Bloggers Who Might Inspire You (They Inspire ME!)

As sort of an add-on to my last post, I wanted to provide these links to other female bloggers who made me laugh and think and strive to be the best writer that I can be this week (so far)!


Always genius, in my opinion, is TheBloggess.  Most of the time when I read her posts, it's like she's speaking from within MY brain!  If only I could perfectly weave all my thoughts and observations into an intricate blend of sarcasm, opinion, humor, and pictures of my cat haha!  But seriously, this particular post that I linked has a hilarious picture of her with her cat.  


And I really found value in this article which I read today on Broadsheet.  The writer also writes her own blog, which always sparks debate and conversation within the comments section.


So, mad love for all my sisters who are out there doin their (blogging) thing!

Crazy Outlaw Feminism!

Why, I ask??!!  Wwwhhhyyyy?  I just want to know why "everyone," i.e. the general public and often a woman's closest friends and loved ones, has to go there.  Where?  Oh, let me back up.  I'm watching TV, just some documentary that isn't especially great, but it's on while I'm doing other things.  And part of the larger story they are telling is the fact that at one point in her life, the woman on the show shaved her head.  And the people who knew her at that time, a co-worker and a family member specifically, both said on film that they "knew" she had "gone crazy" once that happened.  WHY?  Why does that make her crazy????


I've written about this topic before. because I too have shaved my head.  In fact, right now I have a pretty short head of hair; I'm sort of growing a mohawk, so the sides are shaved and the middle is just starting to grow a bit longer.  I dig it, and that's all that matters to me, and I'm not crazy (or any more clinically-descriptive term).


I really feel strongly that this is some part of the fight of some people to put and keep women in their "proper" place in society.  When I reached out to speak with other bloggers and other women around the world who had shaved their heads for all sorts of reasons, it only strengthened my opinion.  All had faced some sort of judgment and opposition from someone at some time, regarding their choice to go without hair.  Most had faced it a lot.  We discussed the fact that somehow it makes it "okay" if you explain that you did this because you have Cancer or Alopecia or some such disease. 


I won't re-tell my story, as it is told in full at the above link.  But the reason that I shaved my head that first time was simply that I wanted to confront my dependency on such a shallow physical trait to give me identity and even worth.  Also, honestly, I was sick and tired of my long, thick hair, with which I had dramatic fights every time I tried to "do" it in some style other than my pony-tail.  As I told in my earlier post, I realized that I wanted to shave it, get rid of it and perhaps start fresh, or not have hair anymore for a long while.  And when I decided that, I realized that my only fear was the old what-will-others-think issue.  


For me, this was unacceptable.  I didn't like to look inside of myself and see that I was afraid of what others would think, afraid - YES - of what men would think.  Now, I'm not making a judgment on what other women should choose or how they should choose to confront the changes or fear of changes that they face in their own lives.  I'm simply sharing what I was feeling and why I chose to shave my hair off.

I

                                                 Me after a recent shave :)
It worked.  It was admittedly scary at first, but I was younger and shyer and less confident then (this was about 10 years ago now, wow).  And going through the inevitable (as I have found it to be) opposition -- constant questions about why, and the fact that (GASP) some men didn't find this non-traditional look attractive -- I truly did grow and learn, which was the point, for me.  No longer do I want or need hair to make me feel that I am beautiful or important or whatever I was getting out of having that big ol' head of hair.   In fact, I've found that it's pretty difficult to go back and grow it all out again, now that I'm cool with short styles.  I've grown it out long once since I first shaved it, but like I said, it is short again.


But this matter is not really about hair.  If, as is the case with one of my close friends, you love your hair and even think it's your best quality, then by all means, work it, girl!  My whole point is that we need to be courageous enough to do what we want and need to do, what we feel is right for us.  And this extends way beyond matters of appearance of course.  


So what is the deal?  Has anyone else out there been judged harshly, discriminated against or otherwise treated differently because they chose to do something that is not in the scope of traditional female roles?  I have heard from female police officers, women with tattoos, athletes, and many more.  I'm interested in finding out why people want to say that we are "crazy" when we go against the grain, against our expected roles in society or in the family.  I'm interested in challenging that mentality wherever I find it.

Part II - The Reaction

In my last post, I related my personal experience of how and why and when I shaved my hair into a buzz-cut, a style I am currently sporting again (albeit a tiny bit longer these days). I did it on a week night, and I was thrilled. I spent that night enjoying the look and feel of my new, spiky, short, light hair. My head felt unbelievabley light-weight. It was insane how many times I was surprised to find no hair swinging or falling against my back. I never got used to it, it seemed.

That year, although I was not altogether unprepared for it, I found out that our heads really do release half or more of our body heat! This is wonderful in the hot summers; a simple splash of ice cold water on my un-mussable hair makes a world of difference. But in winter time, I had never before been so cold! I'm one of those always-cold girls anyway, so I had to think fast of a solution. That was the first year I shopped for new and stylin' hats to wear. It was a lot of trial and error. Sometimes the hats were too itchy (I cannot wear wool at all, not even for a second!), some too childish despite looking "cute" at the store, some too big for my (another new discovery) smaller-than-average adult head. But I found what I liked and what flattered me eventually. It was a new piece of my wardrobe in a way, something new to try out. It is still amazing to me how much difference a warm hat makes when I am cold!

But what you really want to know is whether my worst fears came true ... whether no boys ever like me again ... right!? Well, they did. But some didn't. I wore a hat to work that next morning, for my very first unveiling. It would be in front of the owner of my workplace, a man who had become a second father to me, a member of my second family. I saw him everyday, he had been with me and there for me through some very intimate times, and he had brought out my leadership skills before I even knew I had them. But I knew that he was among the most conservative people in my world. Regarding politics and clothing and just ways of living life in general, the man was Conservative. Our conversations had revealed that his taste in lifestyle was making money, having a wife who mainly stayed home and raised the children and prepared food and laundry for the family, and who looked, well, traditional: longish hair, preppy, etc. Now don't get me wrong, all of you who might sway toward the same preferences. There is nothing wrong with wanting and having these things or this lifestyle. It just isn't quite the same as what I personally strive for. But I don't see myself or my views as better or worse, merely different. My boss was pretty much the same. I had worked for him for years at that point, and he respected me. He accepted me as being "different" to his way of thinking. We teased each other about our differences but worked well as a team. It was like that.

Nevertheless, I was nervous as I approached the door of the restaurant where he was already inside working. I came in, and he greeted me, barely looking up, working on something at his desk as I recall. I remember blurting out, "I need to get this over with and show you what I did." I admit that I was feeling less "liberated" and "excited" and more fearful and like a little kid, wondering whether she would be grounded for something. But feigning the confidence that had deserted me, I whipped off my winter hat: Ta-da! I think I could have predicted his reaction.

"Oh. My. Frickin'. God!" He stood up and began walking slowly around me, peering at each side and angle of my head. "What the hell did you do that for?" But he was smiling. He was surprised but not shocked. Not disgusted. In our relationship, he was usually at least amused by my constant changes of hair color and style or whatever. And that was fine with me. He came from a different walk of life, completely. And like I said, we teased each other but respected one another's opinions. The rest of the business day went along alright, with other emmployees exclaiming when they saw me and asking whether there was a specific reason I had done this. At least half of the people who spoke to me about it said they liked it! My boss kept up the peering and laughing and staring. It was difficult to get used to, for me too.

I could tell, as those first days went on, that people were most disturbed by the fact that they wanted to know what this meant. My own mother took time out to ask me whether I had done this because of any sort of emotional upheaval or upset. She said if I truly just liked it and wanted my hair gone, then she supported whatever. But she wanted to know that I wasn't suffering silently through something and acting out with this drastic change. Oh my! I assured her that it was the former, and that was true.

I can't say that it came as a surprise to me that I became my own walking, living, breathing social experiment. Contrary to what some people think, I never did this to get attention or in order to become such an experiment. I did it for the reasons already explained. I accepted whatever "consequences" came of my choice to do what made me feel the best. The main social consequence was that people always want to talk to me about my haircut. Whether they are curious, admiring, aghast, disgusted, or attracted, they want to tell me about it. A lot of girls I know who have extreme haircuts or shaved heads claim that they find this behavior rude, that they are offended at people's willingness to say whatever they think. That view never occurs to me really. I mean, if you do something that is not average or right in the middle of what is normal, I just think you can expect people to be curious. And their reasons for being curious might be any of the ones I listed. It doesn't usually bother me.

So what about the men? The main thing that women say to me (and it was the same for most of the other females I talked to while researching for this little story) is that they wish they could "pull it off" or "have the guts" or something to that effect. I always am encouraging, telling them how happy I was to try it; but of course, you have to feel like I did or it can be quite traumatic. GUYS, on the other hand, come with all sorts of opinions. I guess it shouldn't be a shock to find that it's often a cultural thing. For example, I rarely meet a black man who does not really like my cut. Black guys in clubs have stopped me to tell me it's "clever" and "sharp" and "hot." None have ever stopped to share their opinion if it was negative. And that brings me to something that really bothered me at first: black women are often seen rocking nearly-bald heads. I know that the whole issue of hair with black women is a huge, expensive, sensitive ordeal, and I'm not trying to pretend I know about that (although I'm excited to go see Chris Rock's documentary, "Good Hair"); so I am guessing that when a black woman grows weary of all that maintenance, that might be a major reason for cutting it all off. But whatever the reason, having extremely short hair, whether it's natural and close-cropped or dyed a shade of blond or whatever style ... that's accepted in our society. When I say it's accepted, I mean, nobody thinks a black woman with a shaved head is punk or counter-culture or rebellious, do they? It's just a style. But when I rock my shaved head, it's like I am explaining here: a bevy of opinions come out, and they run the gamut. And like some of the females interviewed say, people feel they have a RIGHT to some crazy opinions. I struggled with that race issue at first. I couldn't understand why I was being looked at if another girl right next to me with the same exact haircut but a different color skin was being considered "normal." Going into race / society issues is something that I will delve into more deeply another time, because it deserves an entire blog post. But that was one interesting thing and one that I admit puzzled and frustrated me.

Back to MEN. On the flipside of getting a lot of acceptance from black guys, I found that almost NO Latino men had appreciation for my cut. I have quite a few friends of this ethnicity, so we felt free to talk to one another in a real way. They told me basically that they just thought women should have long, luscious hair and in that way be different from men. All the guys I spoke to told me they loved having their hands and fingers in some long, female hair. It was sexy, they said. Fair enough. As for white guys, well, they always say something different. It just depends, in my experience. And of course, to all of these rules, there are exceptions, and I'm sure that if I conducted this "experiment" in another part of the world, I would find altogether different trends. But I was here, in the Chicago suburbs, in the late '90's, and these were the reactions.

I can't say they have changed very much. There aren't as many references to Sinead O'Connor, as she doesn't seem to be as famous anymore. I saw her in a magazine recently, though, and she indeed still has her hair like this. I think I'm more comfortable than some women would be with this haircut, because I have some prominent facial features that are easily made even more noticeable with a little more makeup and less hair. My best feature was never my hair. Nothing wrong with it really, but I also was never attached to it. A close female friend recently told me that she feels her own best feature is her hair; and it IS beautiful. I can imagine someone who feels that way would have a much different experience if forced to lose her hair.

For me, it was not traumatic, but it WAS interesting to notice all the ways that I, as a woman had come to rely on my hair. I mean, we flirt with our hair, we have habits of twirling and fiddling with it, we use it to draw attention away from a tired or un-made-up face. I noticed that a lot of times guys will see long, beautiful hair and approach a woman or whistle at a woman or whatever before even getting a very good look at her face. I began to look at the chicks who were considered classically hot and wonder where they would fall on the hotness scale without their hair. It seemed the ways and meanings that we as a society attach to hair were never-ending. I felt it too; it took some plain old getting-used-to for me to be comfortable without my ponytail.

People look at me. They stare at me a lot more than when I had long hair. Even when they don't say anything, I know that it is because they have an opinion about my head. And of course, people offer their thoughts, more than they did when I had a more traditional 'do. But they are mostly friendly. And maybe I have grown more comfortable in myself, or maybe society has shifted a little bit ... I can't be sure. But recently it hasn't seemed like such a big deal. I have some tattoos, and when they are visible, THOSE are what seem to draw more controversy. And no, I generally do not get hooted and hollered at when walking down the city streets by men I don't know. Drunken bar guys do not approach me as often as they do my longer-haired companions. But I have found that I don't miss that kind of attention too much. It kind of weeds out that type of dude. I mean, for me anyway, I am not so much interested in starting a relationship with a drunk guy whistling in my general direction. It's fun to be flirted with, and I still get that in the right places, but I have just found that there are some kinds of attention I don't need.

If I ever change my mind, there are some very fancy wigs available these days!

I Shaved My Head, But WHY????

Once upon a time, I shaved my head. Unlike my friend Lisa, who did this recently (and whom I called attention to, because she inspires me) in reaction to the fact that her hair was falling out (she is fighting cancer) ... unlike Lisa, I was not fighting an illness. I have known several females who have shaved their heads bald because they suffer from cancer or alopoecia or went through brain surgery ... a number of things that made it more or less necessary. Some have shaved their heads in support of these females. Socially, this seems to make it more acceptable. When the masses find that you have shaved your hair off because of something like those reasons, they feel much more comfortable (like that is a woman's job anyway, to make everyone around them comfortable ... ha). For better or worse, my story was not like that.

And yet, it wasn't meant to make a statement. It wasn't meant to be a rebellion against anything or anyone. I just didn't want the hair anymore. Doesn't anyone else ever feel that way? Also, in case anyone needs a mental picture of exactly what happened, I shaved it only to a # 2 razor cut (if you know clippers, this is one of the guards you can use to measure how short the hair will get). So my hair was not cut to the scalp, but it was very short. For a woman, it was extremely short. Okay, and it didn't help that the very first time I did it, I made one little mistake and took a knick out of the back of my head. Oops. I didn't want that kind of extra attention, but I had to suffer through it.


It all started sometime in the previous year or so. I had a long, dark, swinging ponytail. I wore my hair like that, in a ponytail or tightly-wound bun at least 6 days a week while I worked my job as a fast-food manager. My shifts were 9 hours long, and I had to have my hair up. It wasn't that I minded putting my hair up. I thought it looked alright, I got compliments sometimes -- wait, no, I really did not get compliments on my hair at that time; it was more that I got compliments on things my hair accentuated, like my eyes or long neck. Wrapping that thick-ass hair (and it IS thick) into a squishy bun was the best way I knew how to let it air-dry out of my way. I have never learned to do cool things with my long hair; or, whenever I think I have learned, my hair has not "held" the style I've worked so hard upon for very long. I don't know for sure whether it's me or the hair. And I'm not the kind of person who has the patience to spend more than a few minutes on something like hair.



To tell you about me, and the time I'll allow for appearance-related duties each day ... I remember being 14-years-old and making a decision. I was a very disciplined little girl, always creating schedules and routines for myself. My parents were not as strict with me as I was with me! Maybe they didn't have to be, because I did it for them. In the summertimes, it was like I knew already that I would fall into boredom and despair if I did not plan ahead. It just came naturally to me, no one told me to do it. I find that so peculiar now. But anyway, if you look at my notebooks and journals from that time, I would always have my days planned -- I mean, right down to each hour -- with things like working out, tennis lessons, and working on my annual newspaper, which was a project I did just for fun each summer. And I was happy that way! To this day, there is little more unsettling to me than a day that just stretches out before me with no real plan. Although I have to admit that in recent years, I haven't always been so disciplined, and that is part of my problems and issues now. But that's going to be another post!



So, I was careful and diligent about my time. I decided at 14 that of course I wanted to be clean and pretty and "done" when I arrived at school each day. I wore a little bit of makeup, and I had long hair (a bit past my shoulders) that was highlighted that year. However, I decided that with all the options available to teenage girls (and all of us women) for hair and make-up and styling and fashion, one could spend an infinite amount of time and energy each day preparing. And while nobody said this or taught this to me explicitly, it occurred to me that for me, there had to be a limit. For me, that limit was going to be one hour. I don't know how I reached this conclusion at that age. My own mother, who was my main make-up and hair influence leading up to that time, would probably not agree. I just thought that there were only so many hours in each day for all my interests and priorities and responsibilities, okay? And while I wanted to look good and meet high school boys and all that, I also wanted to play sports and study English literature, and sleep and read and write. So I decided that I would spend one hour each morning getting beautiful, and after that, I would leave it alone.



That worked great, actually! I knew everyday that I had put my best effort into all those little details that we girls like to pay attention to, knew that I had worked my hardest on matters of appearance. As my mother would say, I had "put my best foot forward." If I felt I had spent that one hour doing that, then I didn't fuss over these things or obsess about them throughout the day. As a teenager, this was truly a feat. Because it wasn't lost on me that worrying you had a fucked-up hair do or not the right makeup or whatever throughout an entire school day can be utterly demoralizing at that age.



But back to the year of the shaved head. I was working at the restaurant, going to college, and those tasks pretty much took up my time. I dated a lot, but my priority was not finding a husband or even getting a date for that weekend. If you know me, you know it really never has been about that. My priority if and when I had free time was to get ahold of friends and go out somewhere fun and relaxing. Most of my time was about work, making money and getting closer to that college degree. That doesn't mean, however, that I didn't appreciate anytime a guy would flirt with me. The restaurant drew mostly construction workers, middle-aged family men and families with children. It wasn't a great pool of single guys. The ones that did come in were definitely the type to go for a buxom, long-haired blond, 9 times out of 10, and a few of my co-workers fit that bill. In the flirting wars, they almost always outshone me.



I understood that this was more about the type of person in our "audience" than it was about me, my personality or my looks. It also sucked to wear the uniform I had to wear as a manager there. And despite the fact that I sometimes was bothered by this, it was never at the forefront of my mind or on my list of Important Issues in My Life. I was tired of my hair. I was just plain sick of how long it took to dry, how difficult it was to make it look pretty when it was down, to keep it from engulfing or competing with my rather dramatic facial features (large eyes, big smile, European nose). It has the rather-unfortunate (in my opinion) combination of being both fine and thick. The individual strands of hair are fine and in the winter become staticky and flyaway-y. Yet the sheer amount of hair on my head is thick and heavy when it's long. I felt by the time I had reached my 20's that I was always fighting it. That hour I had allocated for getting ready each morning? I had begun to spend the majority of it fighting and wrestling with my hair. I resented this fact, wishing I could experiment with new make-up looks, drawing attention to my eyes, which usually get me the most compliments. And after I had fought my hair, it almost always came to pass that I didn't like how it looked. So what was the point of all of it?



That was the beginning of the end. One day it just crossed my mind: what if I just cut it all off? I mean, people say this all the time, but they don't usually mean it. Well, I thought about what it would mean to say it and do it. To cut it all OFF. It could be liberating for all the reasons I listed above; I would be free of all the trouble and annoyance my hair caused me. My next thought was, would it be worth it? I mean, really, the social consequences felt like they would be mighty. I have always suspected that this is because I live in the midwest. I don't think that anyone would look twice at me in New York City, for example, as a woman with a shaved head. But in the heartland, where people hold to traditional values and many people still rock their sweatshirts with applique seasonal designs on the front, and stretchy blue jeans, out to dinner ... well, you get the idea. Then, throw in the group that surrounded me, the construction worker dudes and guys from the bank and a few cops who at that time had only one woman on their department. I didn't see how shaving my head would appeal to them.



The more I thought about it, the more desirable it seemed TO ME. And the more I realized that my one sticking point was just that: the social upheaval that I was afraid would come of my actions, especially from men. Now, I have been fortunate to have great women around me, women as friends and family, about whom I never really worried. If anything, they were the ones who spurred me on, before I even showed anyone. I knew my girl group would love and support me no matter what I ever did with my hair. My girls always supported acts of courage and bucking the status quo, whether it was in society or at work or just in one's choice of clothes and hair.



I had to admit it. The only thing that was holding me back was my fear that BOYS WON'T LIKE ME ANYMORE. And guess what. When I realized that was my one sticking point, the ONLY thing keeping me from doing something I wanted to do, something that might be really liberating and fun ... and that was easily changeable, as my hair would begin growing back the minute I stopped shaving it ... I began to be angry and disgusted with MYSELF. So I thought more and more, it's either me or them ... I was going to live and make my decisions based on what THEY might think and how they will react OR I was going to live for me. The choice was obvious. I never make choices for anyone else if it stands in opposition to what I know is good for me, will make me happy.



So I made my decision. One night, when I had plenty of time and solitude, I chopped my ponytail off. I then carefully cut all but little, short tufts of hair off my head. There was no stopping. I plugged in the clippers, and I copped Sinead O'Connor's style. It was deliciously terrifying! I took my time, going over and over my head to get all those plucky hairs exactly the same length. I marveled while discovering the shape and length of my long neck. I could see the shape of my skull. I learned that I had to shave closer on the ridge which did not heal quite right on the top middle of my head (they were still using foreceps on babies when I was born). It was awesome. I was happy with my decision.



Everyone wants to touch a bald or shaved-short head, and I was no exception. It felt so funny to me, and it was fun to touch! You know that phenomenon of how, when you put your hair into a ponytail for several hours, you take it down and that spot where it was pulled kind of aches?? Well, my entire head felt that way for nearly two weeks!! I have since spoken to some guys who said they had this same experience. It's like the follicles are used to being pulled a different direction by the long hair, and suddenly they are not being pulled by the now-lightweight hair. So it kind of ached and itched. There were all sorts of little and new things like that with my new haircut.



Since then, I have re-grown my hair, but not as long as it was before the shave. It seems to grow pretty damn fast. I wonder sometimes if I will ever be able to grow it to ponytail length or whether that ship has sailed for me. People say that sometimes you reach a point where your hair will no longer grow past a certain length. I'm not sure I will ever have the patience to find out. Once I had cut that hair off, I really haven't ever wanted it back for very long. As many readers know, I usually keep it some version of short or shorter these days, stopping sometimes to grow it for awhile.

In Part 2 of this post (coming later or tomorrow!), I will tell you the story of the way society and my world in particular reacted and still reacts today. As for me, I have never been happier or felt more ... ME. I spend my "free" time in the mornings experimenting (like I had always wanted) with different eye make up, from golds to green and purple, or just some black-rimmed cat-eyes. With very short hair, I don't like to leave the house without ANY make-up. After all, my goal was never to look like a boy. I pay more attention to my wardrobe most of the time too; and I use my time (and money!) freed up from fussing with hair to do that as well. Every now and then, I do go to my stylist and have her trim my hair into a professional shape and cut, to make sure it's done properly. But most of the time, I just use my own clippers (I've invested in a reasonably good pair) to do this cut; it's nearly foolproof and I've gotten very practiced now. Today before I jump in the shower I am taking my hair back to a # 3, something I haven't done in awhile; that is part of what spurred me on to writing this post. I'm taking my look back (almost) to where it began. You can touch it if you want.