dragonlady7

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tuesdayisfordancing https://tuesdayisfordancing.tumblr.com/post/645787664082173952/liberal-family-members-when-a-woman-cuts-her-hair :

butchscientist https://butchscientist.tumblr.com/post/624032286550130688:

butchscientist https://butchscientist.tumblr.com/post/624002428344385536:

liberal family members when a woman cuts her hair very short: I respect your decision but I can’t lie, I think you look better with your hair longer. Is this just an experiment, do you think you’ll grow your hair out after this? Again, I respect your decision, but I do think longer hair looks better than you. I think it is very important that, while I know I have no say in what you do with your hair, I need you to know that I think you look better with your hair long. Don’t be offended, but it is of utmost importance that you understand that you look better to me when you have long hair.

I’ve seen several replies along the lines of “you’re confusing liberals and conservatives”, which I’m not. I specified liberal relatives because in my personal experience, conservatives are more likely to just straight up say “your short hair is ugly and you need to grow it out” while liberals will go “I am a good socially conscious person and therefore know I am not supposed to try to dictate other people’s appearance, however I still need to make it very abundantly clear that I think your short hair is ugly in hopes that you’ll get the hint and grow it out”.

A fun game when you have long hair is to count how many people think “never cut your hair” said oh so fervently is a compliment! That is not a compliment it is an unsolicited instruction!

Oh, and sometimes people will reveal to you in a relieved tone that they never liked your short hair, which they had kept from you when you had it, but since like, you’ve clearly now come to your senses it isn’t remotely awkward for them to mention it now.

I had a weird weird variant of this, though, when I was in my twenties. I think it’s because I grew my hair long enough that it was beyond normative– I couldn’t feasibly wear it down, since it was past waist-length; I had to wear it up in old-fashioned styles, and could not do whatever was fashionable that year.

And people could not stop telling me that I just had to donate that hair. I couldn’t possibly be growing it longer than fashion for any reason but to donate it to Locks of Love. (Which, by the way, is a horrible organization that mostly throws your hair away, and sells the rest, and doesn’t actually give wigs to kids with cancer, like not even one.)

I don’t think I have to point out that yes, it was largely vaguely leftist folks who were telling me what I ought to do with my body, some rather emphatically– more than one person expressed a desire to cut my hair off for me– to the point of brandishing scissors, on more than one occasion, different people, different times, all of whom clearly thought of themselves as compassionate empathetic liberal human-rights sorts. I could not be growing this hair for me, I could not have a reason to justify keeping it for myself, I had to give it away, and they were uncomfortable that I would not, and wanted to take it from me.

It was weird and uncomfortable and you know what? It’s because hair that long is nonconforming too. I couldn’t do fashion with it. I didn’t fit in. And I wasn’t refusing to fit in for self-sacrificing reasons.

I don’t get it so much now but I’m old enough I think now that people don’t quite have the same expectation of conformity. Because that’s what it is– conformity. (Your picture was not posted)