C

omical threads fill websites like Reddit 
and Quora with anonymous users who 

pose questions like these: “Why do many of the 
extreme feminists have short hair or buzz cuts? 
Is it a symbol of not conforming to long hair, or do 
they just like short hair? No hate or spite started 
this. It’s just my curiosity.”

The fixation on women and short hair is by 

no means unique to the modern-day. In 1915, the 
famous ballroom dancer Irene Castle cut her hair 
just below her ears for convenience ahead of an 
appendectomy — she kept it short after the sur-
gery, creating the “Castle Bob.” Castle, a reputa-
tion trend-setter, rattled American traditionalists 
with her new look. In 1920, the Women’s Suffrage 
movement gained traction with the ratification 
of the 19th Amendment, and as more women 
joined the workforce during World War I, short 
hair took on a new meaning as an act against tra-
ditional ideas of femininity. Following suit, mid-
20th-century actresses like Audrey Hepburn and 
Joan Crawford sported bobs, pervading popular 
culture with the ethos of an independent, mod-
ern woman. The 1970s and 80s brought layers 
and texture to the hairstyle, and by the end of the 
20th century, the pixie cut saw a rise in popular-
ity. Victoria Beckham and Halle Berry, in the 
early 2000s, continued the look of short hair with 
stacked bobs and tapered cuts. 

Fictional worlds, of course, have reflected this 

trend: the unsettling Margo Tenenbaum from 
“The Royal Tenenbaums,” the odd Amélie from 
“Amélie,” troubled Susanna Kaysen from “Girl, 
Interrupted.” The alluring Mia Wallace, from 
“Pulp Fiction,” Mathilda in “Léon: The Profes-
sional,” the prodigious Beth Harmon in “The 
Queen’s Gambit.”

These characters’ short haircuts, while vary-

ing in shortness, ultimately achieve a familiar 
brand of identity: cool girl. Cool unsettling girl. 
Cool odd girl. Cool troubled girl. Cool alluring girl. 
Cool troubled troubled girl. Cool prodigy girl. So 
it seems that popular culture’s idea of a cool girl, a 
postmodern girl, is one that makes a show of her 
femininity while also rejecting it — an intriguing 

contradiction that directors tend to like. 

What exactly are we doing when we associate 

say, a haircut, with an identity, a persona? Would 
Margo Tenenbaum still be the same character, 
still have the same intrigue, if she had long hair? 
Or if she didn’t smoke cigarettes or wear a shock of 
a fur coat? Appearance as identity is a dangerous 
thing to buy into, except of course, when it makes 
for a good film. 

In our postmodern world, appearance as iden-

tity has only become more of a complex and sticky 
matrix. Anthony Giddens has a cerebral term for 
what we’ve endeavored our bodies to become: a 
“reflexive project.” In our 21st century, the pre-
sentation of the self has become more and more of 
a false narrative, a canvas onto which we project 
who we hope to become, not who we actually are. 
Who actually, then, are we? 

~
I’ve always admired girls with short hair, espe-

cially if it’s especially short, hugging the jawline or 
swirling in curlier strands near the ears. I’ve seen 
the same woman with bobbed, wind-whipped, 
honey-colored hair biking down my street every 
week, earrings wagging, all business. After a week 
of seeing this woman and thinking hard about the 
state of my own appearance, how all of my clothes 
seemed to fit having short hair anyway, I got mine 
cut. It’s like by getting my hair cut just as short 
as hers, I might also attain her confidence, and 
maybe even her bike.

I wasn’t trying to make a statement by cutting 

my hair short, at least not consciously. I was just 
trying to get a haircut, to prove to myself that I can 
still do bold things and say to myself later that night 
in the harsh mirror of my bathroom, this suits me. 

Could it be true that by walking out of the salon 

on a cool Monday, with the now exposed nape of 
my neck, I destabilized, on some level, my femi-
nine side? I certainly felt lighter, less burdened. 
The curled ends of my hair bobbed with every 
step, animating my walk with a bit more energy 
than I usually carry.

Having such short hair feels like I’m wearing a 

costume, like the formidable Joan of Arc (the 1903 

portrayal by Albert Lynch), or like the sleek Lou-
ise Brooks — like it’s not actually me, but instead 
some much cooler version, one I could never actu-
ally be. 

This haircut feels jaded or makes me look 

jaded, even when I don’t intend to. And it’s always 
when I try to look disaffected that I feel the most 
affected, a comical sort of paradox that prevents 
me from putting on a show. 

This haircut makes me feel French, and I am 

French, but French Canadian. I should’ve said: 
This haircut makes me feel French Parisian. 
This haircut feels like the vivid cool of smoking a 
cigarette for the first time, this haircut feels like 
drumming nails on countertops, this haircut feels 
like wearing gloves in painting class instead of 
not wearing them, a ladylike and cleanly thing to 
do which for so long I’ve avoided until my hands 
cracked dry from the oils.

This haircut feels like it exists between girl and 

lady, but I hate both of those words anyway. This 
haircut feels like the candied thrill of Coke in a 
glass bottle, this haircut feels like disobeying the 
grip of my ponytail holder every time I step out 
the door for a few miles at lunchtime, this haircut 
seems to accentuate my bad posture, this haircut 
feels like calling instead of texting, this haircut 
feels like the shapeless comfort of a shift dress, 
this haircut feels like the smart plunk of a chess 
piece touching down. 

This haircut feels like the only poet I’ve ever 

really loved might be Frank O’Hara, this haircut 
feels like a holiday train ride, this haircut feels 
like its curls mimic the pensive windup of an 
analog clock, this haircut feels like not taking my 
makeup off before bed, this haircut feels like the 
acrid taste of whiskey, this haircut feels, when 
straightened into submission by the force of 410 
degrees, like the unconvincing charm of a 1950s 
actress, this haircut feels like the purchase of a 
leather jacket which is somehow religious, this 
haircut feels like being late and not walking any 
faster, this haircut feels, especially when seen in 
silhouette, like I’ve become a paper doll, weight-
less and newly lovely. 

This haircut feels like not replying to what is 

intended to provoke me, this haircut feels like 
reading the lucid prose of Rachel Cusk or Rachel 
Kushner, this haircut feels like only smiling when 
I want to, not because I have to, this haircut feels 
like the unmatched bliss of noise-canceling head-
phones, this haircut feels like not deleting search 
histories, unashamed of the curiosities and check-
ins, this haircut feels like skipping school, which is 
something I can’t do without a great big stomach 
ache coming on.

This haircut feels like the estranged voice of 

Aimee Mann in her hit song “Save Me,” this hair-
cut feels like liking small talk for what it reveals 
about a person, this haircut feels like walking 
around in the rain without an umbrella, this hair-
cut feels like it deals in the business of never being 
dull, being fearful of it actually, this haircut knows 
bad things always happen on Sundays, this hair-
cut feels like dancing to “Fantastic Man” by Wil-
liam Onyeabor in spite of Sundays.

This haircut, then, feels like not caring, which 

is hard because all I’ve ever done is try to disguise 
the fact that I do indeed care. I care whether peo-
ple like me or not, or if they could look at me on the 
street and say I can tell that you’re a good person, 
I care whether people like my writing or not, this 
very sentence. I care about what people would say 
if I were to, very suddenly, stop talking altogether. 

This haircut, then, is who I feel I am but also 

who I wish I was because while I love Frank 
O’Hara, I don’t play chess and I, though I’m get-
ting better at it, find it incredibly difficult not to 
respond to what provokes me. And I’m still scared 
of Sundays no matter how many miles I run the 
morning of. 

~
“To what extent is ‘identity’ a normative ideal 

rather than a descriptive feature of experience?” 
asked Judith Butler in her groundbreaking 1990 
book, “Gender Trouble.” After all, what really is 
our identity? Is it the choices we make? Is it the 
things we say? Is it what we believe, but don’t wish 
to discuss? Is it all of it or is it none of it?

I’ve joked around and said that I cut my hair so 

that I was more recognizable as an art major, and 
while this was mostly a joke, not all of it was. By 
cutting my hair, I may have been pushing against 
more conservative ideas about women’s appear-
ances and femininity itself, but by cutting my hair, 
I also may have been playing into what I think I 
should look like. 

I think, in fact I know, that I got my hair cut 

because I was bored of my appearance. I felt it 
lacked a certain intrigue, which is, most definitely, 
a sad belief of mine that has to do with perfor-
mance: My identity, despite the first letter of the 
word, is not for me. It is for others to watch and to 
be entertained by. 

But how, in the age we live in, could this not be 

the case? 

We’re lying to ourselves when we say that we 

do things just because we want to. We may very 
well have desires that could look like our own, but 
those desires are shaped by the desires of others, 
à la René Girad’s mimetic theory. We want things 
because other people want them. We do things 
because other people do them. 

BY TAYLOR SCHOTT, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 // The Statement — 2

Being a woman and

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