A few weeks ago, a friend of mine on Facebook got a haircut. She lopped off her long, flowing locks in favor of a pixie cut (she might have called it a buzz cut), hoping that this sacrifice of her hair might allow her the generosity and grace to engage with the friends and family members she disagrees with during this holiday season.
And she's not the only one. Apparently, a lot of women are demonstrating how personally this election result has affected them by making some drastic changes to their hair, and some websites are mocking them for (what they claim to be) a useless political act.
Haircuts are pretty much always political, though. (See this article in the Washington Post if you're curious about how current political trends are affecting men's hair fashions).
A drastic haircut often says far more than many may claim. Sometimes haircuts don't express much-- maybe a secret desire to look and be as basic as Jennifer Aniston (see the trend of The Rachel in the 90s), or maybe just a reaction against boredom. But haircuts are always political; in the same way that clothing brand preferences and media consumption habits or even our toilet preferences reveal our deepest ideological tendencies, so does the way we wear our hair.
For women, a shaved head is a deeply political act. It's been used as a punishment since biblical times, and came back with a vengeance in the 20th century as a way to publicly humiliate women who had collaborated with "the other side" (whether that other side be German women who had collaborated with the French during the French occupation of Rhineland in the 20s, Republican women in Franco Spain, or French women who had collaborated with the Germans during the Allied liberation of France).
So for women to shave their heads is a sign that this shame or humiliation (that we are supposed to feel for working hard, for wanting more justice and freedom and rights for all in the world, for being woman) won't work on us. Voluntarily embracing the sign of punishment is a way to keep fighting--visually, not vocally.
And she's not the only one. Apparently, a lot of women are demonstrating how personally this election result has affected them by making some drastic changes to their hair, and some websites are mocking them for (what they claim to be) a useless political act.
Haircuts are pretty much always political, though. (See this article in the Washington Post if you're curious about how current political trends are affecting men's hair fashions).
A drastic haircut often says far more than many may claim. Sometimes haircuts don't express much-- maybe a secret desire to look and be as basic as Jennifer Aniston (see the trend of The Rachel in the 90s), or maybe just a reaction against boredom. But haircuts are always political; in the same way that clothing brand preferences and media consumption habits or even our toilet preferences reveal our deepest ideological tendencies, so does the way we wear our hair.
For women, a shaved head is a deeply political act. It's been used as a punishment since biblical times, and came back with a vengeance in the 20th century as a way to publicly humiliate women who had collaborated with "the other side" (whether that other side be German women who had collaborated with the French during the French occupation of Rhineland in the 20s, Republican women in Franco Spain, or French women who had collaborated with the Germans during the Allied liberation of France).
So for women to shave their heads is a sign that this shame or humiliation (that we are supposed to feel for working hard, for wanting more justice and freedom and rights for all in the world, for being woman) won't work on us. Voluntarily embracing the sign of punishment is a way to keep fighting--visually, not vocally.
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