I've been quite sick recently. I am convalescing. I have been noticing how important my hair is in my perception of how I am doing. On a good day, I brush my hair and plait it up and feel a little stronger. On a bad day, I can't control how it falls around my eyes, lustreless and sad. Maybe I noticed this because I have been reading Malcolm Gladwell's compilation of articles "What the Dog Saw", and there was a nice one called "True Colors: Hair Dye and the Hidden History of Postwar America". It's also about the revolution of marketing specifically to women. Apparently Clairol blondes are the girl-next-door home-grown apple-pie American teens & young women, and L'Oreal blondes are sassy, powerful, older women who choose the more expensive brand for themselves ("Because I'm Worth It").
I have never been a blonde. I don't think I could do it. I could not tolerate how blondes are portrayed and differentially treated. But I very much liked the underlying observation in his article.
A person's identity and social position - especially a woman's - is very caught-up in her hair: colour, length, style of cut or treatment, type of care; and the layers of meaning embedded therein. Blondes, for example, are well studied. Gladwell references a guy called Grant McCracken and his "Blondeness Periodic Table", which pegs six different images for bottle-blonde women:
The Bombshell, eg Marylin Monroe or Pamela Anderson
The Sunny Blonde, eg Goldie Hawn or Cameron Diaz
The Brassy Blonde, eg. Sarah-Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Society Blonde, eg. Paris Hilton or Kiera Knightly
The Dangerous Blonde, eg. Sharon Stone or Meryl Streep
The Cool Blonde, eg.Patricia Arquette or Cate Blanchett
Caucasian brunettes and redheads also carry layers of meaning - and I am sure if I find Grant's book there will be some mention of them. But clearly we are more invisible than blondes. Brunettes are permitted - and perceived to carry - more authority and capability than blondes, and redheads are almost expected to have a temper.
In Asia,where hair is almost always black and straight to Caucasian eyes, there are actually clear distinctions between hair in terms of the shade and lustre (blue-black, red-black, purple-black, green-black, silver-black etc.) as emphasised in female Anime characters. Additionally, the choice of style is critical: sleek, straight, untied long hair is a youthful trait, a low-maintenance short cut is a sign of practicality and good sense.
I have insufficient information on African-American haridos, so if anyone who knows would like to post a comment, please do!
I notice cross-cultural congruences, though. Around the world, obvious chemical treatment can be the sign of a tart, whether it is bleaching red streaks into a young HK-Chinese woman's otherwise long straight locks, or a frizzy boofy middle-aged perm. Around the world, haircuts mostly get shorter as women get older, as a nod to practicality and also acknowledging the gradual slide towards the androgeny of old age (old men and old women are hormonally and neurochemically extremely similar). A haircut can also signify a life change: let go of an ex, then cut your hair short or dye it a completely different colour. Across many disparate places and times, short hair on a woman has been a sign of mourning, or a new start.
But hair is not just head-hair (although this gentleman clearly likes his very much!). Hair is eyebrows, eyelashes, facial hair, noticeable body and pubic hair that men and women often try to remove, the downy invisible hairs all over our bodies that prickle in the cold or a scary movie. Human hair has evolved with our species over millions of years to be mostly-bare in some spots, and to grow unregulated on our heads, and to be a naturally self-regulating length in other areas.
And yet, in this late-20th and early-21st century, women are at war with their hair.
Again.
Some proportion of the population was at war with hair during most of the great empires of history. This page has a nifty summary - although I haven't cross-checked each one - but the short version is, Society people of both genders from the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Moghul, Manchu and Qing Chinese, Victorian British and modern American empires insisted on extensive or complete hair removal. Heads were shaved in order to wear wigs on them, or in order to be shiny and bald. Eyebrows, body hair, pubic hair, leg hair - these have been the Enemy for a long long time.
There were of course exceptions.
Roman Emperor Hadrian is famous for quite liking Greek statues with beards, and growing a beard himself, turning the established Roman fashions upside-down.
Where the Qing dynasty had an edict of shaving mens' heads but leaving a queue, rebellions were extensive and bloody. Truly a gurerrilla war over hair. Also, Google indicates that Incan hair-removal was probably not a particularly important custom, which is handy because that's how archaeologists have worked out the extent to which child sacrifices were drugged.
But body hair is useful. It reduces chafing when you work at repeated physical tasks (hoeing a field, running after a bison etc).
It absorbs sweat and stops it beading on the skin. This ad would not be able to create a problem if such women weren't so inexplicably keen on removing their pubic hair.
Body hair keeps you warm - to a surprising extent.
It repels dirt. Eyebrows also direct rainwater, snow and sleet off the forehead to the sides, away from your eyes.
Beards and moustaches warm the face and inhaled air.
Body hair can be a good instant indicator of age - particularly the beard-fuzz of a boy at the end of adolescence growing into a proper man's beard, and older adults going grey.
Body hair can also indicate something about hormonal health: thyroid conditions and certain gynecological issues such as PCOS can cause masculine pattern body hair growth; anorexia and other eating disorders can cause hormonal disruptions that trigger long fine downy hair all over the face and body.
So why do we go to war against hair? My theory connects two pieces of established thought.
1) Humans are still primates. We have evolved from a group of animals where every single species has a complex social structure which is maintained through grooming. and every single one of us - whether rhesus monkey or Romanian orphan - has a psychological need for physical contact and touch. Without loving contact as children, our brains simply don't grow - the orbital frontal gyrus, prefrontal cortex, and the deep brain (amygdala, hippocampus, brain stem) are all compromised in size and function. Such individuals can't regulate their emotions, they can't interact 'normally' with others in their species, and they can't manage the tasks of finding a mate and parenting young. A grooming culture is actually a critical neurological prerequesite for reliable transfer of the genetic material of the individual to the next generation. When a primate colony's food supply is good, much of the spare time is spent grooming. So the condition of a troupe's hair may indicate to others the prosperity of that troupe.
2) Modern humans have lots of spare time (defined by waking time not directly occupied with the business of survival). An archaeologist friend of mine has a (not explicitly published) theory that spare capacity in a society is turned to "goofy stuff", ie the development of culture and custom. Goofy stuff can be construction (like the Easter Island statues or the Mayan plaster-coated temples which deforested their lands and caused micro-climate-change, contributing to the fall of their empire), the development and refinement of art and music, and these days Hollywood blockbusters and Pomeranian shows and kinder coffee mornings and writing blog posts are all clearly goofy things to put resources into.
Considering this in the context of the War on Hair, a large proportion of culture and custom is devoted to grooming and socialisation (the fashion industry, fitness industry, and aforementioned coffee morning, for example). But another proportion is devoted to establishing and maintaining social hierarchy in terms of acquiring posessions, and grooming those posessions as a simulacrum for self-grooming and allogrooming (grooming other people). This is what the consumer culture hinges on: using our "extra spare time", above and beyond our primate cousins' "grooming spare time", to shop for objects that make our house look better ('grooming' the house) or working overtime to save up for a renovation (more house 'grooming'), or cleaning and washing things that our primate cousins wouldn't bother with, like dishes and underpants. And this self-pride and house-pride is actually a social indicator of good mental health too: if you let your dishes stack up and don't wash your undies, you're one shopping-trolley away from being the batty old bag lady who talks to herself.
So don't go to war with your own hair. That's just goofy. It hurts, and hair has some very practical uses.
Don't go to war with the war on hair either. The war has been running for at least 4,000 years. And if you win a skirmish, and encourage a community to be comfortable with their natural body hair, another type of grooming will bubble up to fill the spare "grooming time". For example, the twirling of dreadlocks. (Hi, happy dancing lady with the hairy armpits and dreadlocks.)
I think we should all return to the original purpose of primate 'grooming time': human touch. Give your partner a massage. Rumble with your sons or go play your local type of football with your friends. Have a hot shower then get yourself a ludicrously soft towel. Race on the grass barefoot. Stand in a shopping mall next to a sign that says "Free Hugs". Use touch to look after your brain.
I have never been a blonde. I don't think I could do it. I could not tolerate how blondes are portrayed and differentially treated. But I very much liked the underlying observation in his article.
A person's identity and social position - especially a woman's - is very caught-up in her hair: colour, length, style of cut or treatment, type of care; and the layers of meaning embedded therein. Blondes, for example, are well studied. Gladwell references a guy called Grant McCracken and his "Blondeness Periodic Table", which pegs six different images for bottle-blonde women:
The Sunny Blonde, eg Goldie Hawn or Cameron Diaz
The Brassy Blonde, eg. Sarah-Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Society Blonde, eg. Paris Hilton or Kiera Knightly
The Dangerous Blonde, eg. Sharon Stone or Meryl Streep
The Cool Blonde, eg.Patricia Arquette or Cate Blanchett
Caucasian brunettes and redheads also carry layers of meaning - and I am sure if I find Grant's book there will be some mention of them. But clearly we are more invisible than blondes. Brunettes are permitted - and perceived to carry - more authority and capability than blondes, and redheads are almost expected to have a temper.
In Asia,where hair is almost always black and straight to Caucasian eyes, there are actually clear distinctions between hair in terms of the shade and lustre (blue-black, red-black, purple-black, green-black, silver-black etc.) as emphasised in female Anime characters. Additionally, the choice of style is critical: sleek, straight, untied long hair is a youthful trait, a low-maintenance short cut is a sign of practicality and good sense.
I have insufficient information on African-American haridos, so if anyone who knows would like to post a comment, please do!
I notice cross-cultural congruences, though. Around the world, obvious chemical treatment can be the sign of a tart, whether it is bleaching red streaks into a young HK-Chinese woman's otherwise long straight locks, or a frizzy boofy middle-aged perm. Around the world, haircuts mostly get shorter as women get older, as a nod to practicality and also acknowledging the gradual slide towards the androgeny of old age (old men and old women are hormonally and neurochemically extremely similar). A haircut can also signify a life change: let go of an ex, then cut your hair short or dye it a completely different colour. Across many disparate places and times, short hair on a woman has been a sign of mourning, or a new start.
But hair is not just head-hair (although this gentleman clearly likes his very much!). Hair is eyebrows, eyelashes, facial hair, noticeable body and pubic hair that men and women often try to remove, the downy invisible hairs all over our bodies that prickle in the cold or a scary movie. Human hair has evolved with our species over millions of years to be mostly-bare in some spots, and to grow unregulated on our heads, and to be a naturally self-regulating length in other areas.
And yet, in this late-20th and early-21st century, women are at war with their hair.
Again.
Some proportion of the population was at war with hair during most of the great empires of history. This page has a nifty summary - although I haven't cross-checked each one - but the short version is, Society people of both genders from the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Moghul, Manchu and Qing Chinese, Victorian British and modern American empires insisted on extensive or complete hair removal. Heads were shaved in order to wear wigs on them, or in order to be shiny and bald. Eyebrows, body hair, pubic hair, leg hair - these have been the Enemy for a long long time.
There were of course exceptions.
Roman Emperor Hadrian is famous for quite liking Greek statues with beards, and growing a beard himself, turning the established Roman fashions upside-down.
Where the Qing dynasty had an edict of shaving mens' heads but leaving a queue, rebellions were extensive and bloody. Truly a gurerrilla war over hair. Also, Google indicates that Incan hair-removal was probably not a particularly important custom, which is handy because that's how archaeologists have worked out the extent to which child sacrifices were drugged. But body hair is useful. It reduces chafing when you work at repeated physical tasks (hoeing a field, running after a bison etc).
It absorbs sweat and stops it beading on the skin. This ad would not be able to create a problem if such women weren't so inexplicably keen on removing their pubic hair.
Body hair keeps you warm - to a surprising extent.
It repels dirt. Eyebrows also direct rainwater, snow and sleet off the forehead to the sides, away from your eyes.
Beards and moustaches warm the face and inhaled air.
Body hair can be a good instant indicator of age - particularly the beard-fuzz of a boy at the end of adolescence growing into a proper man's beard, and older adults going grey.
Body hair can also indicate something about hormonal health: thyroid conditions and certain gynecological issues such as PCOS can cause masculine pattern body hair growth; anorexia and other eating disorders can cause hormonal disruptions that trigger long fine downy hair all over the face and body.
So why do we go to war against hair? My theory connects two pieces of established thought.
1) Humans are still primates. We have evolved from a group of animals where every single species has a complex social structure which is maintained through grooming. and every single one of us - whether rhesus monkey or Romanian orphan - has a psychological need for physical contact and touch. Without loving contact as children, our brains simply don't grow - the orbital frontal gyrus, prefrontal cortex, and the deep brain (amygdala, hippocampus, brain stem) are all compromised in size and function. Such individuals can't regulate their emotions, they can't interact 'normally' with others in their species, and they can't manage the tasks of finding a mate and parenting young. A grooming culture is actually a critical neurological prerequesite for reliable transfer of the genetic material of the individual to the next generation. When a primate colony's food supply is good, much of the spare time is spent grooming. So the condition of a troupe's hair may indicate to others the prosperity of that troupe.
2) Modern humans have lots of spare time (defined by waking time not directly occupied with the business of survival). An archaeologist friend of mine has a (not explicitly published) theory that spare capacity in a society is turned to "goofy stuff", ie the development of culture and custom. Goofy stuff can be construction (like the Easter Island statues or the Mayan plaster-coated temples which deforested their lands and caused micro-climate-change, contributing to the fall of their empire), the development and refinement of art and music, and these days Hollywood blockbusters and Pomeranian shows and kinder coffee mornings and writing blog posts are all clearly goofy things to put resources into.
Considering this in the context of the War on Hair, a large proportion of culture and custom is devoted to grooming and socialisation (the fashion industry, fitness industry, and aforementioned coffee morning, for example). But another proportion is devoted to establishing and maintaining social hierarchy in terms of acquiring posessions, and grooming those posessions as a simulacrum for self-grooming and allogrooming (grooming other people). This is what the consumer culture hinges on: using our "extra spare time", above and beyond our primate cousins' "grooming spare time", to shop for objects that make our house look better ('grooming' the house) or working overtime to save up for a renovation (more house 'grooming'), or cleaning and washing things that our primate cousins wouldn't bother with, like dishes and underpants. And this self-pride and house-pride is actually a social indicator of good mental health too: if you let your dishes stack up and don't wash your undies, you're one shopping-trolley away from being the batty old bag lady who talks to herself.
So don't go to war with your own hair. That's just goofy. It hurts, and hair has some very practical uses.
Don't go to war with the war on hair either. The war has been running for at least 4,000 years. And if you win a skirmish, and encourage a community to be comfortable with their natural body hair, another type of grooming will bubble up to fill the spare "grooming time". For example, the twirling of dreadlocks. (Hi, happy dancing lady with the hairy armpits and dreadlocks.)I think we should all return to the original purpose of primate 'grooming time': human touch. Give your partner a massage. Rumble with your sons or go play your local type of football with your friends. Have a hot shower then get yourself a ludicrously soft towel. Race on the grass barefoot. Stand in a shopping mall next to a sign that says "Free Hugs". Use touch to look after your brain.
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