Breaking gendered boundaries? Exploring constructions of counter-normative body hair practices in Āotearoa/New Zealand using story completion

Jennings, Emily; Braun, Virginia; Clarke, Victoria

Abstract

© 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Do women with body hair continue to evoke disgust? Are men without body hair read only as athletes and/or gay? To explore contemporary sense-making practices around apparently counter-normative gendered body hair practice, we developed a two-stem story completion task. We collected stories from 161 undergraduate students (129 women and 32 men) about David, who had decided to start removing body hair, and Jane, who had decided to stop removing body hair. We analysed the data thematically within a constructionist framework, resulting in three themes: secrecy and shame; the personal benefits of going against the grain; and the personal is political. The personal benefits theme included four distinct (gendered) subthemes: increased heterosexual attractiveness; increased sporting prowess; removal of a hassle; and liberation from conformity. These story data gave access to familiar but also somewhat different accounts than those collected through typical self-report measures.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 11, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Dec 24, 2018
• Publication Date: Jan 2, 2019
• Deposit Date: Sep 12, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 25, 2019
• Journal: Qualitative Research in Psychology
• Print ISSN: 1478-0887
• Electronic ISSN: 1478-0895
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 74-95
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2018.1536386
• Keywords: depilation, female body hair, male body hair, thematic analysis
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/854752
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2018.1536386
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Qualitative Research in Psychology on 24th December 2018, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2018.1536386.
• Contract Date: Sep 12, 2018