r/InformedTankie

https://archive.ph/eK4ip

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A series of photos by Alok Vaid-Menon exploring the connection between body hair removal and white supremacy in the US.

For accessibility the text of each photo is below. In parenthesis I have included the image reference listed at the very end.

Photo 1: The racist history of body hair removal in the US. (Image 1)

Photo 2: A picture of the book “Plucked: A History of Hair Removal” by Rebecca M. Herzig. It depicts a small green vial with a cork top and the title on its label. A pair of tweezers is in front of the bottle.

Photo 3: More than 99% of US American women voluntarily remove their body hair. More than 85% do so regularly. While body hair removal practices have existed across cultures across time, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries there was an unprecedented effort to make body hair removal mandatory for women in the US. As white men became increasingly fixated on controlling white women's beauty regimens, hairlessness became re-signified as a symbol of racial progress and superiority. (Image 2)

Photo 4: Despite the wide range in hairiness within races, 19th century European thinkers argued that hair was a marker of racial difference. New instruments like the trichometer were designed to quantify hair differences among races. After 1859, many scientists misused Darwin's theory of evolution to argue that race was an evolutionary continuum where “savages" (racialized people) were closer to animals and white "civilized" people were the most evolved form of human. In this view, body hair was seen as a marker of animality and degeneracy (an indication that a people had not evolved into civilized humanity. (Image 3)

Photo 5: Maintenance of white women's "proper" physical appearance became about maintaining the "health" of the white race in the face of migration and racial unrest. One of the prevailing eugenic ideas upheld by scientists was that more "advanced" civilizations had more of a visible difference between males and females. Mandating that white women remove their hair emphasized the visual contrast between white men and women. This allowed white thinkers to argue that the white race was superior to racial others who were demonized as sexually ambiguous. Over time, any hair on a white woman's body became seen as excessive. Body hair became symbolically associated with dirtiness because of its cultural association with racialized people. (Image 4)

Photo 6: In 1876 the American Dermatological Association began to be concerned with "hypertrichosis" (a condition that pathologized extensive body hair) focusing specifically on white women. Magazines promoted models of white, hairless feminine beauty and campaigns that discussed hair removal as "remedying" evil and removing racial markers. Jewish, Italian, and Eastern European migrants in particular were targeted by advertising for X-ray epilation under the idea that body hair removal would allow them to integrate into Anglo-dominant whiteness. This led to hundreds (if not thousands) of women dying from these procedures. (Images 5 and 6)

Photo 7: Hairy people became put on display in “freak shows" across the country to reinforce that white "civilized" people had advanced from this "primitive state." These racial politics continued into the Cold War when body hair was linked to evidence of "foreign" contamination. In the 20th century with the expansion of white women into the workplace, men's economic dominance over women and the distinction between sexes was challenged. Men had long defined their supremacy by their exclusive labor power. Women's economic mobility challenged this equation. (Image 7)

Photo 8: Regulating women's appearance was a strategy to maintain control over women and heighten the contrast between men and women (which was still understood as a marker of civilization). "Hairy women" became synonymous with "failed women." In other words, throughout the 19th and 20th century, compulsory body hair removal for women became a form of gendered social control to stabilize the sex binary in the face of imminent collapse. (Images 8 and 9)

Photo 9: We must end the idea that femininity = hairlessness and the societal expectation of women's hairlessness. Body hair has no gender. People should have the choice to maintain or remove their body hair and this shouldn't influence how they are treated. There is #NothingWrongHair (Image 10)

Photo 10: Image Credits
Image 1- Cat Huang (@cathuangart)
Image 2- Image of woman shaving armpit via crfashionbrook.com, and images of assortment of hair removal tools via Google Images
Image 3- 19th century American naturalist Peter Browne's collection of hair samples included one from former President George Washington.
Image 4- 1923 ad for ZIP hair remover
Image 5- Ad for Silkymit Hair Remover, the Australian Women's Weekly
Image 6- Electrolysis image via cosmeticsandskin.com
Image 7- Annie Jones Elliot poster via Wikimedia Commons
Image 8- Ad for a book titled, "How to overcome the superfluous hair problem" by Annette Lanzette, c. 1930s
Image 9- Ad for Dermatino Hair removal by the Dermatino Company in St. Louis, Missouri, 1902. Jay Paull, Getty Images.
Image 10- Queen Esther (@queen\_esie)
Image 11- Cover of British "Woman" magazine, c. 1940s (on this page)

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTBdD8QbA/

Some Muslim feminist women need to know that they demonize themselves by broadly demonizing Muslim men towards people who are enemies of islam who you take as sisters. The natural conclusion to the general blaming is it coming back to you as to why you even follow such an "evil" religion and engage in such an "evil" society.

They use collective language while referring to the men ("Muslim men" collectively), demonizing them in line with anti Muslim bigotry, and are surprised when they use totalitarian language in demonizing them ("Muslim women" collectively). They suddenly talk about how they need to stay out of your business and how they're oppressing you. And then they say

"Radfems are weird about Muslim women/hijab"; you allowed them to be weird about Islam and Muslim men by affirming their anti-Muslim bigotry. You can't after you talk about people in a collective manner and attack them in the name of justice, and then say to people to not interfere when it comes to you.

The problem is that you don't see that they're enemies of religion and are trying to align with them, taking them on surface value. You like them while they hate Islam and it's adherents. Unfortunately some times you even help attack Islam and it's adherents.

You try to make friends with enemies of Islam and then are surprised when they attack you too. You agree with the enemy's characterization of Islam and then the men and then you're surprised when they turn on you. Are you separate from Islam that you allow them to do this? This is why your voice against anti Muslim bigotry doesn't hold any value because one moment you're reinforcing it and the other moment you're speaking against it. You confirm all of their anti-Muslim caricatures and then are surprised when they then do it to you as well. By confirming their bigotry you are also confirming it against yourself. They attack men because their enemies are Muslim men, Hezbollah, Iran, so they need to help promote bigotry against them to justify their aggression. Confronting anti Muslim bigots, enemies of Islam also means defending men of ummah, and men are being attacked. Don't help them in doing that. Because you'll also be doing it against yourself. You are not separate from the Islamic world, men, women, children, are all part of it. They're enemies of Islam as a whole.

Like opposing generalizing is what we have been doing to confront anti-Muslim bigotry, that regular Muslims aren't responsible for the action of Wahhabis, what then prevents you from extending it back to your own people, why do you do it to your own people. Your own demonization comes with it.

Yes there are vile men but be careful in how you approach it. Imam Ja’far Sadiq (a.s.) said

“Sometimes a person is a victim of oppression and he curses till the time he himself becomes the oppressor.” and Whoever helps wrongdoing against a Muslim isn't a Muslim. Twitter culture promotes hive mentality and piling on.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTBeo1qPN/

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTBd8ggkp/

https://archive.ph/eK4ip

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUXXGCfkyrReLqjZFRTNbaYHPWGszky0_bdTGDr9RZNV-9GQ/viewform

hello! because it is a world cup year i am doing something different and doing an additional marx madness tournament specifically for the world cup

the marx madness world cup survey form has been officially released for 2026. please fill out the form by selecting as many or as little people who you have been influenced by politically.

if there is someone you have been influenced by who has not been included (especially if it’s from a country/region/nation where only a few/no ppl were listed), please let me know and their inclusion will be heavily considered

if there are any questions at all please let me know!!the poll will run until may 24th!

i would also encourage ppl to name search if they haven’t found someone as people may be listed under a particular country/region/nation based on their ancestry

the results will be announced on the twitter account @transjewtalian on march 24th

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTkomDaDS/

I thought comedians were supposed to be funny, not grifters. Why is he crashing out just because someone didn’t find his joke funny? She’s literally just sitting there not even a heckler and you made your whole show about her For a “snowflake gotcha” moment?

this gotta be the worse crowd work ever 😭

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTkEXgpUd/