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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From house top

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline. And this is another listener requested

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Speaker 1: topic and a great topic that it is, women and

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Speaker 1: short hair and the associations that we make about that

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Speaker 1: and a long time ago, way back when, years ago now,

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Speaker 1: which is crazy to think about. Molly and I did

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Speaker 1: a podcast on women's head hair in general, but short

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Speaker 1: hair is such a specific thing and it has such

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Speaker 1: specific connotations for women. Yeah, it has that hair has

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Speaker 1: a lot of baggage for being as short as it is.

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Speaker 1: Short hair has a lot of baggage and messaging behind it.

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Speaker 1: And we actually got a note from Kindall, a listener.

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Speaker 1: She's eighteen, and she actually got some really terrible reactions

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Speaker 1: from her family about her short hair and even her

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Speaker 1: desire to have short hair in the first place. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she wrote to us on Facebook and she said, I

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Speaker 1: cut mine into a short pixie cut last year and

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Speaker 1: was immediately faced with backlash froom, both of my parents.

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Speaker 1: My mom kept telling me that boys don't like girls

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Speaker 1: with short hair, and my dad kept telling me that

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Speaker 1: I looked too much like a boy. Him. Then after

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Speaker 1: I told my mom I was a lesbian, she told

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Speaker 1: me to not buy into stereotypes with my hair. She

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Speaker 1: just can't believe that I actually prefer it this way.

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Speaker 1: Why is it such a big deal culturally when women

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Speaker 1: cut their hair? And why? Indeed, there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of reasons. It's it's pretty, it's pretty multifaceted. Um. But

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Speaker 1: it's funny because you could kind of go in this

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Speaker 1: circular the cycle of of spiraling arguments as to the

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Speaker 1: male gaze, the patriarchy, men's view of femininity, women's views

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Speaker 1: of femininity, when you talk about short hair because it's like, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna cut my hair because it's, you know, against

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Speaker 1: what males perceive as sexually attractive. Well, but then but

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Speaker 1: then you're just responding to that, and so like, I

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Speaker 1: feel like you could go on and on, We could

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Speaker 1: go on and on, but first let's start though, with celebrities.

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Speaker 1: We don't talk a lot about celebs on stuff Mom

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Speaker 1: never told you, but with this issue of short hair

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Speaker 1: on women. Celebrities who have cut their hair super short,

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Speaker 1: especially like pixie cut style, and the reaction that they've

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Speaker 1: gotten are such good illustrations of what we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: When we talk about that baggage that can come along

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Speaker 1: with short hair. Yeah. One who is written about over

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Speaker 1: and over again, and her story has actually been reported

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Speaker 1: incorrectly quite a bit is Mi a Pharaoh. And it

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Speaker 1: was reported a lot that Vidal Sassoon was the one

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Speaker 1: who originally cut her hair off for Rosemary's Baby, not

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Speaker 1: so she cut her hair herself. Yeah, she said she

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Speaker 1: did it on the set of Peyton Place using finger

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Speaker 1: nail scissors. And if you look at pictures of that

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Speaker 1: pixie cut, it's totally believable because it is it's so

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Speaker 1: completely choppy. And and that finally came to light only

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Speaker 1: recently when the New York Times misreported that it was

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Speaker 1: Dalsa Soon and she wrote the nicest letter in correcting

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Speaker 1: or no, I think her cousin or so it was

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Speaker 1: her daughter in law wrote in correcting them. And then

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Speaker 1: she wrote a follow up letter just being like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right, it was me. Yeah. And it was funny

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Speaker 1: because Hollywood legend had it that Frank Sinatra divorced her

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Speaker 1: because he was so horrified at her super short hair.

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Speaker 1: And she wrote in the letter, I intend no disrespect

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Speaker 1: to Mr Sasson, but he had nothing to do with

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Speaker 1: my haircut. Neither I can assure you did my divorce

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Speaker 1: from Frank Sinatra have to do with my haircut, right

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Speaker 1: that he actually liked it. And Vidal sas Soon did

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Speaker 1: cut her hair, but it was part of a publicity

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Speaker 1: stunt and her hair was an inch and a half

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Speaker 1: long and he cut he cut it to like an

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Speaker 1: inch or something like that, just just for the cameras well,

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Speaker 1: speaking of men who do like the short haircut, that

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Speaker 1: brings us more current with Michelle Williams, who told L

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Speaker 1: magazine once that quote straight ment across the board do

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Speaker 1: not like this hair. And she's rocked a pretty short

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Speaker 1: pixie cut for a few years now, and supposedly she

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Speaker 1: keeps it in memorium of Heath Ledger, who she said

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Speaker 1: was the only straight man who has ever really liked

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Speaker 1: that haircut on her. Yeah, and she has recently actually

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Speaker 1: started growing it out again. But she's like, she's so

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Speaker 1: freaking cute. She's like the cutest thing I've ever seen,

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Speaker 1: and so she is so good at growing it out.

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Speaker 1: I feel like anybody else there, there's that awkward in

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Speaker 1: between growing out stage. But she just looks freaking adorable.

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Speaker 1: And some women have no awkward in the stage. I

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Speaker 1: I am jealous. I am jealous because I used to

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Speaker 1: have short hair, not that short, but yeah, I've never

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Speaker 1: gone that short before. But my sister, who looks a

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Speaker 1: lot like me in the face that we have totally

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Speaker 1: different face structures, is currently doing the the Anne Hathaway

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Speaker 1: lame is cut and it looks great on her. I

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Speaker 1: have a flat spot on my head, and I think

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Speaker 1: that I think that for that reason, to pixie cut

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Speaker 1: would look like your parents didn't roll you over enough

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Speaker 1: when you were a baby. I don't know what happened,

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Speaker 1: but I'm just saying this noggin is not pixie cut ready,

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Speaker 1: I you know what, My skull is so freaking bumpy.

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Speaker 1: But also I don't know. I don't think I have

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Speaker 1: the face for it. I mean they say that like

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Speaker 1: if you if you like the way you look with

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Speaker 1: your hair pulled back, you will like the way you

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Speaker 1: look with short, short hair. But I I tend to

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Speaker 1: like pull pieces of hair out when my hair is up,

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Speaker 1: just so that my round cheeks don't stand way out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think it's definitely a face structure by face structure

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Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um, But of course there have been

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Speaker 1: plenty of other celebrities who have done this and pulled

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Speaker 1: it off and looked great doing it. There's Natalie Portman

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Speaker 1: and Hathaway we mentioned you recently did the severe cut.

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Speaker 1: For like miss halle Berry, who's had the short cut

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Speaker 1: for a long time back in the day. We've got

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Speaker 1: Twitty Eaty Sedgewick who had a very iconic haircut. Shirley

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Speaker 1: McLain in the fifties for her Hollywood debut or real

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Speaker 1: a less debut in The Trouble with Harry, which came

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Speaker 1: out in nineteen fifty five, she has a short haircut,

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Speaker 1: and similar to that in n seven we have Jean

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Speaker 1: Seeberg in Joan of arc And for all the hubbub

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Speaker 1: that that Mia Pharaoh caused with her short hair, and

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Speaker 1: all of the back and forth about who did it,

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Speaker 1: did she do it? Why did she do it? You know,

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Speaker 1: that's just an illustration of how short hair on women

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Speaker 1: has always stirred the pot. It's always stirred stuff up,

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Speaker 1: especially if we go to the bob, which is not

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Speaker 1: necessarily as short as the pixie cut. But that is

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Speaker 1: a radical departure in the nineteen tens and twenties from

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Speaker 1: the popular Gibson Girl aesthetic, which we've talked about on

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Speaker 1: the podcast. You know that long flowing hair and that

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Speaker 1: s shaped silhouette. Yeah, we found um an article talking

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Speaker 1: about to Bob or Not to Bob, interviewing dancer Irene Castle,

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Speaker 1: who cut her hair into the bob and it kind

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Speaker 1: of helps set off the fashion wave at the time,

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Speaker 1: and she was basically writing the article to try to

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Speaker 1: calm people down. But she also notes that there are

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Speaker 1: some disadvantages to having a bob, as you can imagine

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Speaker 1: because you talk how they're There are so few ways

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Speaker 1: to dress short hair that one is practically limited departing

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Speaker 1: all the side or in the middle. And then can

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Speaker 1: one grow old and gray still with short hair? Gray

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Speaker 1: hair is charming short, but during the in between years,

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Speaker 1: will it not seem a bit kittenish and not quite dignified? Indeed,

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Speaker 1: you do a mean mid Atlantic old school accent. Kristen Gonger,

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Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Yeah. She she actually an initially

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Speaker 1: cut her hair off at boarding school so that she

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Speaker 1: could go swimming and not appear to have been frolicking,

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Speaker 1: and she cut it off again a few years later

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Speaker 1: for the convenience aspect when she was going into the

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Speaker 1: hospital to get an appendeck to me, But I mean

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Speaker 1: when she was at boarding school that grew u out

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Speaker 1: into a lot of trouble, not necessarily just because she

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Speaker 1: cut her hair, but because all around her girls were

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Speaker 1: falling like dominoes, because the minute she cut her hair,

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Speaker 1: and she writes about it, she's like, oh yeah, basically

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Speaker 1: they all copied me and came to school with short hair.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't my fault that iron Castle was quite sassy.

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Speaker 1: Um well, in n I would argue that we have

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Speaker 1: the first public fallout over a celebrity chopping her hair off,

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Speaker 1: and it's Mary Pickford, who was a major silent film star.

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Speaker 1: She was called America's sweetheart, and she had these classic

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Speaker 1: long curls and in her mom Charlotte died of breast cancer,

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Speaker 1: and she was so devastated that she cut her curls

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Speaker 1: off in of journalists, kind of like the whole run.

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Speaker 1: It reminds me of the whole Britnie Spears thing in

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Speaker 1: two thousand seven. But it was such a huge deal.

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Speaker 1: It made the front page of the New York Times. Wow,

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Speaker 1: So I think that maybe, I mean, I mean, that's

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Speaker 1: happening in nine and in two thousand seven, speaking Britney spears,

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Speaker 1: we have the same like, you know what's happening. It's

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Speaker 1: signaling a crisis if a girl is cutting off of

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Speaker 1: her and it's funny because I mean that's not what

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Speaker 1: short hair always means obviously, but there is definite connotation.

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Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people, a lot of women

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Speaker 1: do go run to the salon after a bad breakup

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Speaker 1: and get a new hairstyle. I mean, there was a

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Speaker 1: writer for l who in April she wrote about her

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Speaker 1: experience getting a pixie cut after a bad breakup and

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Speaker 1: just the terrible reaction, terrible reaction she got from male

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Speaker 1: colleagues who were, she said, openly perplexed by it and

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Speaker 1: just we're very She got a chilly reception, whereas the

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Speaker 1: women who saw her were incredibly supportive. Yeah. In a

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Speaker 1: post over at Bitch magazine talking about reactions against Miley

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Speaker 1: Cyrus more recently getting her haircut and just kind of

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Speaker 1: itemizing all of the other female celebrities who have gotten

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Speaker 1: a quote unquote creepy backlash to their more severe haircuts,

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Speaker 1: the writer says it's quote rooted in a retrograde notion

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Speaker 1: that says that cutting your hair short makes you somehow

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Speaker 1: less of a woman, right, there's an assumption that you're

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Speaker 1: a lesbian or like Brittany, that you're mentally ill and

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Speaker 1: acting out, and I just can't believe that those are

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Speaker 1: the two choices, Like, well, I'm making an assumption about you,

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Speaker 1: and you obviously are one or the other. And that

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Speaker 1: writer at Bitch says that having short hair nowadays almost

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Speaker 1: makes you subversive but ever confident. Miley Cyrus and Emma

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Speaker 1: Watson have responded with grace and confidence, and I mean

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Speaker 1: they were very eloquent and they were like this is me,

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Speaker 1: you know, like they were both kind of perplexed by

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Speaker 1: the attention that their haircuts as as famous women in

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Speaker 1: the media, right, regardless of your sexual orientation. It's I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's funny that that's it's so loaded that we immediately

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Speaker 1: think that it must mean something deeper about a person

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Speaker 1: than maybe just wanting to change up your style. Miley

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Speaker 1: Cyrus actually said years ago in an interview that she

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Speaker 1: wanted to cut her hair off someday, and I'm assuming

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Speaker 1: that probably once she was out of her contract with

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Speaker 1: Disney and was no longer hand in Montana, And could

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Speaker 1: you know, fool around with her her image experiment a bit.

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Speaker 1: She got her hair off, all right, Yeah, and Mary

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Williams wrote about this over at Salon in August,

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Speaker 1: and she was kind of a little teeny tanny voice

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Speaker 1: of reason amid all of this gnashing of teeth, all

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Speaker 1: this yelling about Miley Cyrus cutting her hair off. I mean,

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Speaker 1: because people were worried. They were like her fiance couldn't

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Speaker 1: possibly like it. She's pulling a Brittany, She's lost a dare. Oh,

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Speaker 1: it's so shocking. But Miley's response was, you know, I

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Speaker 1: have actually never felt more me in my whole life.

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Speaker 1: And so, responding to all this craziness, Williams writes that

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Speaker 1: long hair represents femininity and vulnerability and sex. It's princesses

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Speaker 1: and mermaids and porn stars. Short hair, on the other hand, says,

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Speaker 1: if you think I'm gorgeous, great, but this isn't about you,

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Speaker 1: pal who scary. Yeah. Writing in an article for l

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Speaker 1: magazine about her own experience cutting her hair off and

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Speaker 1: the tipid responses from particularly heterosexual men around her, Joanna

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Speaker 1: Cox talked to a psychologist at the University of Pex

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Speaker 1: and Hungary who would perform a study in which images

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Speaker 1: of female faces were given varying links of hair and

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Speaker 1: then evaluated by men on their attractiveness, and the psychologist

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Speaker 1: told her that longer hair had a significant positive effect

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Speaker 1: on the rating of a woman's attractiveness, whereas shorter styles

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Speaker 1: did not. And then in a follow up Cox talked

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Speaker 1: to Jenna Pinkett, who is the author of Do Gentle

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Speaker 1: and Really Prefer Blondes, and she said hair is a

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Speaker 1: track record of your health as a woman. It takes

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Speaker 1: years to grow long, thick hair, and kind of along

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Speaker 1: those same lines, there are these long standing associations between

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Speaker 1: the length of a woman's hair and her fertility, her health,

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Speaker 1: whether or not you know she she is a fertile

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Speaker 1: woman ready to have babies and then put them in

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Speaker 1: her hair and put the babies, yes, where the babies

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Speaker 1: like Barrett's baby Burrett Or used the hair as a

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Speaker 1: d I y baby born. That's absolutely right and like that. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: I will never be able to have a hair biorn

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Speaker 1: because I just have naturally fine hair. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: don't think it's because I'm less healthy. I've always had

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Speaker 1: fine hair. In fact, when I was a baby, my

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Speaker 1: mother Okay, so I lied, I have got really sure hair.

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Speaker 1: One my mother cut my hair off, like all of it,

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Speaker 1: because she thought that by cutting it continuing to cut it,

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Speaker 1: it would make get grow in thicker. Oh dear, so

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Speaker 1: no matter how much pink she put me. And everybody

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Speaker 1: was like, well, that's like you a little boy i've

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Speaker 1: ever seen. Thanks for the compliment, but I'm a girl.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's that's so fascinating though, that the length of

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Speaker 1: the hair possibly holds a greater social currency than the

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Speaker 1: whole pink or blue thing, right, which, oh gosh, I

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Speaker 1: wish I could remember this. Somebody remind me what this is.

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Speaker 1: But I was reading this thing where this this writer

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Speaker 1: said the same thing, like she dressed her little girl

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Speaker 1: in pinks and polka dots and bows and like every

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Speaker 1: possible stereotypically girly baby thing ever, and everybody still was like,

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Speaker 1: is your little boy having fun at the pool? And

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Speaker 1: she's like, well, it's it's a pink fully bathing suit.

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Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? Well? And speaking of babies, on

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Speaker 1: the flip side of that, we found a study talking

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Speaker 1: about how infants detected the difference between and I'm summarizing

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Speaker 1: largely here, but they were able to detect a difference

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Speaker 1: between male and female faces when the women had long hair.

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Speaker 1: Am I saying that correctly? Yeah, I mean I think

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Speaker 1: I think it's that faces in general had more sway

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Speaker 1: over the baby's perceptions than things like hair, you know,

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Speaker 1: and and closed it. But the study, that particular study

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Speaker 1: did say that clothes and hair both played a part,

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Speaker 1: but it was actually more about faces. But the whole

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Speaker 1: point of it was to say that from a very

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Speaker 1: very very young age, as young as nine months to

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Speaker 1: a year, babies already have categories for people who look

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Speaker 1: a certain way, whether you look like mommy or whether

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Speaker 1: you look like daddy. And as we grow up and

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Speaker 1: develop these associations with women in long hair versus women

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Speaker 1: with short hair. Autumn Whitefield Madrano, who writes over at

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Speaker 1: The Beheld and also had this piece on short hair

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Speaker 1: cross posted at Jezebel, cited religious and cultural mores that

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Speaker 1: have surrounded women's hair, which go back centuries, which have

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Speaker 1: reinforced these ideas that long hair equals feminine, short shorter

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Speaker 1: hair is masculine. I mean clearly through you know, if

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Speaker 1: we look back at the history of women's hairstyles, different

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Speaker 1: things have come in and out of vogue, but over time,

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Speaker 1: the longstanding thing has been that long hair is associated

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Speaker 1: with femininity and maturity, especially as we have evolved so

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Speaker 1: that we don't have, say, for anymore to signal that

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Speaker 1: we're mature adults, women have long hair, right. And Autumn

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Speaker 1: also said over at Jezebel in November that, you know,

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Speaker 1: she thinks it's kind of a crop that all straight

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Speaker 1: men hate short hair. You know, she says that we're

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Speaker 1: painting with too broad of a brush there, because she said,

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Speaker 1: a lot of men believe they prefer long hair, but

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Speaker 1: they don't actually care that much. She actually, at age four,

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Speaker 1: cut off all of her beautiful long hair and ended

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Speaker 1: up getting a ton of compliments, not just from people

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Speaker 1: she knew, but from strangers as well. And she said

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Speaker 1: exactly what we pointed out before. She said that if

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Speaker 1: men prefer long hair, it's often because it's hard not

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Speaker 1: to prefer what we've been told is attractive. And for

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Speaker 1: that reason, she says that the whole short hair thing

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Speaker 1: is an excellent example of culturally imposed beauty norms. Of

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Speaker 1: how this, you know, we have an idea that if

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Speaker 1: we cut our hair off, that it's just going to

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Speaker 1: be the end of the world, even though it's probably

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Speaker 1: gonna grow buck right. I mean, even Anne Hathaway, who

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Speaker 1: looks beautiful with her short hair and her you know,

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Speaker 1: those big eyes, like she's just gorgeous. Even she said

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Speaker 1: that she had like a mental breakdown when they were

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Speaker 1: cutting her hair off. Hair hair is very emotional, Whereas

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Speaker 1: I wonder for guys who have grown their hair out

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Speaker 1: really long if there would be a similar emotional response

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Speaker 1: like that. Well, I mean, I guess not, because they

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Speaker 1: would be swinging back into their more mascule and gendered

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Speaker 1: norm of having shorter, closer cropped hair. But I guess

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Speaker 1: I could also depend on what you think you are

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Speaker 1: signaling to society. Like if you are like a metal

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Speaker 1: dude and so you've grown out your long black hair

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Speaker 1: in the metal community like selling out, you're you're doing it.

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Speaker 1: You're fitting in with your brows. So like if you

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Speaker 1: cut your hair, maybe you're like you're afraid that you're

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Speaker 1: gonna be the man. Well, and I do know a

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Speaker 1: guy who his hair is probably just above his shoulders,

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Speaker 1: or at least it used to be. He went through

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Speaker 1: a bit of a breakup next time I saw him

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Speaker 1: close cropped hair looks great. But the first time I

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Speaker 1: saw that haircut, I'm not gonna lie. I thought that's

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Speaker 1: a breakup haircut? Yeah? Hello, did we not just say that? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like totally, there's something. There's something about hair, and I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure what the connection is here that is so emotional,

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Speaker 1: Like why, I mean, you're you're you're you're going through

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Speaker 1: a breakup. You're getting rid of someone who's been next

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Speaker 1: to you for however long, and so it's like you're

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Speaker 1: just shedding the baggage. But thinking about all of the

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Speaker 1: positive reactions that he's gotten to his hair, even from

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Speaker 1: other like guy friends liked, dude, that it really looks great,

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Speaker 1: and that was a horrible impression of all men. I

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Speaker 1: don't don't mean to that that's what guy sound like,

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Speaker 1: But he's gotten so many compliments. If I went through

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Speaker 1: a break up and shaved my head, it would be

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Speaker 1: just the opposite. I would have people flocking to me saying, oh, honey, yeah,

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Speaker 1: where you need a time out? Yeah? Where do we

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Speaker 1: need to take you? Do you need a care basket? Well?

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Speaker 1: I mean, hair length definitely sends a message. There was

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Speaker 1: a two thousand six study in the Review of Psychology

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Speaker 1: that got men to rate photos of women heterosexual mentor

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Speaker 1: rate photos of women with the long hair. Male raiders

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Speaker 1: said that women with long hair were determined, intelligent, independent,

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Speaker 1: and healthy. But when they looked at pictures of short

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Speaker 1: haired women, it's not that they thought the opposite, they

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Speaker 1: just rated them differently. So the mail raiders said that

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Speaker 1: women with the short hair were honest, ring, emotional, and feminine.

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Speaker 1: What this is so confusing? Yeah, because then in April

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Speaker 1: two thousand eight, there was a study published in the

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Speaker 1: Scandinavian Journal of Psychology that looked at skin tone, hair length,

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Speaker 1: and hair color and confirmed the hair length only had

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Speaker 1: a weak effect in terms of people's ratings of attractiveness.

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Speaker 1: But caveat with that study finding it was based on

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Speaker 1: line drawings of people. We're not talking about actual interactions necessarily. Well,

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Speaker 1: so that actually drives with a two thousand four study

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Speaker 1: out of Hungry that found that short hair and hair

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Speaker 1: in a bun had little effect on attractiveness. Okay, no

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Speaker 1: big deal, whereas long and medium hair actually had a

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Speaker 1: large effect. So you might see a woman and be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: she's got short hair, whatever, she's cute, whereas if you

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Speaker 1: see a woman with long flowing luxuries. Here you're like ghul,

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Speaker 1: you're doing the like cartoon eyeballs out of your head. Well,

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Speaker 1: and speaking of qu this is just off the top

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Speaker 1: of my head, I feel like for descriptors in terms

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Speaker 1: of women with super short hair versus women with long hair,

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Speaker 1: super short hairs cute, whereas women with a long flowing locks,

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Speaker 1: well that's ravishing. You know. It's like, oh, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's It's interesting how even linguistically we will tend

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Speaker 1: to categorize it differently, and even with these studies. But

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Speaker 1: I would like to see, is the nuances of short

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Speaker 1: hair if you show people pictures of someone with shoulder

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Speaker 1: length versus a bob that comes to your jawline versus

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Speaker 1: that pixie cut, whether maybe it's something more about the

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Speaker 1: pixie cut. Well, they did a study kind of like

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Speaker 1: that that looked at intelligence perception of intelligence. Yale professor

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Speaker 1: Marianne la France did this study that showed the same

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Speaker 1: face with different hairstyles, everything from bald to long curly locks.

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Speaker 1: And guess what hairstyle was viewed as the most intelligent?

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Speaker 1: Which one the bald lady a woman with no hair whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: So like the shortest crop you could say was perceived

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Speaker 1: as the most intelligent. But let's look at what that means.

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Speaker 1: La France said, longer hair for women's something about some

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Speaker 1: aspects of femininity. And once you're talking about increased femininity perceived,

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Speaker 1: i Q plummet not fantastic. So we're not talking about

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Speaker 1: attractiveness in this study necessarily, But they're just saying like

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Speaker 1: they looked at the picture of the woman with no

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Speaker 1: hair and they were like, she's gonna win a Nobel prize. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because she doesn't give a hoot about how she looks

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Speaker 1: because she has no hair, So she must be putting

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Speaker 1: all of her brain juice into algorithms, right, And I

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Speaker 1: mean it does have a lot to say about personality too.

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Speaker 1: In a Journal of Applied Psychology study November, raiders looked

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Speaker 1: at women with various hair lengths and thought that the

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Speaker 1: women with the longest hair had decreased forcefulness as far

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Speaker 1: as personality goes. So there is a view that like,

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Speaker 1: I guess, if you're confident enough to rock that short hair,

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Speaker 1: I mean you must be like you're you're rocking it,

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Speaker 1: you mean business. Um. Well, we mentioned sexual orientation briefly

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Speaker 1: at the top of the podcast. And while I feel

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Speaker 1: like in a way, the taboos you could say against

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Speaker 1: super short hair can be kind of restrictive, but when

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Speaker 1: it comes to sexual orientation, short hair can also have

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Speaker 1: its own restrictions. We found two papers. These were only

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Speaker 1: papers that we could find looking at hair length and

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Speaker 1: sexual orientation, because there is that stereotype of lesbians with

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Speaker 1: short hair. And in fact, one of the titles of

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Speaker 1: the papers from the Journal of Lesbian Studies from is

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Speaker 1: called the Myth of the short Haired Lesbian, and it's

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Speaker 1: by Dvora Zipkin, and in it she talked to seven

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Speaker 1: white lesbians about having long hair. All of them have

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Speaker 1: long hair, and they said that by not cutting their

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Speaker 1: hair that they had experienced not being taken seriously as lesbians,

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Speaker 1: that because they did not kind of violate that feminine

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Speaker 1: norm that they were perceived often as heterosexual or bisexual

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Speaker 1: or trying to pass as straight, that they weren't, that

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Speaker 1: they weren't somehow following through all the way with their

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Speaker 1: sexual orientation, right. I mean, I actually saw this with

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Speaker 1: some acquaintances back in the day. One of the women

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Speaker 1: and the couple had short hair, and you could call

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Speaker 1: her like a stereotypical lesbian. You know, she had the

426
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:21,639
Speaker 1: short hair and she dressed in a very masculine way.

427
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:25,200
Speaker 1: But her girlfriend like never changed her look from high

428
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 1: school basically, like she still had that long, flowing hair

429
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 1: and the pink lip gloss and all that stuff. And

430
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 1: there was there was that kind of perception of, you know,

431
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 1: from people who encountered them, that like, ah, well, maybe

432
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 1: she's just she's just experimenting or she you know, like

433
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: it wasn't they didn't take the relationship between these two

434
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 1: women seriously. Yeah, And along those lines, the point that

435
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: Zipken raises in her paper is that if we tell

436
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 1: lesbians that they have to cut their hair to signal

437
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 1: that they are lesbians, aren't we just reacting to some

438
00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:59,640
Speaker 1: male standard of beauty. Let's not make assumptions about women

439
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: bay on hair length. Yeah, I mean across the board. Yes,

440
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,199
Speaker 1: let's not make assumptions about anyone, I mean based on

441
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: hair length. Although, of course then we get into conversations

442
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 1: about if you look at different religions and what hair

443
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 1: link signals, and if we go to different parts of

444
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,399
Speaker 1: the world, what hair link signals. I'm just more talking

445
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: about in terms of the sexual orientation piece. Of this

446
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: um and also in the Journal of Lesbian Studies in

447
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,680
Speaker 1: there was a paper more of a personal essay from

448
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: Ellen Samuel's called even my Hair Won't Grow Straight, and

449
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,959
Speaker 1: she basically talked about how, uh, after she came out,

450
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: she did have short hair, but everybody just wanted her.

451
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 1: I guess in a way that as her family really

452
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: didn't want to accept the fact that she was gay,

453
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: they were also really, really really wanting her to grow

454
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: her hair out. Yeah, And she said that she just

455
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:54,919
Speaker 1: you know, made the decision one day to grow her

456
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: hair back out, and people around her viewed that as

457
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 1: a return to you know, quote unquote normal femininity, like oh,

458
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: thank god, she's going out of that phase, you know.

459
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:07,400
Speaker 1: And it's like, well, no, she's just made a personal

460
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: decision to grow her hair out. And I wonder, I mean,

461
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: both of these papers came out, and so that's what

462
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: fourteen years ago. Now that's crazy to think about, but

463
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 1: I do wonder those since both of those papers came

464
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: out fourteen years ago, whether maybe our notions have changed.

465
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: But I still I don't know. I don't think they

466
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 1: have all that much, especially if you think about Miley

467
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 1: Cyrus not so long ago. Shaving the sides of her

468
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:36,919
Speaker 1: head and people saying, well, she can't really be engaged

469
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:39,440
Speaker 1: to William Helm's Helm's worth because she's got to be

470
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:42,160
Speaker 1: a lesbian. Look at how closer hair is to her head. Yeah,

471
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 1: no handsome man would love a woman with short hair.

472
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: That's just ridiculous. Yeah, and for this, I do you know,

473
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: obviously want to hear from women with short hair and

474
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: guys out there, straight, gay, whomever. What do you think

475
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 1: about women with short or does it signal something different?

476
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: I mean, talking to women I know who had short hair,

477
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 1: a lot of times, it does come from a place

478
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: of like, no, I just want to do this. It

479
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 1: is there's a bit of impulse to it and determination

480
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 1: because you are you know, it is outside of the

481
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,399
Speaker 1: norm to do something. Yeah, I remember, I mean you

482
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:24,880
Speaker 1: know how hard middle school is. Well, I had a friend.

483
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: I had a friend who got a pixie cut in

484
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 1: eighth grade. I mean, granted she was like, you know,

485
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,440
Speaker 1: nine feet tall and slender and you know, gorgeous and everything,

486
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: but like, that's crazy to go against such norms at

487
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: such a young age. I feel like that's such a

488
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,400
Speaker 1: tough period to go through that everybody kind of wants

489
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 1: to blend in and be the same. I mean, I

490
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: think it speaks to something in her personality. You know,

491
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: she just stands out anyway. She's a very confident girl.

492
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:55,120
Speaker 1: But like, hey, I mean I think if you want

493
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: to rocket rocket, like I don't think it would look

494
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: good on me, but you know, if if you like it. Yeah,

495
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: And I wish we had been able to offer some

496
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 1: deeper academic insight into it, But a lot of the

497
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: studies on hair length are very general, like the ones

498
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 1: that we talked about, where it's like short, medium, along

499
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: what do you like? Oh long? And I feel like

500
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: there's so much more though in there. But in terms

501
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 1: of the our our panic over celebrities cutting off their hair,

502
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 1: I was very intrigued to find that story about Mary

503
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:34,119
Speaker 1: Pickford's nineteen New York Times cover story on her cutting

504
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 1: her locks. Yeah. Well, so as for Kendall who wrote

505
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: into us about her short hair. You know, do you

506
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 1: think out of this we've we've helped, you know, I

507
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: hope we've helped and given a little perspective. And I'm

508
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 1: really sorry to hear that your parents had such a

509
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 1: negative freaking reaction to your hair cut. Yeah. Sometimes you know,

510
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: what Caroline, Terence just don't understand. You just don't understand.

511
00:28:56,480 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: So with that, short haired ladies, send us your emails

512
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: or your Facebook messages or your tweets. Mom Stuff at

513
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com is where you can send letters. You

514
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: can message us on Facebook or tweet us at Mom's

515
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast. And we've got a couple of messages to

516
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: share with you. But first we're gonna take a quick

517
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: break and then we'll get right back. And now back

518
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: to our letters. Well, we've got a couple of letters

519
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: here about our episode on women's colleges, and I would

520
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: have one here from Rachel and she writes, you had

521
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: a small error that I'd like to correct. I'm a

522
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 1: student at Hillsdale College and the school is located in Michigan.

523
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: Founded in eighty four, Hillsdale was the first school in

524
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:42,960
Speaker 1: the United States to prohibit its charter discrimination based on race, religion,

525
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: or sex. We have welcomed great defenders of equality like

526
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 1: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglas and our strong supporters

527
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 1: of equality and freedom. We continue to have gender, sex,

528
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: and race blind admissions today. It was very exciting to

529
00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: hear about my own school and a podcast I listened

530
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: to so frequently, So thanks for listening, Rachel, and my

531
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: dad would be so happy. My dad is a Hillsdale

532
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, still supports the school, still gets the alumni magazine.

533
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: Oh it's that is meetto Chatter, Van from Birmingham, Michigan.

534
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 1: What there we go talking to truth bumb Okay. Here's

535
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: a letter from Emma. She's a new listener, Kristen, and

536
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: she said, I wanted to thank you. I attend Wellesley College,

537
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 1: but I never heard about some of the things you mentioned,

538
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: despite my mother being an alumna. It was very interesting.

539
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: I wanted to say that I faced some of that

540
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: prejudice when I announced in my high school classmates that

541
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: I was going to Wellesley. They thought I was nuts.

542
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 1: They wanted to know why I didn't choose Barvard or Yale,

543
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 1: of one or one of the other ivy leagues. I

544
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: told them what I knew, like the stats on women

545
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: from women's colleges leading the US and breaking the glass feeling.

546
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: But I wish I'd been able to tell them what

547
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 1: I just learned. If only my mother really had told

548
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: me these things, I'd have a better comeback. She said,

549
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: and also high five pointing out that we're not all

550
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: awkward lesbians. In fact, I don't think I know a

551
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 1: single awkward lesbian. I hate that stereotype. And thanks for

552
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: mentioning that we can take classes at other schools. I'm

553
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: going to be taking a class at in my te

554
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: next semester, and I've had boys in my class before.

555
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 1: I've had plenty of opportunities to meet guys. I don't

556
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: regret going to Wealthley. It was the best decision of

557
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: my life. So thank you, Emma, She says she's in

558
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:29,320
Speaker 1: the class of Alright, go go college listener. Yeah, thanks

559
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 1: for writing, and again, if you want to write to us,

560
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 1: you can send us an email at mom Stuff at

561
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com. You can send us a message on

562
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 1: Facebook where at Facebook dot com slash stuff Mom never

563
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: told You'd be sure to like us while you're at it,

564
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: and follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast. And

565
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: we're on Tumbler as well. It's stuff Mom Never told

566
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: you duc Tumbler dot com. And don't forget during the

567
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 1: week that you can watch us as well every Monday, Wednesday,

568
00:31:56,360 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 1: Friday coming at you with new stuff on YouTube to

569
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 1: YouTube dot com slash stuff Mom never told you and

570
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe for more on this and thousands

571
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 1: of other topics. Doesn't how stuff works. Dot com