Secondary Sex Characteristics and Societal Pressures

by Jamin Shih

Secondary sex characteristics (like body or facial hair, the development of breasts, and voice changes) occur to demonstrate an individual's sexual maturity. They are a marker of gender in many cases and are a relatively clear indicator of pubescent state. However, an increasing trend in American society is the general distaste for secondary sex characteristics and this does not match historical attitudes.

This article from a column briefly talks about how expectations have changed for women about what amount of body hair is acceptable. Photographs from years past lack the obsession with hairlessness in women that characterizes sexuality today. Indeed, the same can be applied to men (although it can be acceptable for men to be hairy, there is an increasing trend in finding male body hair repulsive). In older forms of media, male body hair is seen as a positive trait, one that denotes age or manliness. Nowadays, many male celebrities wax or shave for blockbuster movies.

This scholarly article (which is over 300 pages, and thus I regrettably lack the time to read completely) has a handful of very helpful graphs that demonstrate this cultural attitude and the distaste for body hair. The graphs (on pages 250 - 302) show that many university students feel that to be beautiful is to be relatively hairless.

A reason for this may be rooted in the recent obsession with youth in American society. The idea that getting older is not a good thing, the mass marketing of age-reducing wrinkle creams and hair dye to cover gray hairs work in tandem with the almost anti-pubescent nature of mass-shaving and waxing. Combined with the fashion trend of models lacking much breast development (with the exception of lingerie models), it is interesting to question what forces are at work at stigmatizing or downplaying secondary sex characteristics and why.