New Veet Ads Shame Women by Claiming Having Body Hair Makes Them Dudes

2 minute read

Like a desire for human connection or a deep abiding love for Beyonce, we all have it: body hair. But if you’re a woman, you’re probably frequently made to feel unnatural about that universal fact. Now, a new series of ads from Veet, a hair removal cream, is delivering that backwards trope straight to your TV: according to Veet, if you have body hair, you’re actually a dude.

In the first ad, a man wakes up next to his girlfriend, but when he touches her stubbly legs–ones she “shaved yesterday”–he’s horrified to find that she’s turned into a man, all because her body did a thing that all bodies do: had hair on it.

In another spot, a woman tries to hail a taxi but finds out that in less than 24 hours her armpit hair has gone from nonexistent to a veritable follicle jungle, demonstrating both an unnecessary haterism towards women’s choices about body hair and a warped understanding of how fast it takes said hair to actually grow.

Of course, whether or not you keep all your body hair or pay a scary lady to painfully rip it out of your skin is up to you–but being afraid of “dudeness” probably shouldn’t factor into that decision.

(h/t Jezebel)

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