Re: Start over

Jill,Karen and Jeff have repeatedly and politely asked you to not post in-line pictures or to blather on about your crewcut rhetoric, yet you continue to disregard these requests.Do you not understand that your cold reception from those who frequent this board is telling you that your boorish manner and attitude are not appreciated?I suspect that the more you persisted, the less likely I and others were to consider the legitimacy of your point of view. I think you have long since worn out your welcome here.Dave

> BRAVO Dave!!! THANK YOU!!! The problem with these posts is really that they are not an individual expressing their personal hair story, they are a concerted effort to recruit others into a lifestyle change. I don't think anyone here has a prejudice regarding short hair vs long hair, that is a very intimate personal choice that everyone must make, but the posts here have always, till now, been from women who are genuinely sharing a part of themselves and their feelings regarding their hair situation, be it long or short. This politicizing of the issues regarding hair is WAY out of line and I also share your sentiments that they should stop. Jill, why don't you start your own message board or create a web site specifically for women who choose this type of severe fashion statement? Karen and Jeff have worked long and hard to make this a place where women can feel comfortable about contributing and it is not your right to use it as a forum to promote your radical hair agenda. I'm tempted to post a few pics of some knee length locks as an antidote to this! Very best wishes to all! Dawn

Dawn,I'm touched! Thank you for your kind words of support.> The problem with these posts is really that they are not an individual expressing> their personal hair story, they are a concerted effort to recruit others into a> lifestyle change.I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. This type of activity is clearly contrary to the intent of this board, and the webmasters have repeatedly asked for cooperation. How many times must some people be told "you are being disrespectful" before they cease their assault? Apparently even many times isn't enough.> I'm tempted to post a few pics of some knee length locks as an antidote to this!While I would love to see some pics of your awesome hair :) I just don't think that this is an appropriate time or reason to do so :( It would be like stuffing what they don't like in their faces, which is exactly what they have been doing to us.Take care,Dave

I Buzzed my head this month. It's a rite of summer I've practiced many times before,but this is the first time I've done it since graduating from the backwater feminist utopia of my old college town, where crewcuts on the ladies are a dime a dozen and moving into the "real world" of corporate america, where young women wax their eyebrows and wear their hair long, permed and frosted. Of course, I consider my new haircut cute but utterly normal, even mundane, and didn't stop to think of the reaction at work when I greased up my trusty Wahl clippers. It wasn't until I had swept the piles of hair and washed the sink that I looked at myself in the mirror and thought: Oh shit. What had I done? How was I going to go to work the next day? I frantically searched through my closet for my most professional-looking outfit, anything to help me maintain my credibility for my 10 o'clock meeting Monday morning. I modeled the possibilities for my boyfriend. Should I wear pearls? Could pearls make me look more serious? What about shoes? Could a nice pair of self-effacing pumps mitigate the big Screw-You I had just installed on top of my head?It was an ugly scene indeed. I had just given myself a perfectly adorable little haircut -- at great savings, I might add -- and there I was feeling like shit about it,all because of what a few goofs in suits might say about me the next day. I like to think I'm unaffected by corporate politics ("Who cares what they think? I've got no investments here! In a few years I'm gonna be a smarty-pants academic!"), but I know that's not true. And my lack of immunity bothers me. I worry about adjusting to this lifestyle, growing comfortable with the perks and the isolation, and turning into someone who's smug, self-satisfied, and clueless -- not to mention a lousy dresser. So I do things like shave my head in order to keep myself honest, or at least marginally hip. Maybe I secretly hope that my wacky haircut will get me thrown out of the office, so I can feel like a girl-of-the-people again. So far there's been no such luck. In fact, the reaction at work has been pretty unremarkable --which is exactly what I had hoped for, although the self-absorbed nature of this essay might lead you to believe otherwise. By far the most popular response has been "Oh, you cut your hair," proceeded by either "It looks nice," or diplomatic silence. Some people really like it. The guy who works in the restaurant downstairs gave me a thumbs-up over the lunch-counter and told me "Great move, GREAT move!" And my cool work friends have been full of compliments, too, of course, on account of their coolness. The only negative reactions have come from young, uptight, stern-fathers-in-training. One particularly stodgy fellow let out a dramatic, throaty gasp upon seeing my new cut and has since refused to look at me when we pass in the hall, a charade I find rather entertaining. It's a cheap form of satisfaction, but I like it, I like it. So my short hair makes me feel more independent at work, like I'm some sort of grrl-spy from the hipster left underground. But it also makes me feel young, which is another, probably more important, reason I decided to get out the clippers again this month. I have this picture of myself, taken 3 or 4 years ago, the last time I wore a shaved head. I'm standing outside a bar in Detroit, wearing a navy blue mini-dress and hanging drunkenly on a friend of mine, her fishnetted knee and combat boot wrapped coyly around my leg. I came across this picture a few months ago and thought, Damn, I look young here. Believe me when I tell you it's a little bit unsettling when you have a thought like this for the first time. I stared at the picture and wondered if I really had visibly aged in the last 4 years. If so, what makes me look older now? And what made me look so young then? Was it the goofy dress? My carefree stupor? I made a mental note that it was probably the short hair.The first time I shaved my head I justified it to my mother by explaining that I was only doing it to get rid of the hot-pink hair dye I had poured on my head a few weeks before. And I was being truthful. As the pink faded and roots began to show, I pulled my hair back with both hands every night and stared at myself in the mirror, wondering what I'd look like if it were all gone. It seemed like maybe I'd look okay. So I went to Meijer's and bought myself a pair of clippers, came home,opened up a cold 40 ouncer, and proceeded to cut it all off. When I had finished, I came out into the livingroom, where my friends gaped at me and rubbed my scalp and said wow wow wow wow wow! I smiled back at them, sipped coffee and felt strong and special and cool.It's funny. For years before I shaved my head, I wore my hair short and was often mistaken for a boy. Snotty department store ladies called me "sir" and then apologized in a fluster; old men in line at the movies called me "son" and never realized their error; I even got thrown out of a Florida bathroom, on a day I was wearing a skirt! Unsurprisingly, my 18-year-old ego started to get a little bruised. But when I finally shaved all my hair off, the "are you a boy or a girl" bullshit came to an end. All of a sudden, I was totally girly, and in the most spirited, uncompromising way. It was a really great feeling. Nobody messed with me. And I felt damn cute.The first week with my head shaved, I went dancing with some friends at our town's lone "European-style" dance club. Midway through the evening a cute woman I didn't know came up to me on the dancefloor and asked, "Are you guys gay?" She was back in town for the summer, didn't know that many people, and wanted to hang out with us, if that was all right. And it was all right, because she kept rubbing my head and telling me how much she liked my hair. Yes indeed, I was enjoying the benefits of my new hairstyle a great deal. We ended up hanging out together all summer long. My friend from the dancefloor recently moved out to San Francisco, so a few weeks ago we went to the annual Dyke March in the Castro together. Being the older, more mature ladies that we are, we mostly sat on the sidelines and admired the rambunctiousness from afar. Later, as we sat at the bar reminiscing about the old days, I commented that seeing all the cute, dykey hairstyles made me want to cut my hair short again. My friend nodded emphatically. "You should shave your head!" she told me. "That's my favorite haircut on you!" Combine nostalgia with heady compliments and a few vodka gimlets and, well, it didn't take much more than that to get me back in the bathroom with my clippers the following evening. Shaving one's head is an intensely personal, self-affirming experience. Or at least it is for me. Standing before the mirror with shaggy hair and clippers in hand, I take account of my face in a mental "before" shot. OK, this what I look like now. Then I start taking the hair off from back to front, running the cool razors over my scalp.As locks of hair fall to the floor, I start noticing more about my face: the way my eyebrows arch, the color of my eyes, the shape of my mouth. Another strip of hair is slicked off with a satisfying buzz. Have I always had that little dent in my nose?As the hair disappears, my facial features gain prominence, giving my face a much more communicative, distinct personality. When the hair is all gone, I take stock of myself once again. OK, this is what I really look like. This is who I am. And I feel good about it.Women tell me all the time that they could never cut their hair short, even though they say they'd often like to. They claim they "don't have the face for it." I disagree. If anyone ought to be shaving their heads, it's women, who have beautiful faces, necks and shoulders, all of which deserve to be shown off. Plus,it's so easy to hide behind one's hair, pouring time, money and energy into spraying it up or moussing it down, coaxing it into impossible positions just so one feels confident enough to leave the house in the morning. Whatever you do,it's all a wreck by lunchtime anyway, so why not shave it all off and save yourself the trouble? That way you'll look the same way everyday, and can spend your time on other matters, like your makeup or nails or whether or not you should quit your job or take a vacation or run for congress or learn to speak French. Believe me, shaving your head is liberating in many ways. For one thing, it saves you time in the morning: my pre-work routine now consumes all of 20 minutes, and that includes the 5 minutes I spend searching for something to wear that's clean and free from cat hair (a losing battle, everyday). I ride in convertibles with nary a worry, and keep cool and fancy-free in the summertime, whether I'm sacked out in my 90-degree apartment or frolicking on the beach. I suffer neither from hat-head nor bed-head (though sometimes I get a little lint stuck to me), and my partner never receives a mouthful of hair when I turn over in bed. Since I don't get tangles, I can wash my hair with peach-scented kids' shampoo, which comes in a darling little plastic bottle that's shaped like a fish. The only other product I buy for my hair is Dax brand pomade, which smells like coconut and comes in a jar which will last me three years.With all the conveniences and self-confidence one derives from having short hair, there's no reason not to shave it all off. Trust me, you'll love it. And who cares what they say at work.Alice.....BWAS

>> While I would love to see some pics of your> awesome hair :) I just don't think that this is> an appropriate time or reason to do so :( It would> be like stuffing what they don't like in their> faces, which is exactly what they have been doing> to us.>Exactly, Dave, which is why I didn't do it. It would have been too combative and not helpful to the situation. I did think about it though!Very Best Wishes to all! Dawn>