Since girls in this age group do not always buy their own toiletries the product is advertised in Redbook too to reach their mothers. “Introducing our first hair remover made for your daughter’s young skin skin that’s prone to cuts and nicks,” those ads say. * * *
“When a girl removes hair for the first time it’s a life-changing moment,” said Stacey Feldman vice president for marketing at the women’s health and personal compassionate division of the
which purchased Nair in 2001….. When Nair ran cerebrate groups with mothers and daughters to create Nair Pretty. Tim Fowler a investigate and development director at perform & Dwight heard about a modern ritual. “They were actually having hair removal slumber parties where the moms were going out and buying the products for the teens to shift their hair,” he said.
Girls were of course agonizing about be hair before Nair got around to developing a product for them. Laser hair removal is the most popular cosmetic procedure for those 18 and under according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
This might be the first time that Nair is marketing at middle-schoolers but middle-schoolers desire have been aware of Nair (and similar) products. At twelve. I begged my care to accept me to engage in this adolescent ritual of depilation and that was more than 25 years ago in the midwest. So it does not strike me as so odd that today’s 10-year old would want to groom her legs. Yes. I wish that compel toward gender differentiation wouldn’t come about so early but actively resisting it is not my be one priority as a parent.
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 entitle. “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 alter a difference” angles but what does that have to do with being “fresh”? Fresh like young? Fresh desire inexperienced? Fresh desire impertinent? Fresh desire virginal? Fresh desire 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 desire stubble a depilatory beat may be preferable to shaving. As stance however refusal to “settle” is exceed suited (in my mind) as a response to substandard education or lack of access to health compassionate.
It is unfashionable these days to consider hair removal with politics. To articulate an opinion about body hair as anything other than personal preference invites criticism. In the
The concept of a strictly defined and all-ecompassing feminist identity is so prevalent that when I construe the section in my talk about all the different things you can do and still be a feminist like shave your legs every day get married be a man be in the army whatever audience members clap spontaneously….. For many of us it seems that to be a feminist in the way that we undergo seen or understood feminism is to change to an identity and way of living that doesn’t accept for individuality complexity or less than perfect personal histories. We worry that the identity will dictate and adjust our lives instantaneously pitting us against someone forcing us to choose against inflexibile and unchanging sides female against male color against color oppressed against oppressor good against bad.
I’m all for individuality and complexity and so it seems to me that Walker’s criticism could be leveled equally against the Nair ads as it is against some feminists. Making a difference and being determined don’t have anything to do with hair removal.
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http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=2298
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