Let’s talk hair
“A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life.” -Coco Chanel
I thought a lot about hair, women, and society – much more than expected – over the last year since the first time Travis and I took clippers to my head. I could talk about this topic for days (and have!), but for the sake of your attention span, I’m condensing what I know and believe about women’s hair and hope to get main points across. Here goes …
When I shaved my head the first time in February 2022, I was enrolled in a graduate level UNM course called Sociology of the Body. In the course syllabus, the professor wrote: “Our bodies are as social as they are biological. They are intertwined with our lives including, but not limited to, our race, class, sex, gender, and sexuality. They are presumed to predict, among other things, the type of work we can effectively perform to our reproductive capabilities. They are policed throughout society by everyone from our families to our medical providers.”
Shaving my head while enrolled in this class turned out to be a real-life learning experiment while I studied the socialization of bodies. I considered how hair is one feature that many of us may not think much about outside of haircuts, styling it each day, and trying to keep it out of our faces when the wind blows. Yet, over the course of several months, I learned that meanings of hair length and styles extend deeper than comfort, personal style, and trends. Hair is linked to discrimination, control, personal expression, gender, sexuality, race, dress codes, social movements, and even freedom.
In a following graduate level course, Methods of Social Research, I wrote a proposal for research on women who choose to shave their heads. Prior to writing the proposal, I conducted a literature review and searched for studies and current and historic information related to women and hair. In many places throughout the world – including the United States – people, policies, and laws attempt to police this aspect of women’s bodies.
I learned that hair has been associated with women’s beauty and social control since the Bible was written (Powell 2018). 1 Corinthians 11:15 states, “But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her.”
Why a woman’s “glory” has been associated with hair since the Bible was written (and most likely before that?) is anyone’s guess, but what is known is that social control of hair spans at least that long and continued around the world in the following centuries (Powell 2018). During the 1600s, some slaves were forced to have their heads shaved prior to being moved to the United States from overseas (Nabugodi 2022). Others were forced to have their heads shaved after arriving in the United States, sometimes due to jealousy from slaveowner’s wives (Dabiri 2020).
Today, many women continue to value hair and there is fear of losing it. Documentation of women’s cross-cultural responses to hair loss due to chemotherapy shows that it affects them psychologically, socially, and emotionally (Coe 2013), and some women report that temporary hair loss was the most traumatic consequence of chemotherapy, even more than permanent changes to the body caused by surgery (Coe 2013).
Fear surrounding loss of hair due to sickness is admittedly different than fear of shaving one’s hair by choice. However, links between women’s hair and societal beauty standards still hold and extend to psychological, social, and emotional distress. If dominant social structures weren’t in place concerning women’s hair, this temporary loss might be viewed very differently by women undergoing chemotherapy.
In addition, if social hair standards were different, the last decade’s natural hair movement for Black Americans (Moronta 2022) might not be taking place again. A natural hair movement took place in the 1960s and 1970s, and in the decades following, many Black Americans continued to face discrimination and job loss (Powell 2018) due to wearing natural hair, rather than chemically straightened styles. This continues today.
A 2019 CROWN Act bill that would make it illegal nationwide for companies to discriminate employees based on natural hair has not passed (Moronta 2022). Several states adopted the law, but until the U.S. Senate passes it, people in some states can still be fired for the way they wear their hair (Moronta 2022).
Women’s hair (and lack of it) was highlighted in 2022
In September 2022, protests erupted in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who was imprisoned by morality police for not wearing her hijab – or covering her hair – correctly (Fine 2022). The protests were a cry for freedom and women around the world were motivated to cut their hair and shave their heads in support (Fine 2022).
Early in 2022, actress Jada Pinkett Smith was mocked on live television for having a shaved head by comedian Chris Rock, host of the 2022 Oscars where the joking took place (Tsioulcas 2022). Following his comment, “Jada, I love you, ‘GI Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it,” Pinkett Smith’s husband, actor Will Smith, slapped Rock on stage.
When women cut or shaved their hair to support other women in Iran, the decision may have been celebrated by others. When Pinkett Smith shaved her head after being open about having alopecia, she was mocked publicly. By joking about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, Rock pointed out something that potentially made her “different” and perhaps less socially acceptable. Pinkett Smith’s choice to shave her head also drew more attention due to Smith’s slap. In that moment, two men controlled a very public narrative of one woman’s choice to shave her head. It was a narrative she didn’t ask for that evening or in the weeks that followed.
Some women with shaved heads share stories of boosted confidence
Despite social pressure to have long hair, there are social media accounts where women share photos and videos of shaving their hair by choice. The reasons span from taking control after health issues change their hair, to bucking societal beauty standards, to simply because they want to. Many share that they feel liberated, free, and increased confidence after the change and the positive personal feelings following buzz cuts often surprise the women.
This is relatable to me as my confidence also increased after shaving my head. I had long hair most of my life, usually grown out between my shoulders and waist. Seemingly like everyone else, I was socialized to believe that longer hair meant feminine. I was also socialized to believe a very small minority of women could “pull off” very short hair. They had to look like Halle Berry to succeed with a pixie cut.
Growing up in Utah, I only remember knowing one woman who buzzed her hair and it was because she got cancer. Following chemo treatments, she left her hair short, but not too short. In the media, women I was exposed to with buzz cuts were typically on “America’s Next Top Model” and they shaved their heads at the request of professional stylists for the show. It was always shocking, they always looked beautiful, and it was clear that the cut was meant only for few, select women.
When Britney Spears shaved her head in 2007, the media and public called her crazy. When Natalie Portman shaved her head for the movie “V for Vendetta,” the media and public called her beautiful, but the clip from the film showed her with tears streaming down her face, the “appropriate” social reaction for a woman losing hair. It was the same for Anne Hathaway, whose hair was chopped very short in the film “Les Miserables.” Loss of hair meant tears, and it often meant it wasn’t a personal choice.
In November 2021, I saw a video of a woman on Instagram who chose to shave her head in her backyard due to having trichotillomania. She’d pulled her hair since she was a child and continuously styled it to cover bald and thin spots. To take control, she and her husband turned to clippers. She was surrounded by her young boys who looked nervous and hugged her before her husband started shaving her hair. She joined in at times, holding the clippers in her hands and shaving off shoulder-length pieces of blond hair. When it was over, there weren’t tears streaming down her face. She looked amazed. She later shared that she never experienced regret following the decision.
I shared the woman’s initial head shaving video with a friend through Instagram messages with a note that said, “I want to shave my head,” but I didn’t think I ever would. A month later, that same friend was diagnosed with breast cancer and started chemo treatments in January 2022. She said if I were serious about shaving my head, doing it when she buzzed hers might be a good time to try it. She shared the @rockthatbuzz Instagram account with me where I saw women of various ages, ethnicities, face shapes, and personal styles taking clippers to their hair, and they would post about how happy they were that they did it.
My friend’s hair started falling out in February after a few chemotherapy treatments. Her sister shaved her hair and I followed a few days later. Now, a year later, I’m still a short hair woman. In fact, after having a pixie cut for several months, I shaved it all off again a couple of weeks ago. I love it, and after learning about current and historic issues surrounding control and pressure for women to maintain their hair in specific, short-sighted ways, I love it even more.
There is nothing wrong with any style of hair a woman chooses. However, if we lived in a world where all women were able to make those choices for themselves without receiving societal pushback, we would all experience more freedom.
Sources
Coe, Kathryn, Staten, Lisa, Rosales, Cecilia, and Swanson, Marie. 2013. “The Enigma of the Stigma of Hair Loss: Why is Cancer-Treatment Related Alopecia so Traumatic for Women?” The Open Cancer Journal. 6:1-8.
Dabiri, Emma. 2020. ”Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture.” Harper Perennial.
Fine, Camille. 2022. “Women Worldwide Cut Their Hair To Protest Death of Iranian Woman Who Violated Dress Code.” USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/10/06/mahsa-amini-protests-cutting-hair/8194746001/
Moronta, Grayson. 2022. “Why Do You Care About My Hair?: A Proposal For Remedying Hair Discrimination in the Workplace on a Federal Level.” Cardozo Law Review. V43(n4):1715-1746
Nabugodi, Mathelinda. 2022. “Afro Hair in the Time of Slavery.” Studies in Romanticism 61(1):79-89.
Powell, Crystal. 2018. “Bias, Employment Discrimination, and Black Women’s Hair: Another Way Forward.” Brigham Young University Law Review v2018(n4):933-968
Tsioulcas, Anastasia. 2022. “Jada Pinkett Smith’s Hair Loss, Noted At The Oscars, Is A Struggle For Many Women.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1089133964/whats-behind-the-slap-will-smith-gave-chris-rock-at-the-oscars