was writing about. I went ahead and gave her the summary version: There's a company that makes a hair remover and they're making it specifically for girls about her age. What did she think of that?
"That's really dumb," she declared, in all of her 9-and-a-half-year-old wisdom, "I'm not old enough to be worrying about shaving yet! I'm just a kid!"
And then I bought her a pony. (Okay, maybe not. But I sure as heck didn't buy her any Nair Pretty.)
Contributing Editor Mir also blogs about issues parental and otherwise at Woulda Coulda Shoulda and Cornered Office, as well as sharing the joys of mindful retail therapy at Want Not.
Comments
This was a fun take on a serious issue
By: Kim Pearson Posted: 33 weeks 6 days agoI loved this post, Mir.
And yes, i can remember being fascinated with the idea of shaving and all sorts of "adult" things -- usually when I was reading a Beverly Cleary novel about teen life, or what I now recognize as a corporate marketing brochure disguised as a girl's magazine that talked about how you needed Knox gelatin to have strong nails. I learned about cuticles from reading one of those things -- I think it was a supplement to My Weekly Reader -- while sitting at My Little Hostess Buffet and waiting for my friends to come over to play Mystery Date.
Then I'd go outside to ride bikes, dig my way to China and wrestle with boys.
And with all of that programming, I turned out to be an extremely ungirly girl. Except for when I'm not.
It's up to us adults to let kids be kids. They'll sort themselves out in due time. Shame on Nair. I hope this product bombs.
Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|
Sigh
By: Erin Kotecki Vest Posted: 33 weeks 6 days agoMy daughter is only two and a half, and this post is making me shake my head and plan.
WHHHHY doesn't anyone at Nair stop and THINK for 1 second? Just one! Even IF there is some school girl who's mother sees fit to let her use this, or has some crazy hair problem that needs to be taken care of...WHY must they market this? WHHHHHY.
Ok. I know why. Money. But common sense HAS to kick in somewhere? Right? Right??? They are telling my daughter at such a young age she can be everything things she wants to be, so long as she's NOT HAIRY? Really?
I'm crying. I swear. I'm so tired of trying to protect, and my kids are still babies.
Politics & News Contributing Editor
Queen of Spain
I have never wanted to shave my legs, so what?
By: Susanne Fritz Posted: 33 weeks 5 days agoI grew up a feminist. In Germany. Until recently only very, very few women in Germany shaved their legs (or anything else by the way). In recent years there has been massive advertising and the result is that nowadays not only young women shave their legs, I have heard that young men do it too.
I won't go so far to say that shaving your legs is anti-feminist but is hairy really that ugly?
creative.mother.thinking
What are they thinking?
By: lightspring Posted: 33 weeks 5 days agoI know 10 is just a couple of years away from 12, which is again just a couple of years away from full teenagerhood, and perhaps that's the thinking here (extending ever downward the line of demarcation between child and not-child), but what gives? Why are we as a society (which to my mind is reflected in advertising and the media, not the other way around) so quick to have our children grow up? I see it in the clothes that's in most stores aimed at tweens. It's in TV advertising aimed at kids. And kids watch shows intended for or based on older characters: my 7-year old tells me that most of the girls in her class watch "Hannah Montana", something she doesn't understand since the show is aimed at teenagers (isn't it?).
When I was 11 I was suddenly confronted with puberty going on around me since I was in the 7th grade with a bunch of girls a year older than me. A year or two later when I asked my mom about shaving the little blonde hairs on my legs, she darkly hinted that I'd have to do it "the rest of [my] life", that "once you start you can't stop." Naturally, that was a hypnotic siren's call to someone who wanted to be a little older than she was simply to fit in.
But again, that's 12 and not 10.
And the notion that you can't be whole unless you shave your legs is, well, ludicrous. But isn't advertising for adults skewed that way also? So we're applying adult principles (that we're, if not okay with, at least used to?) to children, and therein lies the problem, I think.
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First, I've not seen any
By: kperfetto Posted: 33 weeks 5 days agoFirst, I've not seen any discussion out there about the fact that depilatories are made with harsh chemicals. I suppose slathering on something that smells like kiwi is preferable to your kid nicking an artery, but honestly, these are toxic substances we're discussing, even if they do smell like fruits or flowers. Hair aside, I'm not sure I want this stuff touching my kid.
Agreed. I don't know if it's changed much in the nearly twenty years since I've tried it, but that stuff is awful. I cant imagine depilatories being marketed to 10-year-olds. Maybe I'm fairly naive, given I don't have kids, but yikes -- I was still in the climbing tress stage at ten. I'm not sure I even knew legs were supposed to be smooth and hair-free.
By junior high I had to succumb to peer pressure or deal with the taunts of "hairy-legged Italian,' so I totally understand (especially as a girl with very dark hair and very light skin) wanting to fit in and look feminine. But ten?
Available Light & Five Dollar Radio
wanting to fit in and look
By: lady_bugged Posted: 33 weeks 5 days agowanting to fit in and look feminine.
But whoever said hair isn't feminine? How is something that occurs naturally as you leave girlhood and actually become a woman not a sign of femininity?
I suppose it's all a matter of perspective
By: lady_bugged Posted: 33 weeks 5 days agoThe biggest problem I have with this sort of ad campaign, is that it's telling young girls that they aren't pretty unless they change themselves.
As far as I'm concerned, before anyone starts shaving, they should be given all the facts regarding it. Including why women started to shave, and why it was only over here in North America that they did, at least until the rest of the world decided they wanted to be carbon copies of america.
The thing is, women started shaving because the laws changed and grown men couldn't wed prepubescent, eleven, twelve, whatever year old girls anymore. But hey - these grown up women they were stuck with weren't as pretty and smooth and fragile as those little girls, so what do women do? Instead of saying "live with it" they go, "well, I'll make myself look like a little girl so he'll be attracted to me." What is up with that?
And while perhaps guys today don't connect it consciously, subconsciously it does trigger. What kind of adult women is naturally hairless? None, unless you're suffering from some sort of follicle-losing condition.
Men have been living with and finding themselves attracted to hairy women for thousands of years. What's wrong with it now? It's not because it's unclean - if you learn proper hygiene, you're good to go, and if it were do to uncleanliness, then why aren't men shaving their pits, legs, and wherever else as well?
European women have only just recently started shaving because they want to be like those American women, la dee dah. But even ten years ago, it was still normal for someone overseas to be fine with hairy femeninity. It's not like some hair under your arms makes you less of a women. In fact - it makes you more of one.
So what message are we giving to the young girls out there?
"Boys will only think you're attractive if you look like you've never grown up. That way they can be the big, strong, man, and protect you from the big, wide, scary world. You're just a girl, after all. You have no true strength to speak of. Just shut up, and let us take care of you."
and this is why...
By: Mir Kamin Posted: 33 weeks 5 days ago... even as I acknowledge that shaving is important to me (not important like, say, food and healthcare, but something that I appreciate having the freedom to do) and something which I wouldn't want to withhold from my daughter if she chooses it, at puberty or beyond, things like this turn my stomach. It's such a slippery slope. And if we allow this sort of marketing -- to minors, no less, because really so much of advertising is predicated on the notion that women must fit a certain norm or be doomed -- where do we draw the line? How do we draw the line?
--
Mir from WCS
(BlogHer Mommy & Family contributing editor)
Personal: Woulda Coulda Shoulda
Having it all with less: Want Not
But whoever said hair isn't
By: kperfetto Posted: 33 weeks 5 days agoBut whoever said hair isn't feminine?
As much as I'd like that to change, it isn't going to any time soon. Even the best parents in the world can't control what their daughters see or hear 24/7.
For what it's worth. I rarely shave now unless a large portion of my legs are showing and it's advisable that I do shave. I'm sorry, but sometimes I don't want my leg hair to be a political issue.
Available Light & Five Dollar Radio
My middle-schooler's
By: Liz Thompson Posted: 33 weeks 1 day agoMy middle-schooler's classmates have said it:
"Ew...what's up with all that hair on your legs!?!?"
And they were only 10, at the time!
Unfortunately, they were right - the girl's got my genes, after all - and I was one of "those mothers" who shocked the heck out of the rest of the PTA for teaching my 10-year-old daughter to shave her legs, with a razor...even.
Look, this is really a great post and a conversation that's been going on in my house (and my blog) for quite a long time. As it should. I want my girls to be comfortable in their skin. Hairy, or no.
Unfortunately, companies are too quick to make a buck on our insecurities and I don't agree with marketing products (like, hair removal or any other body-altering product) directly to children - shaving legs is not a decision I want a 10-year-old to consider, on their own - that's my job (as a parent) and I've got the gray hairs to prove it!
My European relatives, not so much.
--------------------------------------------
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This Full House of Product Reviews
Imperfect Parent
I have the joy of coming
By: sarcasticjournalist Posted: 6 weeks 5 days agoI have the joy of coming from a very hairy family. When I was about 8 or so, family members and friends (all young ones) started pointing out my "hairy legs." My favorite? Calling them "roach legs."
I shaved when I was 10 without telling my mom. My best friend, at that point, had also been shaving for awhile.
Some of the, ahem, hairier kids may want to shave at this point and I feel for them. It is just that we need to work on these "beauty" issues as a whole...if every kid on the bus is making fun of her legs and a magazne will tell her she's "pretty" if she shaves...she's going to be pretty tempted. At that age, I wanted nothing more than to fit in.
I will say this: If these girls do decide to use Nair, their parents need to make sure they are advised on how to do so properly. I managed to use it in high school not long after waxing (couldn't get the hair off that way) and ended up with a really nice chemical burn on my stomach.
Rachel, AKA Sarcastic Journalist, now hanging at The Simple Family.