Introducing: Hair and Loathing

Hair and Loathing is a new podcast series presented and produced by Charlotte Cook, and takes an inside look at why women maintain a 'barely there' look to satisfy the status quo and why some women are pushing back in the fight to keep their short and curlies front and centre.

Body hair is something we've all got, the girls, the guys, the gays and the theys. Most people can remember getting their first pubic hair: sometimes it comes with a sense of pride, but for others it brings shame. Then for the lucky few, it comes in the other parts, perhaps parts that you wouldn't 'traditionally' expect.

By Charlotte Cook

For me it grew on my toes, tummy and upper lip - and that's just some of it. Thick black hairs sprouted all over me long before my 10th birthday. Try as I might, 16 years later, they aren't going anywhere.

I've plucked, pulled, lasered and shaved, but stubbornly they return, just as vibrant as they were before.

This body hair came with a sense of shame, embarrassment and whakama. It shouldn't be there, I had learned. Body hair was wrong, ugly, and unfeminine.

As a teenager I was bullied by boys because of my moustache - likely because it was more impressive than theirs. You'd never catch me in a bikini or jandals. And NEVER mind even considering a bit of hanky-panky, because who could possibly love a woman with a snail trail. I carried the shame like a cloak - always looking for the best way to keep it hidden, a secret that I had body hair.

But I'm not alone.

Being 'fuzz free' conforms to at least a century of beauty standards for women, so is it really any wonder why we tend to look down at ourselves with disgust?

In this four part series, I talk to the experts who've looked at the trends and the women who've adhered to them.

A study by Virginia Braun, a Professor of psychology and gender studies, said women have been "told and sold" for decades that they should do everything possible to keep "unsightly" hair out of public view and certainly not have it on display.

She breaks down everything from whether the move to prepubescent looking Brazilians is actually a bit creepy to what way the population of New Zealand most commonly wear their short and curlies, or lack of.

Because the topic isn't personal enough already, I talked to my own mother, Michelle Callum, who admitted she'd spent an absurd amount of time dealing to her 'hairy bits.'

"I've worked out that I've spent 32,000 hours plucking in my lifetime," she tells me.

Oh, and that's only on her face! …

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