"L'idéal glabre : les femmes et leur pilosité". Étude sociologique,
U.S.A.Résumé par les auteurs : "A major component of "femininity" in the United States today is a hairless body, a norm that developed in the United States between 1915-1945. Little has been written regarding the development of this norm, and virtually no empirical research has been done to assess how universally ascribed to is this standard or why women actually remove their leg and underarm hair. More than 200 women from two national professional organizations responded to a mailed questionnaire (response rate 56%). The majority (around 80%) remove their leg and/or underarm hair at least occasionally. Two types of reasons for shaving emerged: feminine/attractiveness reasons and social/normative reasons. Most women start shaving for the latter reasons but continue to shave for the former reasons. Certain groups, however, were least likely to remove leg and/or underarm hair: strongly feminist women and selfidentified lesbians. The results of the study are discussed in terms of the fonction the hairlessness norm may serve in our culture."
"Femmes et pilosité : perceptions sociales et attitudes".
Étude de psychologie sociale expérimentale, U.S.A.Résumé par les auteurs : "This study examines college students' attitudes toward and perceptions of a woman with body hair as a function of respondent gender and feminist attitudes. Participants reacted to a video of a White woman either with or without visible leg and underarm hair. Results supported the hypothesis that a woman with body hair will be seen as less sexually and interpersonally attractive than the same woman without body hair. Specifically, the woman with body hair was viewed as less sociable, intelligent, happy, and positive, and as more aggressive, active, and strong. Attitudes toward feminism predicted attitudes about body hair in general, which in turn predicted reactions to the model with body hair. Despite the fact that women students had more positive attitudes about body hair and more feminist attitudes than their male counterparts, there were no gender differences in reactions to the model with body hair. Implications regarding this pervasive cultural norm are discussed."
"Perception de la pilosité des femmes blanches : effets de l'étiquetage".
Étude de psychologie sociale expérimentale, U.S.A.Résumé par les auteurs : "This study examined 118 college students' perceptions of a White woman with body hair as a function of two different possible attributions. Participants reacted to a video of a young woman described as being either a feminist or as having a medical condition that hindered shaving. Students rated the woman on a variety of interpersonal traits. Analysis showed a main effect for body hair and for description but no interaction. The woman with body hair, whether for feminist or alternative reasons, was rated as significantly less friendly, moral, and relaxed, as well as more aggressive, unsociable, strong, nonconformist, dominant, assertive, independent, and in better physical condition than the same woman without body hair. Implications and directions for research are suggested."
"Épilation masculine : prévalence et caractéristiques associées
à la suppression de la pilosité". Étude de sociologie, U.S.A.Résumé par les auteurs : "In order to investigate the relatively new phenomenon of male body depilation, 118 male university students provided details regarding the reduction and removal of their body hair using a questionnaire developed from the results of structured interviews (Boroughs & Thompson, 2002). It was found that well over one-half of the sample (63.6%) was engaged in body depilation (i.e., the reduction or removal of body hair below the neck). The sites, methods, reasons, and injuries related to body depilation were assessed, as well as its effect on affective dimensions. Findings are considered in light of these ramifications and how they may contribute to a better understanding of men’s body image."
Complément : les endroits les plus épilés par les jeunes hommes sont le pubis (75% d'entre eux), la poitrine (56%) et l'abdomen (47%). Les raisons pour s'épiler sont en premier lieu l'hygiène (75%) et l'attractivité sexuelle (69%). A noter que 40% des sujets pensent ne pas avoir été influencés dans leur décision de s'épiler (!). Les auteurs évoquent le phénomène "métrosexuel" et l'accroissement des profits des industries cosmétiques par la conquête du marché masculin. Ils donnent des éléments orientant vers la question de l'augmentation récente, chez les hommes, de l'anxiété générée par l'image du corps.
Analyse ethnologique, France.
Témoignages (non scientifique), France.
Étude et analyse sociologique, France.Lire ce chapitre consacré à l'épilation.
Étude ethnologique, France.
"La pilosité féminine des femmes blanches et la culture Américaine".
Analyse sociologique, U.S.A.Résumé : l'auteur analyse la mise en place de l'épilation des aisselles et des jambes aux États-Unis. Elle se base sur l'analyse des publicités parues entre 1914 et 1945 dans deux magazines féminins à grand tirage, ainsi que sur les ouvrages ou articles consacrés à la beauté féminine. Les publicités pour l'épilation des aisselles apparaissent en 1915 et sont tout d'abord des injonctions à s'épiler - plutôt que centrée sur un produit donné - en rapport avec la mode vestimentaires des robes sans manches. C'est la publicité qui la première défini ces poils comme indésirables et laid. Par la suite (années 20) les publicités sont plus centrées sur les produits mais incluent les jambes (raccourcissement des robes). Toutefois cette dernière épilation semble susciter des attitudes ambivalentes et le port de bas épais y supplée encore. A partir de 1941, l'offensive publicitaire reprend de plus belle sur les jambes, sur le mode de l'injonction.
L'auteur explique le succès de cette "mode" en la rapprochant de l'obsession grandissante pour l'aseptisation (rejet des fluides corporels, des odeurs). Elle fait le lien avec une volonté manichéenne de séparation des sexes - ayant une fonction de contrôle social - remarquant que l'épilation gagne du terrain au moment même où les avancées féministes réduisent l'écart entre hommes et femmes. Elle note que les caractéristiques attendues chez un adulte compétent relèvent de traits de personnalité associées aux hommes plutôt qu'aux femmes tandis que les termes utilisés par les publicités cosmétiques visant les femmes sont infantilisants ("peau de bébé"...).
Analyse sociologique, France.
Étude de psychologie sociale expérimentale, France.Voir le résumé. Texte complet : téléchargement 0,6 Mio, 66 pages.
Étude de psychologie sociale expérimentale, France.Voir le résumé. Texte complet : téléchargement 1,2 Mio, 87 pages.
"Attitudes des femmes envers le poil et l'épilation: exploration
des différences ethniques vis à vis de la beauté". Étude sociologique,
U.S.A.Résumé par l'auteur : "This project explores hairlessness or body hair removal. Hair removal attitudes were analyzed using a convenience sample of 82 Caucasian women and Women of Color at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, aged 18 and older. Questionnaires asked women about self-perceptions, opinions about having body hair, their hairlessness practices, and the reasons for their hairlessness. Results indicated a woman's self-perception is significantly associated with her attitudes towards hairlessness and her race. These findings contribute to a growing body of evidence that race affects women's attitudes regarding beauty norms."
Étude ethnologique, France.
"Honte et gloire: une sociologie du poil". Analyse sociologique.
"La norme du glabre : la suppression de la pilosité chez les femmes".
Étude sociologique, Australie.Résumé par les auteurs : "This study aimed to investigate the frequency and meaning of the removal of body hair in women. Participants were 129 female university students (mean age = 22.3 years) and 137 female high school students (mean age = 14.3 years). Almost all (> 95% ) were Caucasian . It was found that, as predicted, the vast majority (92% ) of women remove their leg and/or underarm hair, most frequently by shaving. This was irrespective of their feminist beliefs, but was negatively related to self-esteem in university students. The reasons cited for hair removal were primarily concerned with a desire for femininity and attractiveness. However, the reasons provided for starting to remove body hair differed between the groups, in that they were relatively more normative for the university students than for the high school students. It was concluded that women’s stated reasons for starting the practice of hair removal reflect primarily their vantage point as an observer. In fact, removing body hair is a practice so normative as to go mostly unremarked, but one which contributes substantially to the notion that womens’ bodies are unacceptable as they are."
"Attitudes envers la pilosité féminine: relations avec la sensibilité
au dégoût". Étude de psychologie sociale, Australie.Résumé par les auteurs : "We aimed to further investigate the “hairlessness” norm that is the common practice of body hair removal among women. A sample of 198 undergraduate students (91 men, 107 women) completed questionnaires asking about attitudes toward women’s body hair and the reasons women remove this hair, as well as a measure of disgust sensitivity. It was found that the vast majority (98%) of female participants regularly remove their leg and/or underarm hair, most frequently by shaving, and attribute this to femininity and attractiveness reasons. However, the attributions that they and men made for other women were much more socially normative in nature. For the sample as a whole, negative attitudes toward body hair were related to disgust sensitivity. It was concluded that body hair on women, but not on men, has become an elicitor of disgust and its removal correspondingly normative."
"Genre et pilosité : la construction de la femme féminine".
Étude sociologique, Grande-Bretagne.Résumé par les auteurs : "Women's body hair removal is strongly normative within contemporary Western culture. Although often trivialised, and seldom the subject of academic study, the hairlessness norm powerfully endorses the assumption that a woman's body is unacceptable if unaltered; its very normativity points to a socio-cultural presumption that hairlessness is the appropriate condition for the feminine body. This paper explores biological/medical, historical and mythological literature pertaining to body hair and gender, as well as feminist analyses of the norm for feminine hairlessness. Much of this literature both reflects and constructs an understanding of hairlessness as 'just the way things are'. Taken-for-granted, hairlessness serves, this paper argues, both to demarcate the masculine from the feminine, and to construct the 'appropriately' feminine woman as primarily concerned with her appearance, as 'tamed', and as less than fully adult."
"Exploration de la norme d'épilation : une étude qualitative par
questionnaire de la suppression du poil chez les femmes". Étude sociologique,
Grande-Bretagne.Résumé par les auteurs : "Women's body hair removal is highly normative across contemporary western cultures. Nevertheless, little is known about the production and maintenance of this norm. Drawing on qualitative survey data from 678 women in the UK, this study offers two explanations: First, hairlessness and hairiness are predominantly constructed as positive and negative alternatives, respectively. Consequently, the 'options' to depilate, or not, are unequally weighted. Second, should a woman fail to depilate, she is likely to be subject to interactional sanctions. These exact a social price for being hairy, and serve to 'enforce' the depilation norm. Depilation is, then, shown to be a matter not merely of personal preference, but of conforming to a social norm reflecting an imperative to 'improve' the body. Taking a feminist perspective, this study understands the depilation norm as an instance of the 'policing' of women's bodies within a narrow ideal of social acceptability."
"Suppression de la pilosité : la production sociale de la féminité
normative". Étude sociologique, Grande-Bretagne.Résumé par les auteurs : "Although womens body hair removal is strongly normative across contemporary Western cultures, only two studies of mundane depilation have been published, and they were based on data from the US (Basow, 1991) and Australia (Tiggemann & Kenyon, 1998), respectively. The present survey, comprised of a sample of 678 women, extends this work. We investigated UK practices, a wider array of body regions and removal methods, and the relationship between depilation and age. Over 99% of participants reported removing some hair, most commonly from the underarms, legs, pubic area, and eyebrows. Shaving and plucking were the most common removal methods. Significant relationships between age and leg, pubic, and facial depilation were found. Results document the normativity of hair removal, and we argue that hair removal is part of the taken-for-granted work of producing an acceptable femininity."
Analyse
anthropologique. France. L'auteur rapelle que le développement de la pilosité
n'est pas également réparti chez les humains, selon la géographie. Les populations
à forte pilosité peuplent essentiellement le continent européen, le Proche
et Moyen-Orient, et l'Afrique centrale ( ainsi que les zones colonisées à
partir de ces foyers). Dans ces populations, le dymorphisme sexuel observé
(hommes plus velus que
les
femmes)
pourrait
avoir
une origine
culturelle. En effet la volonté idéologique de séparer les genres - très
affirmés dans les sociétés influencées par les religions monothéistes -,
peut avoir des conséquences en termes de sélection des partenaires sexuels
et donc de sélection génétique.
Étude sociologique. France. L'auteur montre en quoi l'épilation
est un "vétement" qui "habille" le corps dénudé
à la plage. Le glabre est à rapprocher d'autres "qualités
de clôtures" qui tendent à "plastifier" les corps,
dans un rejet de la nature biologique.Lire ce chapitre consacré à l'épilation.
