In today’s society, you can alter your hair in a myriad of ways, partial only by your willingness to spend both time and money on the masterpiece itself. Because hair is so visible, a shaved head, both half and fully, it ultimately becomes part of a person’s identity. It helps define the persona you aim to create to impress others, whether as an intellectual, a sexual being, a rebel, or some combination of the above. This hairstyle portrays an image and influences the way you define yourself to yourself, as an extension of your identity. In theory, it is becoming increasingly common to see women who have a buzz cut, and for many it is for aesthetic purposes or out of necessity, but for others it is symbolic for unshackling themselves.
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In particular with hairstyles, following celebrities with the ‘latest’ fashion trend has been a social norm and expectation throughout time as a simple and effective way of following the crowd and fitting in. To understand where this hairstyle became popular is hard to pinpoint to the fact that women all across ancient times have had their head shaved in numerous ways and for numerous reasons. Celebrity influences such as Cindi Lauper created a phase throughout high schools in the early 90’s when she stepped out on the stage in the 1980’s with brightly coloured red and orange hair and half her head shaved. Since then numerous well known and extremely influential celebrities in today’s society such as Rihanna, Kristen Stewart, Demi Lovato, and Natalie Dormer just to name a few. Starting a mainstream trend, much like many others that pass throughout the times there doesn’t seem the need to add extra stereotypes to something, however this is not the case.
As is evident with the interview we conducted with the subjects for this part of the youth culture, it is clear to see that throughout time shaving parts of your head has become a huge identifier within the LGBTIQ community. Not only is it a stand out identifier that you are a part of this community but it is also seen as what can be describe as an attractive attribute in which a person looks for. There has been a stigmatisation
This essay is concerned with issues of identity, body image and the politics of hair within African American culture. It discusses the lived experiences of a number of African American women and is no way generalizable to all African American women. Nonetheless, body image and hair politics are prominent features in African American culture because they have deep historical roots and still feature in present day. Body image is generally understood as a mental image of one’s body as it appears to others (Featherstone 2010). This mental image produces body consciousness, which Samantha Kwan describes as an amplified mindfulness that one’s body does not conform to hegemonic cultural standards (Kwan 2010). In today’s modern context, hegemonic cultural norms are reproduced and widely disseminated by the mass media with the help of new technologies. These new technologies Elliott’s discusses, with some in the form of satellite television and other widely utilized media, give viewers unprecedented opportunities to view and scrutinize their favorite celebrities in close proximity (Elliott 2010).
The existing literature on ethnic and racial studies among African-Americans has focused on issues pertaining to beauty and body politics especially on natural hair. Spellers and Moffitt assert that the body politics that one assumes, guides how one relates to a particular political ideology in a particular society. Black natural hair is considered as a way by which the true identity of African women can be understood (Jacobs-Huey). It is a symbol of power among black women; it influences how people are treated by others.
Revolutionary fashions made it acceptable to show more skin, develop different styles, and be able for women to express themselves. Women began to liberate themselves from the traditional long hairstyles and turn to the new and shorter masculine hairdos. “The bob appeared in the US shortly. Women with bobs needed more frequent haircuts, and wanted permanent waves” (Monet). Women began to cut their hair shorter, cringing their hair, and finger waving it.
As Entwistle eloquently claims, " it is through our bodies that we see and come to be seen in the world." By using the phrase "come to be seen in the world," Entwistle introduces how dress serves not only as an expedient for individual expression, but also as a mediator between our internal identity and social rules. Our performance of gender is coherent with what societal conventions define as the appropriate set of characteristics of a woman. This dual purpose of dress is manifest in the manner in which Jenner dresses her body: all attempts are made to exaggerate the feminine aspects of her body. For example, her satin corset drapes alluringly around her hips, accentuating the curvature of her hips. She employs significant cosmetics to further beautify her face in order to create a sensual aura. The emphasis on her Jenner 's aesthetics is in concurrence with the importance placed on a female 's looks. The aesthetic appeal is often one of the defining characteristics of a female. And thus, Jenner 's body is dressed in the way a female 's body should be dressed. In conclusion, Jenner 's dressed body plays a salient role in Jenner 's articulation and expression of her new feminine
There have been musicals, documentaries, researches, panel discussions and even talk shows about hair, hair qualities and hairstyles, even Oprah Gail Winfrey chose hair for the magazine's September 2013 theme. According to Adlman (2013), Oprah Winfrey in a video interview said, Women, we have issues with our hair, [Black women's] hair represents the first thing anyone sees of them, or of ourselves, and so we identify with what our hair looks like. The History of Black Hair: Hair Story by Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps (2002) is an entertaining, concise survey that follows a mostly sequential path which begins in Africa and ends in America. It details the roots of black hair care in America, from centuries ago to the modern day, outlining how much hair truly signifies much of African culture. “Ever since African civilisations bloomed, hairstyles have been used to indicate a person’s marital status, age, religion, ethnic identity, wealth and rank within the community” (2002:3)
Various elements are combined to formulate the idea of style. They include the clothes people wear, the way one walks and even how people talk. However, one element that forms the relationship between style and lifestyle is hair. According to many people their hair is one feature that places them in a category separate from other individuals. This is the case with the dreadlock hairstyle. Dreadlocks have a very detailed and sometimes complex history and development.
Each sex is treated differently for a naturally occurring body process. As discussed, body hair is viewed as masculine, leading to the assumption that women should be hairless and men should wear their body hair with pride. It is clear that society uses hair to label individuals as either male or female (Toerien and Wilkinson, 2003). In addition, male hair is associated with strength and power (Toerien and Wilkinson, 2003). So how come when women display body hair they are shamed, but men are encouraged to grow it? Hope (1982) elaborates that the term, “feminine, when applied to lack of body hair, implies a child-like status, as opposed to the adult status afforded men” (as cited in Toerien and Wilkinson, 2003). That being said, body hair is another way in which society ranks men as the superior gender by making women conform to the hairless normative. A study conducted by Tiggemann and Hodgson (2008), asked women why they practice hair removal. After completing a questionnaire with different statements to evaluate different factors such as normativity, sexual attractiveness, femininity and self-enhancement, they found significant support in all four types of factors for hair removal of the underarm, leg and pubic area. Additionally, they can found that one item pertaining to males preferring a hairless body, was the only one linked to two factors: normativity and sexual attractiveness. It is evident with their findings that women tend to follow the socially constructed normative for many reason, including to please men. The idea is that women have to change their bodies not only to be accepted by society, but they also do so to be accepted by men. Nonetheless, the must make is seem natural and effortless to uphold the beauty allure. In recent years, depletion of male body hair has become popular. In a study performed by Boroughs, et al. (2005), they found that men removed
In this world that we live in today you have to look a certain way to even be considered beautiful. In this culture, straighter hair is seen as “more attractive” than kinky curly hair. Unfortunately, we cannot blame no one, but ourselves. Society needs to drop the mindset
Close Reading for Argument: Homophobia as a prevailing force The question of identity is at once fundamentally urgent and conventionally trivialized in the human experience. Little thought is often appropriated towards considering all the intrinsic complexities and deviations that comprise the individual self. Rather, society has gravitated towards a culture of identity consumerism, in which we are increasingly comfortable with adopting pre-conceived labels, often desperate to conform to arbitrary designations. There is a certain security in knowing that we are a preps, jocks, or greasers – we willingly accept labels in order to circumvent the need to acknowledge or understand our own egocentricities.
The documentary reversed my notion that “kinky hair is bad hair”, but more specifically changed the way I felt about mine. However, the documentary triggered something that I will never forget. I remembered something that my grandmother used to tell me which was “your hair is something unique, and don’t ever feel the need to change something that is something of who you are”. The Eurocentric standard had affected me so much, I willingly damaged my hair and confidence in the process of it. Uncovering the world of magazines, and tabloids I realized that I wanted fit into the idolized Eurocentric ideal to feel accepted. However, after viewing the documentary I realized that instead of trying to assimilate in the Eurocentric society, I should accept my curls, my hair, and that is something that is intertwined with who I
The first time I became aware of what my hair looked like was when I was ten years old in a suburban Applebees. The waitress turned to me and asked “What would you like to drink young man?” I was shocked. No one had ever in my ten years of life ever mistaken me for a boy, including that one time I was covered head to toe in mud. Then again I should have realized shearing off two feet of hair in a fit of my own brilliance would have altered my appearance just a little bit. I thought it was nothing when I still held the scissors. And I basically just did not want to deal with the extra length sticking to my face and neck anymore during the hottest summer of my life. But how embarrassing was it for little ten year old me to just sit there looking at this waitress who had no idea that she had just mistaken my gender and not say a word. Thankfully my mom swooped in and
2 Normally, I find myself unimpressed with individuals who radically change their appearance through extreme tattooing, piercings, hair mutilations, etc. Such people are desperate for society’s attention. Having failed to attract it in a positive form, they go for shock value. They may call themselves “non-conformists,” but most anti- social freaks, in their obsession with displaying
We live in a society where certain beauty standards are acceptable while others are being revoked. Even though, each ethic groups have different hair texture; however, all of us was born with approximately 150,000 hair follicles. All women can relate that we struggle on what we wanted to do with our hair, deciding