The sheer volume of her long hair made her feel claustrophobic. Stagnancy crept around in her daily hassles and she needed a way of combating this heaviness. The hair felt like a veil across her shoulders and a burden on her scalp. Her thick long braid seemed to be at the root of her troubles and she finally decided to get rid of it.
And how! Along with the hair, the young lady decided to shed her long-held inhibitions. She now sported a PIXIE. While she was basking in her new found freedom, sashaying her way to college, someone popped the question, “Don’t you regret losing such beautiful hair?”
Every twenty something goes through this phase where they want to break popular notions of beauty. It might be a personal choice or a political one but it never goes unnoticed. Eyebrows are raised and questions asked which can leave you amused and sometimes completely flabbergasted. If you like it short cropped, I am pretty sure you have faced some of these questions yourself.
Isn’t longer hair more feminine?
Sure long hair is beautiful but is it ‘feminine’? One really cannot say so. However the social stereotype of long hair being more feminine daunts people while considering a short haircut. I believe if one is secure in their femininity, then it is just a personal experience and does not identify with sexuality of any kind.
It should just make you feel sexy.
Will the lover/ boyfriend/ husband/ partner approve?
Love cannot be questioned or measured by the length of one’s hair. If there is any indication that your short hair will affect your love life, it is more of a distress signal for the relationship and what drives it. How you wear your hair should be your individual choice. After all it is just hair and shall grow back in case you don’t like it.
While it’s great to seek opinions of our loved ones, living in the shadow of those opinions can be stifling.
Are you a feminist?
The essential argument is that men like long hair and women should, well, comply. There is an underlying misogyny in the idea itself. If cutting one’s hair means that it is a political statement, so be it. It does not mean that a woman is ‘damaged’ or wild if she considers becoming bald or sporting a buzz cut.
Long hair will not make an ‘ideal’ woman out of anyone and likewise, a short haircut does not imply she is ‘less than perfect’, right!
Are you homosexual?
Phallocentric, heteronormative and patriarchal society will not be able to understand that this is an offensive question to ask. Does long hair indicate ‘straightness’? We really can’t compartmentalize people anymore based on what they wear or how they look, can we!
Times, they are a’changin. Hair, after all, is just hair and has nothing to do with one’s sexual orientation.
In a seemingly progressive society, we come across such questions often. Even if they aren’t directly asked, they are present in insinuations and actions. But does that stop me from doing what I want?
No it doesn’t. I wear my hair the way I like it, and you should too. Colored, styled, short, long, buzzed, bob, mullet, ‘skrillexesque’, beach waves or natural, whatever suits your fancy.
Your hair might help you find yourself but it is not who you are and that is a thin line. This thin line might be the way you discover that it’s all a lot of bother about nothing.