Bushy beavers and bald Brazilians

Welcome to Hair and Loathing, a new four-part podcast series about women and body hair. Yep, we are talking bums, boobs, thighs, toes and tummies. You name it, it's probably got some hair on it! In this first episode, presenter Charlotte Cook, digs deep to find out body hair can become an overwhelming issue for young women in a society that has for so long promoted a 'barely there' aesthetic.

It's a prickly subject, sure to raise some eyebrows, or perhaps the hairs on the back of your neck.

Welcome to Hair and Loathing, a new four-part podcast series about women and body hair. Yep, we are talking bums, boobs, thighs, toes and tummies. You name it, it's probably got some hair on it!

By Charlotte Cook

I'm Charlotte Cook, a 26-year-old woman with thick dark body hair, and I wanted to understand why this small insignificant fact about me, has taken up a big part of my brain for so long.

Like many other women, for me, the emotions tagged around body hair are shame, disgust and masculinity. It comes with a sense of not fitting in, not being womanly and not being attractive.

So I wanted to investigate why that is, it's natural! So why is Western culture so dead set on removing it?

During the process of making this podcast, I grew out all of my own body hair, which as you can imagine was a minefield of its own - including the part where my screams (while having a Brazilian) will now be archived forever as a 'public record'.

Featured throughout the series is body hair expert, Virginia Braun who has studied the topic for years, and there isn't much about all the bits she hasn't heard before.

A study of hers found 86 percent of their female sample had removed pubic hair in their lifetime - 69 percent reported 'current' removal.

She said this was a trend which had been increasing over the past 100-odd years.

Some excerpts featured in New Zealand newspaper advertisements in the early 1900s were actually more like instruction manuals on how to rid yourself of 'unsightly hair.'

Braun said "These were quite interesting because it was actually teaching people, 'this is disgusting', 'that is unattractive... a feminine woman shouldn't have leg hair."

Someone who flies in the face of those 'instruction manuals' is Musician and chippy, Priya Sami.

For years she's let her leg hair get caught in the wind and unashamedly raises her arms with fully-formed and beautifully conditioned pits. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details