As we talked about in class, body hair standards are continuously changing.Whereas in my culture it has always stayed consistent in one way, which is facial hair .I come from a culture where facial hair is very important for a man to be considered “masculine”. Without facial hair people make jokes on your manhood or having a feminine face. Not only that but facial hair is integrated into many religions such as Sikhism and Islam. This not only makes a cultural impact but religiously too because the man needs to keep his beard to look religious and be connected to his culture. On the other hand it is frowned at if a man takes care of his eyebrows, arm, leg or chest hair but recently it has become common in the newer generation.
When my friends and me were growing up we wanted to trim up and wax our eyebrows so they do not look bushy. Mostly because we got picked on for having one eyebrow. We would do it in secrecy because we did not want our fathers to find out because they would think we are not masculine. On top of that if our everyday community find out they would make terrible accusations on our manhood.
The most interesting part of all of this is how many actors in Bollywood have no body hair, facial hair and are considered manly. So we do have double standards in terms of who can be considered manly without facial hair. Beauty standards regarding body hair are continuously changing within each generation but in the framework of my religion it has not changed.
Unruly Bodies 