A very close friend of mine, recently had some fairly serious thoughts about shaving her hair. In the end, she didn’t do it. But in the course of chatting with her about it I was struck by how much women identify with and are identified by their hair.
Hair is that great symbol of femininity. Grown the way it ‘should be’, long luscious locks denote fertility, sex appeal and an essential difference between the sexes. Because obviously men have short hair. Obviously. So lust inducing is hair, that various cultures and religious groups have rules about women covering their hair. So it makes sense, with societal notions of how hair ‘should’ be that our hair also provides us with an immediate, reasonably easy and very visible way to be subversive.
Throughout my life, my hair has been an act of rebellion and subversity (I may have made that word up *shrug*). As a young child my step father cut my hair very short, telling me I was ugly and unlovable and didn’t deserve to have long hair like nice girls. Instead I was to be unnatural in his eyes – a girl who looked like a boy, who frequently behaved like a boy and who had to be beaten into something resembling what a woman should be. As a teen, living away from that environment with my father and step mother I grew my hair long to escape the memories that haunted me and experimented with feminine clothes, make up and some initial, rather sedate trips into the world of hair dye.
Then my late teens hit and with that I came out of my closet, revelled in having a name to describe the funny feelings I got from noticing cute girls as well as cute boys. Away went the cutesy, sloaney feminine clothes and in came combats, big boots, tight tee’s crew cuts, spikes, black hair dye, pillar box red hair dye, vest tops, piercings tattoos and so on. Revelling in my new found and ever evolving identity as a being independent of the parental figures who’d abused me or who hadn’t but who’s guidance I saw as obstructive, I cut my hair every week, experimenting with colour and texture in ways I’d never thought I could. One week I’d have a soft razor cut emover, the next two inch spikes and a shaven neck and scalp. My hair became a way of expressing my turmoil, and my developing identity through my sexuality and exploration of my gender. At the time I didn’t recognize that though. I was just trying to find the look that was ‘me’.
At 18, I married and had children and went from being a hell raising baby punk with a lip ring and a ‘tude to being a hippy earth mother, with velvet skirts and flowy tops. I still wore leather jeans, but only on the back of my husbands motorcycle, I didn’t work and mostly I did as I was told. I grew my hair long again and the pillar box red and angry blue- black shades of dye were replaced with hennas, as I embraced pagan spirituality and a more ‘natural’ approach to life. This docile attitude couldn’t last though and I struggled to embrace this image of female behaviour – I loved having children, but I missed working and being respected for my intellect and fiery temper. I missed being know as a punky girl who was a little bit mad, but hard working, kind hearted, hard partying and fun. In those years I faded into the background, attempting through my hair to either hide myself or demonstrate how grown up I was, even at the tender age of 20.
Come 22, and my husband and I ended things and in the midst of trying to recover from the break up – a messy time of experiences that looking back on it, were rather damaging, but at the time seemed as if I was having ‘fun’, I finally did something I had always wished I had, had the guts to do and dyed my hair Pink. I don’t mean a bit pink I mean PINK. This was a strong angry colour that said ‘Yeah, I’m here, I’m me and I’m fierce. I have pink hair!’. In a lot of ways that was me breaking free – once again my identity was evolving and I chose to show that visibly with the colour of my hair – a strong fierce colour I had always wanted to dye my hair but always been to afraid to do. Part of that time was built around having the courage to move away from the shit that had happened to me and to realise who I actually was and not to be afraid any more. It was around the same time I began to consciously and publicly identify as a feminist, and I attended my university interview with bright pink hair, in head to toe black with purple doc martins on.
University has again changed me – In the last 18 months I’ve solidified my feminist identity, although constructing an image and blueprint of my gender identity is still progressing – I gone from being a very skinny bulimic size ten, turning up to Uni in short skirts, fishnets and new rocks with pig tails, to an obese (but healthier, non- purging, non smoking) me hiding behind men’s t shirts, sports bras and baggy jeans, to dressing in head to toe Monsoon in order to look professional. In this time I’ve had black hair, dark blond hair (my natural colour, believe it or not), red-brown hair and currently bright red hair. I started uni with long hair, have chopped it all off and gone back to the shaved back emovers of my youth and grown that all out into a slightly messy chin length bob, that if I’m honest, needs a damn good cutting.
My point with this long and somewhat reflexive post is to demonstrate how much hair is wrapped up in our identity. It’s not just stuff that grows out of our heads – through our hair we can demonstrate sub cultural affiliation, cultural or religious beliefs, personal identity, gender identity, subvert gender identity – the list goes on. Hair is important, precisely because it is part of us and how we present ourselves. I invite every one of you to look back through your hair history. How many hair cuts or changes have you had because a relationship broke down, because a parent or authority figure said you shouldn’t, because you wanted to demonstrate belonging or project a professional image?? I invite you to share your stories of how you have shown your identity, and your life through your hair, because I think that whilst it seems insignificant, hair and the things we do or don’t do to it can, show us an awful lot about ourselves, each other and the world in which we live.
