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Bearded ladies bring to mind the freak shows that were the entertainment of the late 1800s and early 1900s—the bearded ladies were disparate images of the feminimity of a woman covered in masculine dark black fur. However, these curiosity shows died out almost entirely by the 1950s as it became less popular to exploit people for their deformities. But with or without carnivals, women with facial hair still make many feel grossed out, intrigued, unsettled, or a little ashamed at how we love to gape at people different from ourselves.
It’s believed that women with beards have more testosterone in their system than the average female, causing a beard to grow. Female hormones are supposed to stunt the growth of facial and body hair, and speed up the growth of hair on the head. Men grow body and facial hair, but grow less hair on their heads. It’s just the way it works. But sometimes nature goes haywire and a woman ends up with hair on her face.
Many women with beards have left their mark on history. Barnum and Bailey Circus had their Princess Ali in the 1890s. Lady Olga, born in 1874 as Jane Barnell, had a 65-year long career as a sideshow attraction, traveling with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey. She is most remembered for her appearance in the 1932 circus sideshow film “Freaks.” Julia Pastrana, born in 1834, was a quite famous bearded lady as well. She was found in Mexico by Theodore Lent and traveled with him around the world providing hours of entertainment for people who loved to gawk. She had hypertrichosis terminalis, which causes black hair to grow all over the body and gives a deformed ape-like appearance. She died during childbirth, producing an offspring similar to herself that died three days later. Lent, her husband and the father of her child, had his late wife and child mummified where he continued to display them in his traveling show. He was later committed to a mental institution.
Some women embrace the hair on their faces. Vivian Wheeler from Woodriver, Illinois holds the Guinness Book of World Records title of “Longest Female Beard Hair”—11 inches. She began shaving at the age of seven, at the insistence of her father. After four marriages and the death of her mother in 1993 she decided to just let the hair grow. She has since joined a traveling curiosity show in Illinois. Jennifer Miller embraces her beard as an act of feminist defiance. She founded Circus Amok, a circus show with a political agenda, and holds regular performances in New York’s South Bronx.
There are so many cosmetic ways to remove facial hair, and the social stigma of being a bearded lady would be enough for most people to just shave it off. Bearded ladies are oddities for sure, but there have been a few to buck conformity and use their uniqueness to create a new image of what it means to be a woman.
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