Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Sexuality and Culture, 2025 (ESCI, Scopus)
In most of today’s societies, it is so normative for women to remove their body hair that it is rarely questioned. Nevertheless, it is a beauty standard deeply entwined with the gendered social hierarchy. While body hair is often perceived as natural for men, women are typically expected to remain hairless from the neck down. This makes body hair removal a significant part of women’s lives, requiring considerable time, money, and effort. However, surprisingly, this issue has received little academic attention within the field of social psychology. To address this gap and encourage further inquiry, the primary purpose of this paper is to review studies on women’s body hair practices through the application of social psychological theories. With this aim, the prevalence and normativity of body hair removal among women were examined first. Subsequently, attitudes toward women’s body hair and how they differ from those toward men’s were approached. Afterward, the functions of the hairlessness norm were discussed, and terror management theory, objectification theory, and ambivalent sexism theory were applied to the issue. This is followed by a discussion of women’s lived experiences with body hair. Finally, recommendations for future research were provided.