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of all the hairy women who populate it — for fairness’ sake I needed to go see this woman at her Fifth Avenue location, to hear her side of the story.
    Barshop was on Season 4 of The Real Housewives of New York. That meant she was tall, skinny, with a lot of cheekbone and inflated lips. I had issues with her on principle.
    “It’s fashion,” Barshop said, sitting in the back office of her salon, a corner sectioned off with French doors from the baroque-inspired waiting room. “I mean, we all know it. A woman should have no hair on her face. It should be groomed and nowhere else do you want to see hair. I mean, no one says, ‘Oh okay, let’s have hairy arms. That looks great.’”
    But I would! I would totally say that!
    “Do you ever think it’s okay to have a unibrow?” I asked. I did have arm hair, and wanted to steer this supposedly objective interview towards some practical information I could use.
    She looked up from the phone; she had been texting as I spoke.
    “What do you think?”
    I thought I wanted to shove Barshop’s phone down her throat.
    I then skipped to my next question.
    “And the bikini?”
    “Completely bare,” she said, “That’s really where it’s gone.”
    “So what does that mean as far as landing strips are concerned?”
    “That’s so old,” she said, laughing.
    “How old is that?”
    “Must be five to seven years old.”
    “Oh, I just got one.”
    Silence.
    And in that soundless gap, Barshop had managed to tell me that my vagina was so out of style that it was basically wearing a matching velour hoodie and pant set from Juicy Couture.
    She then told me about a new hair-removal line that she’s coming out with for young girls — 11- to 13-year-olds — to safely remove their hair at camp. At this point in the conversation, I began to fixate on her upper lip. I couldn’t stop. It was this perfectly smooth blanket of bare skin. At the same time I found myself loathing everything she seemed to stand for; I couldn’t help but covet her hairlessness. I couldn’t see even one strand of fuzz anywhere on her. I wondered if she even douched with laser.
    I finally asked the malevolent woman if she feels good about what she does. I left out the part of my question that went "...destroying the minds and values of millions of women everywhere.”
    “I don’t really think of that very often,” she said. Finally, an answer that I could believe! “But yes, because having hair on your face or somewhere else not great is a very emotional thing. If you’re uncomfortable, you withdraw. So yeah, I feel good about what we do.”
    The truth is that I understood what she was talking about. I’ve felt the same way. But I wondered if she thought our society could ever become hair-friendly enough to eliminate the discomfort.
    “I just can’t imagine it,” she said, stroking her hairless chin. “It’s like saying being heavy is better... it’s the same thing. Like it used to be okay, having an extra 20 pounds was the look, but I don’t think we’re going to regress back to that. We’ve evolved.”
    Barshop looked just about ready to puke at my ridiculous questions.
    “I can tell you want to go,” I said, summoning politeness from some deep recess of my rage.
    “Oh you’re so sweet,” she said.
    No I’m not, Cindy. I actually hate you a little bit.
    Cindy was, truly, the nemesis of a woman’s ability to choose. She’s the type of person who narrows beauty into such a small space that hardly anyone can fit in; she makes us hate ourselves. Now, when I look in the mirror and feel misery about the ugly strays straddling my chin, I realize it’s her eyes that I’m looking through.
     
    ***
     
    When I got back to the street, I mumbled angry somethings as I looked down at my arm hair. I was so insecure that that one little comment about arm hair could make me question the past 30 years of keeping it. I didn’t want to pretend that I didn’t give a shit anymore; I wanted to be