Last night, PhDork’s FB status was a tribute to the musical “Hair”: PhDork wants it long, straight, curly, fuzzy, snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty, oily, greasy, fleecy, shining, gleaming, streaming…etc. etc!!” Funnily, it coincided with a panicky phone call from a friend desperately Googling “HOW TO REMOVE HENNA” and sobbing “It’s purple, Becky!”
Oh hair. You are so politically, socially, religiously, culturally, aesthetically charged. Cover or not cover? Cut or not cut? Curl or no curls?
In elementary school, I had an unfortunate bowl cut. In high school, what I thought were tres chic curls thanks to MamaSharper’s skillz with Ogilvie home perm. In college, my roommate ran a braiding parlor out of our living room, which paid her rent and led to little tumbling tumbleweeds of fake hair under the couch and in the corners.
As an adult, living on a shoe-string budget in New York, I spent years with my hair in a short, straight bob because it was cheap and convenient. Then I was with a man who loooooved long hair; he kept nagging me to grow it out, telling me it would look more “feminine.” This irritated the crap out of me, and I kept cutting it short. I’m no man’s Barbie.
Over the past two years, though, I’ve been growing my hair. It’s now past my shoulders and headed down my back, which is pleasingly warm in the winter, irritatingly hot’n'sweaty in the summer and extremely snarl-prone whenever it’s windy. Oh, and it really gets in the way during kissing and, yes, oral sex (although dudes don’t seem to mind). Does it make me feel more feminine? No, but it’s certainly perceived that way. I get complimented more now than ever; it’s long, it’s blonde, it’s beauty culture- and Patriarchy-approved!
Share the history of your hair, sisters. Is it fraught? Is there a “message” to your style? Does it reflect who you are, or is it just plain old hair?
@Ocean_breeze, the idea of femininity being in hair is interesting. Though I am reminded of the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, though it was Samson’s strength that was in his hair. It’s interesting that way these sorts of tropes work.