Short Hair = Dyke; Long Hair = Docile. Either way you're screwed.

     We've been talking a lot about identity and I thought I would continue along those lines, but through a newish lens.  We've talked about stereotypes and racism, we've even talked about sexism and gender stereotypes, but only a bit.  So, today I'm writing about hair, because whether you've thought about it or not, whether you've experienced it or not, hair says a lot about you - and people love to stereotype based on hair.  This topic is about all the isms...it shows up in all the isms.   When creating our first impressions about someone, hair plays a pretty significant role in our thought processes.  As Eddie Huang discusses in an interview about his new book, Fresh Off the Boat, it's not just white culture that creates tension in society, it's dominant culture.

Anjula Mutanda, relationship psychologist, TV presenter and author of Celebrity Life Laundry says, "long hair is still short hand for sexual attractiveness".

     I learned the hard, valuable way, that short hair was going to elicit a lot of interesting comments and feedback from friends, family and total strangers.  I'm pretty petite.  I'm not exactly voluptuous - in fact, I'm not.  Tinkerbell has more curves than me and she is a cartoon character.  I first cut my hair while backpacking alone during the extremely hot Mediterranean summer of 2002.  In an act of desperation and liberation, I went to the nearest salon and asked for pixie cut, and I loved it!  It never occurred to me that people might see my choice as an act of sexual defiance or that it would affect my love life, but the Daily Mail Online and Elle Magazine have a whole lot to say about this in their attempts to educate and warn women about any drastic actions they might be contemplating.  If you cut your hair, you've been forewarned, dominant culture has trained many brains to associate short hair with: lesbians, defiance, deviance, self-righteousness, lack of virility and libido, shunning sexuality, trying to repel men, a state of poverty (it's actually kind of expensive to get your hair cut every 3-4 weeks) or desperation, being ill, being a man (which is clearly not the same as being a lesbian), a woman who is dissatisfied with her sex life and therefor reclaiming power in the bedroom, and the list goes on.

Apparently our hair said it all:
My brother, the dirty gay hippy (according to my friends' parents) and the me, the so-called lesbian.  

     Myself, I loved having short hair and women would stop me on the El platform to ask for my stylists info, but more than a few men and even one professor felt eager to enlighten me about the consequences of my decision. At a party a male pointed out my non-voluptuous body type and cropped hair, called me a dyke and poored a drink on my head; my rugby coaches and probably a  few female teammates questioned my sexuality - the only redeeming factor - I "cleaned up better than any other rugger" and therefore impressed upon them with makeup and cute clothes that I was not a lesbian; the director of my theatre department asked/told me while reviewing head shots that I was androgynous and nearly uncastable and that I really need to consider my hair (hello - it's called a WIG) if I wanted to have a stage career.  In more way than one, men and women have gone out of their way to educate me about the negative consequences of cutting my hair - and while, yes, I can grow it out (luckily my hair grows fast) and I have options - cutting it the second time was harder - and I waited until I had a new job. But this isn't just about me, people are judging each and every one of us based on our hair.

     So, what does this have to do with dominant culture? Everything.  Almost every article I found is discussing the issue from a hetero-normative (dominant) culture stance and subjecting the rest of us to these views about hair. Plus, the stereotypes affect women with long hair, too.  Women with long locks are viewed as fertile, docile, desiring to be dominated, submissive both in and outside of the bedroom, but beware - if your hair is too long, you might not be taken seriously and therefore are not receiving the raises you deserve.  Forbes, Cosmo and online forums have a lot to say about work appropriate hair.  Basically, you might fit in one box, but you always have to sacrifice something and give up another box.

A few other examples to ponder - I'll let you think about these:

• Why are Rastafarians and Sikhs subjected to discrimination about their hair?  The former couldn't even win legal protection for their religion.
• Why are men with long hair considered dirty hippies while men with short hair are fine upstanding corporate banker types (and we should all love and trust them these days)?  
• Why did so many people spend hours blogging, tweeting and talking about Gabby Douglas' hair?  The girl wins three gold medals and women tore her apart for being nappy and for straightening her hair. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.  
• My friend is undergoing chemo and before treatment she decided to chop her hair - much to the horror of 99% of her friends and family who told her it would be a mistake.  In her words - it is going to fall out anyways, and this way it'll be a whole less messier.  

Hair, not athleticism, dominated her three Olympic medals. 

So, HAIR, what is it all about?  Perhaps the dominant culture continues to serve a certain male type because of little things like hair.  We can try as much as we like to cut, grow  or color our hair to create the right impression, but the reality is, we have not reached equality and long as we play the hair game, we are not focused on the equality game.   

A few more good links:

• Does short hair mean women have gone off sex?
• Scarleteen: Sex ed for the real world - Women with short hair
• Jezebel - In defense of the short haired woman
• BlogHer - What does a woman's hair length say about her sexuality?
• Women wanting short haircuts are being discriminated against by paying twice as much as men
• Denmark was right to ban discrimination in hair salons