Semiotics: Women’s Hair through History
Hair, a physical attribute of almost every human, can be considered as an object but also an idea. A symbol of the self (“Gender, Race, and Class in Hair Styling Spaces: Constructing Individual and Group Identities”). According to Weitz, hair is “personal, growing directly out of our bodies. It is public, on view for all to see. And it is malleable”, easy to change. Due to these factors, hair is one of the initial ways we proclaim our identity (qtd. in “Sociological Study Examines the Importance of Hair”). We see hair as a reflection of identity as it is both personal and public. For women, hair has symbolized many things throughout time – namely, femininity, identity, freedom and beauty, and liberation (Ellery). Semiotics is used to interpret anything that can be taken as a sign such as words, images, gestures and objects, and what it stands for (Chandler). This paper will analyze hair using semiotics – the hair as the sign, and the meaning as what it signifies, through the lens of history. A woman’s hair exhibits identity as it is an expression of self and creativity. Hair and what it symbolizes is
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In concentration camps, the practice of shaving inmates may have been for humiliation and branding of appearance for controlled activities. This practice as dehumanization deprived the Jews of individual identity to the point of degradation where they were no longer capable of normal human reactions such as opposing tyranny and physical abuse. Livia E. Bitton puts it this way, “Individuals become a mass of bodies. Height, stoutness or slimness: there is no distinguishing factor – it is the absence of hair which transformed individual women into like bodies. Age and other personal differences melt away…there is a less of a substance to our dimensions. We become a monolithic mass. Inconsequential” (qtd. in Pergament,
Hair and Makeup by Geri is a hair and makeup artist that is located in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. Geraldine “Geri” Valencia has been doing hair and makeup for over 10 years. Hair and Makeup by Geri specializes in proms, wedding hair and makeup, pageants, and special occasions. Geri has also worked with many state and national pageant title holders including Miss Hawaii Teen USA 2009 Ashley Moser, Hawaii's Miss 2010 Grand Queen Jadyn Wilderman, Miss T.E.E.N Hawaii 2010 Lindsey Barayuga, and more.
Hairspray, a John Waters’ musical, demonstrates progressive messages about the expansion of race-based civil rights in the 1960s . Although this is typically the lens through which Hairspray is viewed, this is not the only significant societal shift portrayed in the film. The stories of Edna Turnblad and Velma Von Tussle illustrate the progressive shift of women from “old” gender roles such as being excluded from the workplace to “new” gender roles where women begin taking managerial positions.
The novel The Good Earth,by Pearl S. Buck, follows the life of the protagonist, Wang Lung, who is an impoverished farmer. Throughout the novel, Buck uses the symbol of hair to highlight Wang Lung’s change from conservative to modern values. At first, Wang Lung’s hair represents traditionalism and his respect for it, but as the novel progresses the symbol slowly shifts to one that exemplifies modernism and Wang Lung’s abandonment of ancient values. In the beginning of the novel, Wang Lung’s hair symbolizes his loyalty to traditional principles. Buck demonstrates Wang Lung’s values when he refuses to cut his customary ponytail, out of respect to his father and the values by which his father raised Wang Lung. As the novel progresses, hair not only represents traditionalism, but also hints at modernism as well. Buck demonstrates the symbol’s shift
According to 10 Weird and Wacky Beauty Facts by Andrea Lavinthal, in ancient Greece, the most sought-after hair color was blond. Not many Greeks were naturally blond, so light hair was probably perceived as beautiful because it was so exotic. Women would lighten their hair using plant extracts or arsenic. They also washed their locks with a mixture of ashes, olive oil, and water. She also explained how “it was a shame that extension weren’t available during the Heian period when a Japanese woman’s beauty was judges by the length of her hair, since the ideal was considered almost two feet longer than her waist. We’re assuming that ponytails were a popular hairstyle back then.” There are many other crazy facts about beauty facts like Vaseline makes your eyelashes grow and can take off makeup, or if your finger nails are discolored from using dark polish, use a slice of lemon on them and they will regain their color (The beauty magazine, Roselyn Miller, pg. 67). Going into the field of Cosmetology helps you express yourself and it brings out your inner creativity. That is one of the many reason I love this line of work, because when I do hair it lets me express myself while creating a hairstyle of my own. The first time I started doing hair was when I was about 10 or 11, I was a natural! I want to be able to know my clients and exactly what will look right on my clients and read people, so I would know what they do like just by talking to them. I need to learn to separate family from business. I do know some things about this field I before this assignment that cosmetology is not just about doing hair, it’s also about learning about the Skin; Doing make up, eye lashes, etc. You also learn about nails; doing a...
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.
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The kids I went to school with, the boys I had romantic relationships with, and even my family members, all made negative comments about my body hair. As a young kid, I believed my body hair was a personal problem. Experimenting with different hair removal procedures, some even painful. I wasted hours removing the hair on my body, in attempts to feel better about myself. My low self esteem became linked with the hair on my body. I believed I had too much body hair for a girl but according to Mills (1959) and the social imagination, I had too much body hair for society. My peers, as well as my family, had been socialized to believe that women’s body hair was gross, and unfeminine. Women had been taught to remove their body hair for decades now in the western world, and it was showcased or the lack there of hair was showcased in all forms of media. As a young girl, my mom bought me my first razor and paid for the electrolysis for the hair on my arm. It was in these actions, where the idea that it was my own problem started to form because it felt like I needed treatment for this problem of mine. I was perceiving a deep seated public issue as my own personal trouble. I can’t blame my mother or my peers because by the time my peers and even my parents were born, the western world had already determined that women should not have body hair. Christina Hope (1982) explains that in 1914 in America magazine’s had just begun
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,
During this time, women were seen embracing their natural tresses with locks and twists, but that seemed to quickly change. In order to fit into this new European standard of beauty, women were required to alter their hair, thus stripping them of the little identity they possessed. The increased support for the natural hair movement alters the black woman’s perception of beauty while intentionally and unintentionally challenging the ideology of beauty within the western world. With more women wearing their hair natural, black women have begun to accept their unaltered appearances while redefining their perception of beauty.
Almost 250 years of slavery and anti-blackness within the United States has created a divide in what type of hair is acceptable. According to Cynthia L. Robinson, “Black hair texture is graded” (Robinson 2011). Precisely, this means that a Black woman has either good hair or bad hair. Good hair has a resemblance of European hair texture, meaning straight and wavy curls. Good hair also diminishes the look of African ancestry. Bad is the complete opposite. The texture is kinky, coiled, and thick, giving the appearance of short hair (Robinson 2011). Hair that bears a resemblance to Eurocentric beauty standards is more beautiful and makes the individual with that hair type more beautiful as well (Robinson
e.”(Lopez,192) Since one of the woman had long hair and not “wooly head of hair.” They were
To be efficient, it must correspond to products and be relevant to people, expressing and sustaining competitive advantages. My image appears in Glamour, a specialized publication for women, where the cultural context is gender, thus providing a greater degree of authority and the intention is to promote the reputation and sales of the perfume. The image is a collection of signs, these signs may include paradigmatic and systematic elements such as the name of the perfume, the fonts used, the colors or the woman which appears with a green apple in her hand. ‘The goal of semiotics in the study of advertising is, ultimately, to unmask the arrays of hidden meanings in the underlying level, which form what can be called signification systems’ (Beasley et.all, 2002: 20). It is obvious that in the interpretation of an image controversies can arise and the meaning could be different from person to person due to the cultural level or ways of image analysis, because the reader approaches an image from a personal ideological perspective.
One of women’s constant struggles is upkeep with culture and society’s ever-changing definition of beauty. Although both genders have hair on their bodies, the views and acceptability of the amount or the location of body hair vary immensely. In fact, women are often thought to be hairless and men to be hairier (DeMello, 2014). Women must then put in effort to uphold a standard, in which the idea that being feminine is natural and effortless (Toerien and Wilkinson, 2003). That being the case, I will argue that the hairless female body has been transformed over time to represent beauty and youth. More importantly, I will argue that it has now become normative in Western society and deemed unacceptable if women do not conform to the hairless
Two tin, mirrored figures are seated across from one another. Both are looking down toward the ground and sit on red, wooden chairs, one labeled lost and the other found. The figures are connected by their outstretched and entwined hair made of wire. The personified hair acts as a bridge between the state of being lost and found, and is introspective look at personal evolution or transition during a phase of the artist’s life.