| So let me be real. I originally wrote this post emitting the fact that
I buzzed cut my hair because my (now "ex") boyfriend told me he wanted me
to grow out it out long. So let me start from there, since perhaps that might
act as a large part of the point I am trying to convey.
In my personal life, I seem too be too much of an extreme mixture for
my dating partners. I act assertive yet can be appeasing. I am
financially independent, and dress both masculine and feminine, but
because of my round face, look more feminine. It makes them eventually
act out in hostile ways, often times, where I will feel harassed for
not playing into a power game. I can hear the frantic rally behind
their game-playing: "So who I like? What’s my sexuality? Do I want to
be with men or women? Do I want to be the man in a lesbian
relationship, or do I want to be the woman? Do I want to be the woman
in a hetero relationship, or should “my" man begin to call me crazy?"
I did it on a Friday. Homework ended up on the chopping block, along
with the dyed strands. I couldn't focus. JonBenet Ramsey loomed in my
head like bloody doll figure. I was sick of getting vain compliments
that did not serve my intellect justice but rather only furthered the
pressure for me to consume more hair dye/time to make my hair perfect.
I was sick of being expected to look a certain way, a more feminine
way, a more expensive way, since I decided to date a man and be in a
heterosexual relationship. The adrenaline pumped. The razor kit, I
purchased. My thick, bright cartoon hair, fell off in front of my face
like my thoughts out of my head--"I will not be liked or disliked for
this superficial part of me. This should not make a difference". Well,
as anyone could imagine, it sort of did make a difference.
“What happened to your hair?”
"Well, at least you have a pretty face."
"It will grow back, right?"
"Oh I could never do that."
"Girl, you're crazy."
"No! I miss your red hair! Why did you do it?"
WHY, WHY, WHY, frantically they asked, like concerned parents might
when one pierces her lip.
Men, my kindred hair spirits, with the same roundness of a barren
head, wanted to know what exactly HAPPENED to my hair. Like, did it
run away? Did we get in a fight and break up? Was my hair abusive? But
it was soooo pretty! That vibrant red you dyed it! Why?! Why did YOU
let it go? Why did you let this happen? Why? Tell us! You owe us for
doing this to yourself! By making yourself something more than an
stereotypical, “attractive” charmer! Once again, I, a working-class
but perceived “middle class” white woman, was to blame for her
appearance, when men can wear their hair just like mine or longer, and
no one demands explanations from them.
This is 2009, not 1959. How did we get here, and not get that far?
Let's take a sneak peak through a time machine:
Many of the impractical, consumer-based pressures that coincide with
femininity started in the 1920’s in the U.S., when advertising became
the big trick to keep the affluent and the middle class, buying more
goods. The white women gained the right to vote and with that came
other choices that seemed powerful but became, quite quickly,
restricting. Women became the larger target of a continuous consumer
scheme. They could attend co-ed college, sometimes work, and
therefore, spend their own money. But since women won the vote with
the thought that men and women were biologically different, (since
they feared trying to gain an Equal Rights Amendment would undue all
the work they did for protective labor laws) the unequal treatment,
and the ideas of heteronormative--the ideas that two people in a
relationship are different and thus, must fulfill roles in order to
balance those differences, stuck.
And to this day, there is no Equal Rights Amendment. All of us second class citizens, all
of us nonwhite, non financially secure males, must fend for ourselves. Since our
economy has hit rock bottom (AGAIN) there is that saying circulating
more frequently, “Corporations with sell you the noose that you can
hang them with”, well, there is truth to that in the way we spend our
money as well. Women can buy men’s clothing if they choose, just like
men can buy women’s clothing, but often men, either homosexual or
straight (transsexuals not included) will not. Why? Well it might be
the same reason why women haven’t totally crossed that line with
haircuts.
BECAUSE MEN AND WOMEN DO NOT WANT TO BE PERCEIVED AS A MIXTURE OF TWO
DIFFERENT WAYS OF “THINKING”, PASSIVE AND AGGRESSIVE, BUT FEEL MUCH
MORE COMFORTABLE BEING ONE OR THE OTHER, AGGRESSIVE OR PASSIVE. THE MALE OR
THE FEMALE. THE “BUTCH” OR THE “FEMME”. THE TRADITIONAL 1950’s/1960’s COUPLE THEY SEE
ESTABLISHED IN MODERN DAY ROMANTIC COMEDIES.
IN SHORT, WE ARE ALL STILL HEAVILY BRAINWASHED, NOT ONLY BY GENDER
ROLES, BUT BY CAPITALISM—A LADDER SYSTEM, EVEN IN OUR PERSONAL
RELATIONSHIPS WHERE PASSIVE VERSUS AGGRESSIVE MEAN CONSTANT
COMPETITION; OUR MODERN RELATIONSHIPS ENTAIL A MANAGING OF TWO
DIFFERENT CLASSES, ONE WHERE ONE DOMINATES THROUGH DECISION-MAKING,
AND THE OTHER, THROUGH PASSIVE RESISTANCE AND MANIPULATION--THROUGH
HER/HIS BODY AND SEXUALITY, THROUGH HER/HIS LIMITED, NEARLY DECISION
LESS, ROLE.
Because in the mainstream culture dispenser, where fear is the number
one tactic to keep citizens trapped, if you look and act like Lady
Gaga, you are constantly questioned about your sex. If you are Britney
Spears and shave your head, you are "fuckin` nuts" and need a "mental
examination". If you are buzzcut-haired Natalye Portman, you are used
in Saturday Night Clips as a joke to exemplify macho pressure. The
message the mainstream is portraying? If you try to look and act like
a mix of two genders, you aren’t really accepted by the group, by the
public, by the general opinion. So being too much like our oppositely
prescribed genders is okay, or not okay, but somewhere inbetween is
just kind of weird. And men, forget about that feminine stuff all
together. If you do wear a dress, wear makeup, as a short-haired man,
you’re "gay", or, in queer language, a "tranny", or “on crack”.This
all or nothing hetero culture permeates all ends of race and
sexuality, to the point gay couples tend to play into ironically
unnaccepting nuclear family parts, and Beyonce will only be as fierce
as Jay-Z wants her to be, as he squats in her videos covered head to
toe, Beyonce—wearing next-to-nothing and dancing around him and
rubbing him like an exposed mating bird.
But the general public, this all-consuming public of different sexes,
races, ages and sexualities, that has so many superficial choices in
this world (has almost too many choices) will still not be completely
OKAY with your immediate form of gender mixing. Maybe the very stress
that circulates throughout our advanced, consumer society--the stress
of decision-making and choice--makes us put such constricted,
traditional rules on social interaction. That and the fact that the
working class has little control over their economic situations.
But I am waiting for us as people to really take control, and create
an accepted group of dress-wearing, buzzcut, working class, bisexual,
outspoken but cohesive people. Looks shouldn't matter, but they do.
And we are all too conscience of the way we dress and what kind of
treatment we get from it. So until we strive for equality in that
realm, instead of just assuming an already established role on the
ladder, like "sex-climbing" (ex: a non-transsexual person binding in
order to look like a man), I doubt competition will fade and abuse in
relationships, diminish.
So in the meantime, if you are a woman who does not completely
encompass a masculine stereotype, or even if you do, and want to
buzzcut your hair, be prepared to hear a whole lot of “chemotherapy”
cracks, and see where your blank response takes you.
It’s many a dateless night as a gendermixing person, because even if
someone is attracted to me, I find them quickly wanting me to assume a
role. But, you know, if I am not getting laid for the sake of
continuing equality, I will put on the nun hat and wear my fate in all
black.
After all, what if I did have cancer? Insensitive fucks. |
