A woman can wear her hair short for convenience or fashion, but short hair is always making a political statement. This is a sentiment that a Return of Kings article made recently, in an online piece titled “Girls with short hair are damaged.” But rather than someone who chooses to rebel against the suppressive patriarchy, according to the anonymous author, a women’s short hair says that she is bound to be manlier, more aggressive, or simply “damaged,” choosing to do away with this symbol of her femininity and beauty.
Articles such as this are insulting, misinformed, and a testament to women’s oppression in general. But they give me hope that feminists and future feminists can draw strength from such misogyny being laid out so clearly.
Claims made in the article range from disrespectful to downright infuriating. For instance, the author bases a woman’s attractiveness on being “bangable,” only existing to satisfy sexual desires. To girls who think they can “pull-off” short hair, the author says: “Pulling something off, I often respond, is the equivalent of ‘passing’ a class. Just because you have enough left-over attractiveness to remain bangable after cutting off your hair doesn’t mean you wouldn’t look better with it back on.”
The author continues, “Women have a much stronger copycat instinct than men. While men seek to stand out from the crowd, women aim to stand out in the crowd. Just like women don’t go to the bathroom alone, they don’t go into a style alone.” In one fell swoop, the author implies that gender is equivalent to sex, that women are instinctively sheep, and that women’s intelligence is generally limited to imitating others.
This article is what makes feminists, if we let it.
Comments on this already strongly worded article are equally as disconcerting, with statements such as “Feminism today is about privileged spoiled white girls trying to tell me they are oppressed.” This dismisses women’s issues as being beneath addressing, confirming women’s lower status in society.
The sad reality that this article proves is that we are currently living in a man’s world. Men call the shots; women are still subordinate to them in the workplace as well as the home. Men are paid more than women in general, and often have more opportunities to advance in corporate executive positions.
Yet this article also gives me hope. There wouldn’t be feminists if there weren’t issues to fight for, and this article lays out the issues quite simply. “Girls with short hair are damaged” stands as a sign that prejudice is still rampant in this world and it needs to be stopped.
Articles such as this are what create the responses, like that of New Statesman author Laurie Penny, that prove how informed and fed up women are with this state of affairs.
Until the general public — which, today, has a vehicle for anonymous, insulting, and misinformed articles — realizes that women are more than a hairstyle, all women need to know that these opinions are out there, and all women need to hold their heads high.
