Women With Facial Hair, You Are Not Alone
Women with a little hair on their chin or upper lip may feel that something is wrong with them, but in fact it is quite common. Mona Chalabi writes for the Guardian that even a measurement tool that detects if you have “hairy” has some serious problems.
The Ferryman-Gallway score gives you an idea of how hairy you are. Each of the nine body parts can receive up to four points. Add them up and anything greater than eight means you have hirsutism, like about 7 percent of women; more than 15 points – severe hirsutism. The amount of hair depends on the level of hormones. For example, there are many similarities between hirsutism and polycystic ovary syndrome .
But, Halabi reports, the score was developed for white women who had less body hair than women of color. Many people around the world can be considered hairy on the Ferriman-Gallway scale, even if their hormones are okay. In a 2014 study , researchers compared the scores of healthy women from the United States, England, Italy, and Japan. They found that white British women had the least amount of upper lip hair, while women of other nationalities, including African American and East Asian women, had more.
Normal or not, many women feel the need to remove any facial hair they may have, and Chalabi also writes about controversy in this regard. We know it’s silly to feel so bad about it – it’s just hair! – but we still use tweezers, bleach and wax.
Facial hair in women: if many women have it, why are we so ashamed? | The keeper