Object Lessons: Safety Razor

safety razor

This ad rang through early 20th century society, representing not only a shift in hygiene and shaving practices, but a fundamental change in economics, individualism, uniformity, and power.

King C. Gillette, inventor of the modern safety razor, wrote that the design of the device was premised on a “single use strategy . ” 1 Instead of buying a straight razor that could be sharpened repetitively without interaction between consumer and company, this new system allowed for a constant stream of revenue through shortuse disposable blades . 2 This formal shift in the design of the razor was influenced by a general move towards disposability in American society. This manifested first in the Crown Cork design, which Gillette took as inspiration for his safety razor. He envisioned not only the disposable razor but a shift towards a “disposable society . ” 3

In the book Babbit, Sinclair Lewis explores the life of the average middle-class American in the early 20th century . 4 Entangled in the new “disposable society”, Babbit ponders the issue of disposing dulled safety blades: “Then there was

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the problem, oft-pondered, never solved, of what to do with the old blade, which might imperil the fingers of his young. As usual, he tossed it on top of the medicine-cabinet, with a mental note that some day he must remove the fifty or sixty other blades that were also temporarily piled up there.” 5 This was not the only unconventional method of disposal. Many old homeowners are surprised to find piles of old razor blades in the walls of their home . 6 In the early 20th century, medicine cabinets often included a hole through the cabinet and wall behind designed for discarding dull razor blades . 7 Just as much as the safety razor is an emblem for the transition to a “disposable society” and represents its positive attributes, it also came to represent the failings of this economic system. The truth is, Babbit’s claim of temporality regarding the pile of razors is most likely false. The razors in the walls of the 20th century home are a problem that was not dealt with in its time and was subsequently pushed onto the contemporary. Today, cartridge safety razor packages include a device that sheaths the razors when not in use and allows them to be thrown away 8 ; however, the landfills where they reside become synonymous with the cavities in the wall, and one can only wonder what future being will dig up a treasure trove of dulled blades in their backyard .

The safety razor was not without benefits. Besides increasing hygiene and youthful appearance, the razor was perfect for those who experienced the “dangers of the lurch of motion . ” 9 Traveling was becoming increasingly popular and men needed a means of shaving on the move. The safety razor, living up to its name, was much safer than straight blades in providing a clean shave and much easier to use on the go . 10 The safety razor also allowed people to shave in the comfort of their home each

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morning. There was always danger and stress “associated with the open straight razor close to one’s throat each morning , ” 11 and King C. Gillette solved this problem and provided a more stress free shaving experience.

These benefits marked a larger social switch from the straight razor and trips to the barbershop to decentralized, individual methods of body care . 12 Disposable, readily sharp razors made hair care easy in a time when the world was speeding up. The safety razor became an actant in this social shift. Furthermore, the individuality with which one could change their hair and facial features resulted in a shift in the use of hair as a mediator of power.

How is it that one can revolt? How can an individual formally express their opinions and their views as different from the populace or some system of oppression? In the 1970’s, body hair and its control satisfied the above questions with the razor as the object of this power. As part of the feminist movement, Harriet Lyons and Rebecca Rosenblatt used body hair as a symbol of rebellion . 13 They claimed that “a woman’s underarm and leg hair are superfluous” as an “embodiment of our cultures preoccupation with keeping women in a kind state of innocence, and denying their visceral selves . ” 14

In fact, the safety razor signifies the emergence of shaving as a widespread gender norm. At the beginning of the 20th century, women predominantly refused the razor due to its “masculine connotations , ” 15 even preferring messy and sometimes deadly depilatories. Change was initiated with the introduction of the “Milady Decollete,” the first of Gillette’s razors designed for women with a smaller, curved head for reaching

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into the armpit . 16 The process was not complete, though, until nylon and silk shortages during World War II prevented many women from wearing stockings on their lower legs to hide leg hair . 17 Even then some women used powders and lotions that gave the effect of bare legs before finally succumbing to growing social pressures and switching to the razor (98% of women shaved their legs by 1964) . 18 This number remains relatively high today (~95% in 2008) 19 , though it is declining with the return of feminist movements similar to those in the 1970’s.

Through initiation and rebellion, the safety razor becomes the means to an end of power but also the means of fighting that power. Women are purportedly controlled through the stripping of their body hair, but through the removal of the razor, or more accurately the shift in who is holding the razor , they are freed from this control. This entanglement between the safety razor, power, and society is omnipresent in modern culture, with the “rise of hair removal over the last century reflect[ing] broader sea changes in American social and economic life: the convergence of shifting gender roles, immigration patterns, labor practices, manufacturing processes, domestic arrangements, media flows, racial prejudices, military endeavors, scientific discoveries, and commercial innovations . ” 20 The razor emerges as the mediator of these forces, constantly enforcing and reinforcing behavior while simultaneously enabling rebellion and reform, all through its ability to change the way in which the human expresses themselves.

While the safety razor operates in many ways as a device of individual expression, it can also function as the embodied form of individual repression. Historically, the safety razor has

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played a part in the oppression of prisoners, outlaws, the Other, the sick, and those deemed inhuman . 21 It has presented itself in concentration camps, prisons, militaries, torture chambers, sites of domestic abuse, and much more. One could say quite simply that whoever holds the razor holds the power . This is very evident in places like the United States Military. The most notorious event in military initiation is the haircut. This is when, “male recruits pay eight or ten dollars to have the post barber crudely shave their hair off with an electric razor . ” 22 Here the (electric) safety razor is the object through which the individual is subjected to the rules and regulations of the military. The haircut “symbolizes the break between the old civilian and the new military individual more shockingly than anything else. When newly shaved recruits look around at their bald peers, they can’t help but see themselves in a new way . ” 23 Gillette took advantage of this dependence on uniformity in the military in World War I, providing low cost razors to U.S. soldiers, who for the first time were required to shave consistently. This not only popularized the safety razor and provided the U.S. military with an effective way of improving hygiene, but also improving uniformity, regulation, and control . 24

While this subjugation is primarily voluntary, there are numerous ways in which the safety razor is used involuntarily to reinforce systems of power. According to Cusack, “Throughout history, innocent individuals have had their heads forcibly shaved by oppressors. In many circumstances, powerless individuals’ heads were shaved after they were relocated from their homes into enemies’ strongholds . ” 25 Such tactics were used in atrocities such as the Holocaust. 26 Besides the use of shaving as a method of initiation and subjugation upon arriving into a camp , prisoners

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had a unique relationship with the razor . As recounted by Frankl , prisoners in death camps depended on work to survive . In order to get the opportunity to participate in this grueling work and bring back rations to the camp , they had to be perceived as physically fit . 27 As a result , the male prisoners had to "shave daily , if at all possible , even if you have to use a piece of glass to do it … even if you have to give your last piece of bread for it . You will look younger and the scraping will make your cheeks look ruddier . If you want to stay alive , there is only one way . "28 This dire plea to the starving prisoners represents the complex systems of power that the razor can create . It is the method by which the prisoners were initiated into the camp and repressed , yet they are implicitly forced to comply in its perpetuation . To not shave was to starve. "Shave or die" was the message of this system, and all were forced to listen. This power dynamic also appears in lesser known instances of systematic subjugation. At the age of 6, Bill Wright, a Pattwin Indian in the United States, was sent to a school in Nevada, bathed in kerosene, and shaved. This was part of a systematic attempt to repress Native American culture and the act of shaving his head ensured that his cultural ideas and practices could not be observed . 29

Similar treatments are used in prisons and sites of torture. Herzig recounts a controversial instance of the treatment of political prisoners by United States forces at Guantanamo Bay. These prisoners were subjected to an “arbitrary deprivation of liberty” as a part of a detention program that “constituted cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment . ” 30 While this included many of the usual suspects for such offensesbeating, shackling, confinement, and food deprivation - it also included forced shaving.

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Ironically, the reports concerning shaving were used in many cases as a defense of the United States’ actions, with the idea that the captors were hygienically caring for the prisoners; however, as Herzig argues, these actions dehumanized the individuals . 31 This unfolds a peculiar relationship between hair, its control (through the razor), and societal conceptions of this power, where the American ideal of the shaved individual is juxtaposed against the ideals of Arab nations and the embarrassment that arises from the subjugation of these values through razor as an actant. This gives the razor overt power and situates it as an object of control; however, at the same time, this control is purely psychological because hair grows and the effects of the torture are not permanent. Herzig names this idea “stealth techniques - the hallmark of torture in contemporary democracies , ” 32 which is an interesting parallel to the disposable nature of the blades themselves. Just as the blades can be thrown away, the physical signs of torture are removed from the physical body as hair returns . This starts to pose interesting questions as to the true nature of individualized hair control in contemporary democracies. Does one really choose how they use the safety razor? Is it really a free mode of expression?

While the implicit power of the safety razor has been examined in the context of overt interplay between ideas and worldviews, there are still questions as to how this power dynamic manifests on the level of the individual. On one hand, as explored previously, the safety razor is an emblem of individual control, freeing the modern man from the barber and allowing him to express himself as he sees fit. In contrast, this same logic can be framed as a complex series of soft powers. Herzig argues that “where once populations were

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managed through the application of external force (public beheadings, floggings, deprivations of food or water), control in more liberal contexts is distributed and internalized: self-management is the name of the game. Indeed, as obligations for health, education, employment, and other elements of social welfare continue to shift from states to markets, a process often called ‘neoliberalism’ . ” 33 The safety razor suddenly shifts from an object that enables personal expression at the consequence of use in repressive systems to a sinister object whose only purpose is to order and govern. The chaotic, “rats-nest” of the unkept and “unhygienic” body is replaced by the uniform, socially determined expression of obedience. Barbershops represented the disciplinary society where the individual was conditioned through centralized institutions. Now the safety razor represents the society of control where the individual is implicitly governed by market values and social norms, internally disciplining themselves while believing they are in complete control.

In economic shifts, old homes, waste management issues, hygiene, travel, militaries, feminism, ideals of order, ethnic repression, concentration camps, torture, soft powers, and the curious case of a man without a place to put his dull blades, the safety razor is emblematic of the complexities of objects and their contradictory meanings, applications, and misapplications. It purports to be a model of a new, cleaner culture while piling razor blades in your wall. It is a symbol of individual power, but this power is controlled through social norms and soft powers. It is entangled with protest and rebellion against oppressive systems through modifying bodily expression, yet at the same time is used to perpetuate such systems.

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END NOTES

1. William Lidwell and Gerry Manacsa, Deconstructing Product Design : Exploring the Form, Function, Usability, Sustainability, and Commercial Success of 100 Amazing Products, (Beverly, Mass: Rockport Publishers, 2011), 166.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Lewis Sinclair, Babbitt, (The Floating Press, 2010), 6-54.

5. Ibid, 13.

6. Mustard, “Why Are There Razor Blades In My Walls?” YouTube.com , August 29, 2017, Video, 2:40, https:// youtube/79GlUDVJXaA.

7. Ibid.

8. “Fusion Proglide Gillette,” Gillette , 2012.

9. Kasia Boddy, “No Stropping, No Honing: Modernism’s Safety Razors,” Affirmations: of the Modern 2.2 (2015): 5.

10. Ibid.

11. Lidwell, 166.

12. Ibid.

13. Rebecca M Herzig. Plucked: A History of Hair Removal. (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 115-116.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid, 124.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid, 126.

18. Ibid, 127.

19. Marika Tiggemann and Suzanna Hodgson, “The Hairlessness Norm Extended: Reasons for and Predictors of Women’s Body Hair Removal at Different Body Sites,” Sex Roles 59, no. 11 (2008): 889–97.

20. Herzig, 187.

21. Carmen M. Cusack, Hair and Justice: Sociolegal Significance of Hair in Criminal Justice, Constitutional Law, and Public Policy, (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 2016), 63-77.

22. Ibid, 113

24. Gordon McKibben, Cutting Edge: Gillette’s Journey to Global Leadership , (Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press, 1998), 19.

25. Cusack, 63.

26. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, (New York: Washington Square Press Published by Pocket Books, 1984),

IMAGE SOURCES

Cover. Gerald Murphy, Razor, Oil on Canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, 1924.

1. Jaygeewhy Sales Company, Free Safety Razor Blades , Scan of Original Advertisement, Trade Catalogues and the American Home, c. 1930, https://www.tradecatalogues. amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Images/cusb_mss107_ g01162/0?SessionExpired=True.