Oh hey everybody, today on the show I am going to go ahead and just shave--whoa! No, no,
not pulling a Britney Spears today.
This week's Ask Cristen question is coming from ConsultingReptileGeek who wants to know,
'Could you do a video on hair? Specifically why it's not socially accepted for women to
have short hair or have a shaved head.' First of all just think about how long hair is considered
such a quintessentially female beauty trait. There are even all sorts of evolutionary theories
about how women tend to grow their hair longer as a sign of our fertility. My long hair is
all like whattup, put a baby inside of me, it'll do okay in here. Think about how uncommon
it is to see much older women with much longer hair. It's much more common for them to pulls
say a Jamie Lee Curtis and cut all your hair off because you're older, you're post-menopausal,
you're not having kids, anymore, who cares about all that hair? It we take all of that
gendered hair spray, pomade and mousse that has been applied to female hair over the centuries
metaphorically speaking and then we shave it all off, of course it's controversial considering
the long standing symbolism of a shaved head. In religious circles for instance, Christian
or Buddhist monks have shaved their heads as symbols renouncing worldly pleasures, worldly
pleasures like indulging in gendered beauty habits. Beyond that having one's head forcibly
shaved has been a long standing tool of oppression. In the United States for instance slave owners
would often shave their slaves heads, not only to quell the spread of disease but also
to symbolize that they were owned property, it was a way of branding people. After World
War II in France, women who had been known to have sexual liaisons with German soldiers
had their heads publicly shaved and were marched through the streets in order to humiliate
them very 'Scarlet Letter' style. Advertising to everyone that you had done something wrong,
that you were in some way inferior in violating 'correct womanhood'. Even today the idea of
a woman intentionally shaving her own head is still interpreted as an act of defiance.
Speaking about this a few years ago in the wake of Britney Spears shaving her own head,
social psychologist Alastair Ross told The Guardian newspaper quote, 'There are lots
of positive connotations in men. In women it's seen as being outside of control because
it's outside of the normal distribution of hair behavior.' For example, when Willow Smith
shaved her head, people freaked out to the point that her mom, Jada Pinkett Smith, wrote
a public facebook message saying hey ummm, it's totally fine that my daughter shaved
her head because P.S. it's her body and I want to teach her that having autonomy and
say over her self-presentation is totally okay. And I think that Furiosa's in the most
recent 'Mad Max' movie shaved head was very symbolic too of the powerful woman that she
was and how she was standing up to all of the misogyny happening in this dystopian world
around her. I do think that that partially or completely shaved heads are becoming more
acceptable hair styles. And for African-American women as part of the natural hair movement,
shaving one's head has been a part of that, getting rid of any processed hair down to
the roots and regrowing their natural hair. As Emon Fowler told the Chicago Tribune quote,
'When a woman decides to cut all all of her hair, she discovers something underneath that
is liberating. It can be therapeutic because you have to let go of the idea that you need
these superficial extras to feel beautiful.' But I predict that for the foreseeable future
women shaving their heads will remain a little bit taboo and outside of the fashion mainstream
because as long as culturally we value women based on beauty we won't know what to do and
will be a little freaked out by women who willfully abandon and shave off one of the
primary hallmarks of that feminine beauty. Which now that I'm saying it out loud it's
kind of an argument for all women to shave their heads. Now I want to know what you think.
Is a woman shaving her head still a big deal? Why or why not, let me know in the comments
below. Thanks to everybody who watched and commented on last week's Ask Cristen video
'Are unaffectionate relationships unhealthy?' Holycrapitsjoe commented, 'My partner and
I started on very opposite ends of the affection spectrum. I've learned to give him more space
at certain points in the year and he's learned that I need a litte reassurance every once
in a while. I've also figured out that he expresses his feelings more by doing things
than saying things. I write him a cute note every so often to say "I love you" and he
cuts, splits and stacks a tong of firewood so I don't die next to a cold woodstove to
say it back to me.' Mizuniki said, 'My husband and I are opposites. I have never been a huggy
lovey dovey person and he is all about that but we make compromises to deal around it.
I do a lot of little things to show I love him and sometimes I just let him have his
cuddles. It works and we are super happy.' I'm super not tempted to shave my head because
I have a flat spot right here and it just wouldn't work. It's a fact.