A Hairy Dilemma

Recently a friend invited me out for one of our weekly Starbucks runs. Our tradition is to buy our overly priced "handcrafted" coffee beverages and then walk along the waterfront to burn off the high calorie counts while catching up on life. On this particular night, we walked past a group of teenagers loitering around a bench and laughing obnoxiously. They became silent as we neared, and once my friend and I had walked a few feet passed them I heard them whisper, "What a dyke!"

This happens a lot, probably to the point where it shouldn't bother me anymore. I'm sure I give that impression to a lot of people, since I like shaving my parts of my hair off and I'm a tomboy at heart. But no, I'm not gay. It never fails to make me angry, though for more reasons than it would have years ago. These kids were more than likely basing this assumption on the fact that my hair is so short, without ever considering why my hair is short. It's an awful stereotype.

I've always had an interesting relationship with my hair. When I was a  Freshman in high school, I decided I was bored with my current hair style and wanted something more daring. On a whim I cut my extremely thick, shoulder-length hair into a very short pixie. It was different, it was easy to manage, and I loved it. I kept it for the next 5 years.

Then I hit my 20s, and I realized I needed a change again. So I decided to grow my hair out. It was a pain, and it involved a lot of patience, headbands, and bobby pins, but I did it and I really loved having long hair again. The options were endless. Bun? Ponytail? Curly or straight? I could now do whatever I wanted.

But then a new problem arose. My new long and thick hair knotted quite easily. I didn't have the strength in my arms to brush out the knots. Sometimes I couldn't even lift my arms up above my head. That meant asking my mother to brush my hair for me every night after I showered. But then I needed to make sure that it didn't knot again in my sleep, which meant asking my sister to braid it (when Mom and I tried, our braids were an awkward mess because of our lack of dexterity).

I was beginning to get really frustrated. I had waited two years to grow my hair out again. I was supposed to be able to use hair dryers and flat irons (nope, too heavy, at least sometimes) without issue.

I realized I had a battle on my hands: my hair versus my freedom/dignity. Maybe that sounds really dramatic, but bear with me here. For many women, hair is a symbol of beauty and confidence. And here I was, with little confidence in my ability to take care of the messy mop on my head. Which in turn toyed with my self esteem. I didn't feel beautiful anymore because I couldn't even do the simplest of tasks. The hair had to go.

The trip to the hair salon was a bit somber. Mom came with me, and when we pulled up to the building I seriously thought about calling it off and going home. But I knew I had to do it. I had picked out a really cool cut, so at least I had something to look forward to.

And so they chopped it all off. I was back to pixie short. I've since gone even shorter, though I'm due for a haircut as of the writing of this post. I miss the length, but now I have something I can manage on my own. I just wish that I could have cut it just because I wanted to, not out of necessity.

This is one of the reasons why I have a problem with these kids. They'd never make fun of a chemo patient with no hair. At least, I hope they wouldn't. But many women out there are forced to chop off their hair because of illness, and they are forced to deal with being insulted by ignorant people on top of dealing with their own emotional insecurities. It's not fair to them at all. I'm used to this sort of behavior from having short hair most of my adult life, but let's try to help those other women out, okay? If you're one of those people making comments, it won't kill you to keep your mouth shut.