"The Long and Short of It"By Dalia Gonzalez
There's an Mitch Hedberg joke that laments the fact that long-haired men are perceived to be drug users. Why can't long hair be associated with intense longing for cake, Hedberg goes on, so when people are baking they hide their goods from long-haired men who come to their house.
I never grew up with that particular assumption. To me, long hair was for surfers, and while surfers can be a sub-type of stoners, I never saw them that way. Stoners were people in the counter-culture world; scraggly older humans who had relinquished all earthly possessions and lived in communes. Surfers were adventure-taking, risk-seeking people who broke away from the mold of everyday life in pursuit of something more exciting. It never had a negative connotation. On the other hand, women with short hair were almost always one of two things: lesbians or mothers. Large, tough, rough, butch lesbians and mothers who had sacrificed either their daily beauty routines for sleep and caring for their young children, or acceptance that older women can be beautiful and went for a "matronly" hairstyle.
Growing up I was known for my long hair: cascading down my back and getting stuck in the classroom chairs in everyday situations, pulled up in a bun on fancy occasions. But I was sick of it when I was entering high school. I wanted a new start for a new school, even though high school wasn't a completely new start. In the end I cut my hair to shoulder-length for fear I would hate super-short hair and it would take forever to grow back. And I never looked back until 2012. At the time the pixie cut trend was starting to really take off and I got more "do it, you'll love it," comments than "you'll look horrible." When I cut my hair everyone thought it was fabulous--or at least that's what they told me. If I got any negative comments, it was via street harassment and gay slurs. It was interesting to note how people, or at least half the population, seemed to associate my hairstyle with my sexuality without knowing anything particular about me. It was even more interesting to hear so many people ask if I was ever going to let my hair grow out again, as I've kept it short for two years. I know these are innocent and well-meaning questions, but it's probably not a question Mitch Hedberg's hypothetical long-haired cake-eater would field. People would probably instead want to know when he was going to cut it off, make it more sophisticated, and, ultimately, more like a gentleman.
That doesn't happen to me very often. But when most women cut their hair drastically short, their sanity is questioned. It's happened to me the last two times I changed my hairstyle. People commented that I must have had a hard day, or that something terrible happened in my life to make an extreme change. Frankly, I change my hair so drastically because it's one of the few things I can. But a recent blog post has been making the rounds regarding women with short hair and their chances of ending up alone romantically. All because their short hair shouted to the world that they are unstable and self-harming. Yes. It must be from all the sleep they're getting from not having to slave over their long locks anymore!
It's a sad state, here in 2014, that a haircut can hold so much value. Yes, some cultures cut their hair in mourning or for work-related reasons. But the stereotypes I mentioned earlier, where the mothers are "sacrificing" themselves? They don't have to be pretty for anyone but themselves. And it's okay if they don't always succeed because they're human! Humans have faults and shortcomings. And hair is hair! It'll grow out and without long-term damage in most occasions. But the way someone chooses to cut their hair is only expressive of their personality and it's not indicative of a man's drug use any more than it's indicative of a woman's stability.
