Most women view shaving as something that’s just compulsory. It’s a right of passage you start doing around middle school, and never really stop doing after that. But what most people don’t realize is how this small part of our lives, a seemingly inconsequential choice, is being driven by multimillion-dollar companies over our heads.

The actual history of modern shaving is surprisingly recent. The practice started appearing in ads from companies like Gillette around 1915, in order to remove the “embarrassing personal problem” of body hair. Before these ads, most women wouldn’t have thought twice about the presence of body hair.

But as skirt lengths rose in the coming years, shaving companies began marketing more heavily with ads that created a new insecurity for women – what they called “offensive hair”. It took until the 30s and 40s for shaving to really catch on, but the public hasn’t let go of it since.

What these companies did was create new a new problem, one that could be conveniently solved by their products. Worst of all, they did this by preying on women’s fears. After all, more embarrassed women means more customers buying razors, shaving cream, waxing strips, depilatory creams and even laser hair removal.

Today, hair removal is a multibillion-dollar entire industry that’s fueled by the same greed it was one hundred years ago. It’s created a culture that wrongly views body hair as gross, offensive, embarrassing, “too masculine” or even unhygienic.

This line of thinking doesn’t just stop with shaving, it extends into many everyday products like foundation, concealer and shapewear. These products exist to make money, and they show just how Capitalism drives sexist standards in our society.

Of course, what I’m saying isn’t a new idea. Feminists have been critiquing our culture’s obsession with women shaving for decades. But even after all this time, the expectation that women and girls are to be hairless really hasn’t changed that much. According to a 2016 study by Mintel Reports, 85% of women regularly shave their legs.

Personally, I’ve noticed that both me and my friends who don’t shave receive odd looks and comments from time to time on our hair. Not shaving is still very much a faux pas.

I find it extremely regrettable that women are taught to view our bodies as disgusting in their natural state. How are we supposed to be confident in ourselves if we grow up to be repulsed by the things that come along with our very existence?

I’m not at all trying to say that women who do shave are bad. But the reality is that women are raised to follow beauty rituals like shaving, and we wouldn’t be practicing them without the cultural standards in place.

Shaving as we know it has been created to make money, and companies have done this by making us ashamed of something that is natural to our bodies. Before you go buy another razor, ask yourself what’s really driving that decision.