'Don't risk dudeness' - Hair removal ad branded sexist

A new Veet ad suggests the importance of women maintaining hair-free legs. Photo / YouTube

A new series of Veet ads have been branded "sexist" and "wrong" for suggesting that women are manly if they don't wax their body hair.

The commercials are part of a campaign with the tagline "Don't risk dudeness" and they each show a hairy and overweight man playing the role of a woman who has suddenly realized she has body hair even though she "shaved yesterday".

In one of the ads, a women stretches her leg over her boyfriend in bed. He strokes it, suddenly realising it is stubbly, and the person he thought was his girlfriend is revealed as a man.

"Yeah, I know, I'm a little prickly," the actor says in a woman's voice-over. "I shaved yesterday..."

Criticism has poured in since the ads first aired on Monday, with viewers branding them "sexist", "asinine" and "shameful".

"Well, I won't be buying #veet products after that commercial," Tweeted one woman. "Shaving my legs is my choice and not doing so does not make me manly."

Another wrote: "Shame on you #veet for preying on the insecurities of women and reinforcing false ideas of femininity."

Even men were appalled by the sexist message behind the videos, with one Tweeting: "If I were a woman, I would start growing my body hair out in protest. What an asinine commercial series."

Each ad in the series implies that a woman should be ashamed and embarrassed by her body hair - whether it's on her legs, armpits or bikini line.

One of them shows a woman hailing a taxi, which pulls up to her, the driver grinning until he notices her hairy underarms. "S***, I shaved yesterday," she says, and the driver winces and pulls away.

A third video from the campaign features a woman who has been in an accident and is lying on a stretcher in an ambulance. As an EMT cuts open her jeans, she pleads: "Please, not the panties."

A disgusted viewer commented on the video: "The takeaway here is that women should feel ashamed of their own natural bodies, even in an emergency situation?"

"This is the most sickening ad I've ever seen," she concluded.

And in the fourth ad, a woman sits down to have a pedicure, but the salon employee appears disgusted by her unshaven legs, shouting: "Oh this is terrible! Terrible!"

The videos call to mind vintage commercials with the antiquated message of encouraging women to use deodorant and other products with the sole purpose of appealing themselves to men.

- DAILY MAIL