This blog post touches on something very near and dear to me: women with short hair.
I originally cut 13-ish inches of my hair in the fall of 2013. I'd just graduated from McGill and wanted/needed to do something drastic. It was the academic equivalent of the ever-dramatic post-breakup hair cut. It wasn't a decision taken lightly, to be sure. I'd been thinking about it since age 13, and was finally convinced to make the cut when I wore a short wig for a production and loved it! (The production was Alcina. You can check out a photo of me in the aforementioned wig on my 'Gallery' page.) I've felt many things about my hair in the time since. On bad days - when I'm tired, or I have raging PMS, or my anxiety is particularly strong - I desperately wish for 13 extra inches of hair to hide behind. Other days the back of my hair has grown to resemble a mullet and I have to take a few minutes to amateurishly tame it. Most days, however, I feel so much like myself that I wonder how I ever lived with long hair. Also, I can do my hair in 3 minutes. Boom. Back in April, BuzzFeed posted a video where some of their female staffers tried having short hair for a week (with wigs, of course). Here's the link: "Women Try Short Hair for a Week" Now. I must say that having short hair is not for every woman. First, it grows way too darn fast, and second, some woman just feel more comfortable with long hair, and that's cool! You do you. This video, however, painted having short hair as emotionally destructive. All of the women faced really strong criticism from friends or family, and one couldn't even handle wearing it for the whole week. Granted, the wigs were terrible. BuzzFeed, with all of the resources it has access to, somehow managed to find the most soccer-mom-esque, ill-fitting, poor quality wigs to give their staffers. If I'd had to wear anything like that on my head for a week I probably would have felt similarly. Because of this and many other reasons, I must make it clear that this video is NOT AN ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF BEING A WOMAN WITH SHORT HAIR. Got it? Was the all-caps writing enough to get my point across? Good. In the almost four years I have had short hair, I have experienced only a handful of negative interactions because of it. Much more frequent have been the compliments, both from strangers and people I know, saying how much my haircut suits me. Though the absolute MOST IMPORTANT THING is that I feel like myself. My outward appearance matches the person I am inside, and that is worth more than anything. You cannot control other people's opinions and biases. It's impossible. What you do have control over is You. Your body, your dreams, your path, your decisions. If you, fellow woman, want to cut your hair short, please go and do it. Yours is the only opinion that counts when it comes to your body. |
AuthorCamille Holland is a twenty-something professional soprano, 200hr certified yoga instructor, and reluctant jogger. In her spare time she enjoys learning how to use Snapchat and eating. Archives
July 2016
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