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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