Hair!
mama milton: restless hair syndromeI start this post with a nod to Mama Milton, who got me thinking.
Hair is one of the principle means of self expression for women (and, to a lesser degree, men) in our society. We color, cut, tease, perm, straighten, process, glue, and spray it into submission. We adorn ourselves with hair. When it changes color or texture or it thins or we lose it, we begin to panic.
When we want to change our lives or make a statement, the first thing we change is our hair. Hairdressers even have a name for it. "Post Break-up hair."
When we want to change our lives or make a statement, the first thing we change is our hair. Hairdressers even have a name for it. "Post Break-up hair."
I have had me some hair dos.
1990
2003
2005
I like to think of myself as a simple woman with simple tastes, but I have been known to go crazy on my hair. Thankfully, I don't have any pictures on my computer of me with a perm , but I once even had poodle hair. Hey! It was the eighties and everyone was doing it! I would have had big glasses, too, if I wore glasses in those days. I even shaved my head in the nineties. What a shame there was no digital photography then.
For the first time in my life, though, I now have long hair.
What can I say? As I grow older, I become more comfortable with things feminine. I now like the color pink. I paint my toenails. I have long hair (what?! After all these years they're going to throw me out of the radicalfeminist club for that?).I remember an essay by Alice Walker. "Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain."
In it, she writes that our obsession with hair blocks our thinking. For her, it was important to stop cutting, processing, and torturing her hair. She began to braid her hair in the late eighties and does it to this day.
I have read countless student essays this semester about body image--how our obsession with being thin has warped our lives. I'm glad to see my students thinking this way. It reminds me of the seventies when we started to question the male gaze and our willingness to go to any length to be attractive.
While I am glad my students question themselves about this, I find that in my middle age, I am enjoying a new found sense of beauty. And I like it. As a feminist, I once thought that it was beneath me to think of beauty. I wore the uniform: the short hair, the androgynous clothing. I even seriously considered breast reduction surgery-- it's difficult to be androgynous with an hourglass figure.
And now, as I
Comments
I have a post on my blog about my hair wars. I have tried a tremendous range of styles. From age 5 to 23, I set my hair almost every night. I have finally made my peace with my silver, absolutely straight, longish hair.
You look good in long hair.
I wear what suits me and what I like. I think that's the benefit of a 70s-80s upbringing.
I pity the girls now. And hope like crazy this fad is done before my daughters get influenced by it. the pendulum should swing soon.
They, for the record, dress as they please. Patience wore a Santa suit to school yesterday and Persistence is in full Princess regalia today. They have been known to wear tails on shopping trips.
But my kids are Extremely Creative.
Julie
Using My Words
I am coloring with glee, for now. All my grey is at my temples and I'm not okay with it yet.
My colorist is my friend and I get compliments on my hair and that makes me happy.
As I've aged, I've enjoyed letting my hair grow and indulging my inner girl--a shiny lipgloss, a pedicure, a few highlights here and there. I'm still not much on makeup or shaving...check back with me in ten years.
I love Alice Walker...and her hair. I am about to go read that essay.
if I think about it too hard, the coiffing of hair freaks me out a bit. It's like when you say a word over and over again until it loses it's meaning and you hear the word for what it most objectively is: a string of sounds. It's almost nonsensical.
People spend hundreds of dollars on cutting, coloring, styling, and fussing-in-general over their hair. But when you really think about it...it's just dead keratinized cells. And when it's in your soup, no matter how tressed and trussed, it's nasty.
Fussing over dead keratinzed cells is sort of like going to a special salon to have your ear wax molded into delightful shapes meant to enhance the side of your head.
It's a good thing I don't think about it too often, lol. And I did fuss over my dead keratinzed cells this evening before work. Usually, I just control them in a pony tail.
Actually, I'm thinking about chopping of my hair because I so rarely have time to do anything with it. We shall see.
And I know what you mean about mellowing out as you grow older....I'm feeling it, too, but I thought it was just because I was so tired of fighting...
Heidi
When I cut my hair short a couple of years ago, my family was shocked. But they all got used to it and I liked that finally, it was just hair. Not me.
Growing it out because I still had it (many women with sjogren's & lupus experience balding) felt like I still had a stake in things when I had been so sick.
I guess in the end, I mellowed too.
I could rattle on & on about body image. I'll stop for today.
Thanks for the nod & this post - you did the subject justice.
Sad, that.
I love your blog -- thanks for leading me here.
Alice Walker is a gem!
Btw, I, too, have reconciled with pink, feels almost rebellious for this former Tomboy to wear whatever the heck she wants.
It's interesting how many of our seemingly simple daily choices, such as how we wear our hair, and the clothes we don, are actually quite symbolic of our deeper decisions.
It's interesting the things we associate with different hairstyles.
Right now I'm working on getting back to long hair. It's so much easier for me to deal with - ponytail or braid and I'm good to go.
I look forward to someday being an old woman with a long white braid. Why? I don't know.
Probably, huh?
Back to grading.
Ps One of my favorite hairstyles of yours was in that pic with puppy Ursula.