Violence and hate provoked by nothing but a haircut

By Jaime Lowe

"You sure you want me to buzz your head?" Frank the barber asked me once again, grasping the buzz clipper set on 1 inch. "yep," I said, staring back at the determined hard eyed girl in the mirror. "OK," he hesitated, as he turned the buzzer on, gracing it lightly over my 4 inch cutesy hair style.

The grating, whirring noise got louder, and I could feel the razor getting closer and closer to my scalp. I watched in awe, fascinated, my hair, peeled away in layers, dropping to the floor, like large snowflakes. It was like leaves falling off a tree - my once dyed red locks, the fall leaves, and then my roots, and then just a thin sheen of fuzz. Metaphors sprung into my head.

I was a Christmas tree in a sense, my ornaments taken off, nothing left but bareness.

I paid Frank a generous tip, because he did not just cut my hair. He was an instrumental figure in this process of liberation. I had walked into his shop, a socially acceptable, recognizable, properly gendered and restricted female, and left feeling like an androgynous, liberated person. I grinned up at this foreign person in the window reflection, shocked, and elated, as I ran my fingers over my fuzzy scalp. I was shocked because I could not recognize myself, thrilled because I felt free from the social norms that once banged around in my head ("girls should have long hair"). I felt bouncy and lightheaded (literally) as I stomped out onto Commonwealth Avenue, with renewed vigor, my head was up, my scalp shining in the September sun. As I faced my peers who were rushing to class, I noticed the girls distressed, tossing, touching, teasing their long hair, I noticed them looking at me quizzically- I was the happy girl with no hair. How did this make sense in a society that has taught women to aspire to be Cosmo girls, lips pursed, eyes blank, breasts large, hips small, hair long and lustrous? It didn't.

That's why people had problems with it.

My first hairless night was spent at a party. I had almost forgotten about my change in appearance, because I had been around my close knit group of supportive friends who loved my hair (or at least told me they did), until I walked into the beer and college student infested house.

As soon as I entered, I could feel eyes gravitating towards my head. Hands rubbed my scalp lovingly, appallingly, timidly that night. I was met by stares, and hundreds of "Oh my God, what did you do to your hair's" throughout the course of the night. When the initial excitement had blown over, I settled on a chair with three of my close girl friends. Almost immediately, a large boisterous drunk guy who looked eerily like a demonic version of Eminem plopped himself next to us. The first words out of his mouth struck me like swords.

"What are you guys, lesbians?"

I asked him what he meant by that.

"I mean, are you fucking?" he asked pointing to my friend and I.

Normally, my friends and I never get this sort of question shot at us, but I guess this is something that happens to girls with shaved heads all the time. If you shave your head, you're a lesbian, but if a guy grows out his hair, is he gay? I think not. Eventually, some protective guy friends of ours heard about this guy, who continued to harass us until we finally left the room. About 20 minutes later, a fight of sixteen guys broke out. They were pounding each other. It had all began with that guy's comment about my hair.

I could hear the sirens getting closer and closer. All I did was shave my head, and a party turns into a brawl.

It gets even better. The following day, I went to Harvard Square. I was going up the escalator, and in between floors, a mother was beckoning her children to go upstairs, "I'll meet you there honey," she hollered, as the kids got on the escalator. I happened to be directly behind the kids, going up to the next floor. All of a sudden I felt eyes burning at me. "Kids wait for me! Mommy doesn't want you to go up alone! Mommy changed her mind" The kids, as well as I, were confused. I was dumbfounded. This sort of thing never happened when I had hair. Girls with shaved heads, however, lock your doors, protect your kids, we're coming to get you.

The week continued with stares, glares from people on the T, scrutinizing looks from girls with stretchy black pants, Tiffany's bracelets and Prada bags. I got the standard girl with a shaved head questions like "you're a lesbian, right?" and "why did you do that to your hair? did you lost a bet?" "you must have been pretty with hair?" What's wrong with you are you crazy? You look like a twelve year old boy. My favorite most original one is you look like Sinead O'Connor. Wow. We really need to get some more shaved head girls out in the public, to promote shaved head girl visibility.

The most scary, harrowing, shocking experience I have had with my shaved head happened when I was walking one of my friends home at night. We walked arm in arm, the way a lot of girls do, I was helping her in her intoxication phase to walk straight. This seemed quite obvious. But my head seemed to make it different situation. Groups of guys on Harvard Ave., getting out of the trendy bars, would hoot and scream "DYKE.' A girl with a bunch of guys sneered, "eew -- two girls together." It was so intense that I had to get a cab home. My friend was scared to walk on the same side of the street. The slurs were so hate ridden and violent that I was in fear for my own safety. I could feel group hostility encountering us, hostility that has been bred out of fear. Be afraid of what is different - of what does not make sense. I was so horrified to see this in the city. I finally felt it full force. It wasn't about hair- it was about hate. I look like an outsider, a lesbian, or just a hard core punk. All three of these are challenging to narrow minds.

My shaved head poses as a threat. It says I am a woman, I can be pretty, I don't need your fascist beauty standards anymore. My scalp looks masculine, my face looks feminine, but first and foremost, I am a person; a girl who happened to shave her head. And now she knows the difference.

Originally published in The Student Underground. Note that some of the comments are pretty cool as well. For example, check the following by Shannon M.:

Jamie you wrote a great column. I've been bald for three years now and I can relate to some of the reactions you got. After a period of time though, I got to the point of being able to ignor the stupidity of other people. I still like to get a nice complement though (it happens more than you think).

Let me say first that I shaved my head three years ago due to a medical condition that was leaving me with several bald patches in my scalp. Soon it became very noticable and tramatic (I was 18 and had never had a real haircut in my life. My parents would not allow it).

It got to the point of having to wear a wig and in doing so, I got my hair cut very short for the first time in my life. I hated wearing a wig. In the South Carolina heat, it was miserable. It took only a month of wearing a wig to figure out that something else had to be done, since I was still losing hair in spots.

As a joke, a friend said "why not just shave it off until you get your hair back?" I thought about it and came to the same conclusion. I was 19 by that time and on my own. The next day I had it done by my friends stylist. Once the shock wore off, I thougth "wow! this isn't so bad, I still look like and feel like a girl." My girlfiends and my boyfriend at the time gave me much support.

To make a long story a little shorter, by the end of 2002, I started getting my hair back. But, I experianced a freedom like nothing else. I did not miss the very long and curly (and most of the time unmanagable)hair that I was forced to deal with.

It is now by choice that I continue to shave my head, at least every other day, and very seldom do I wear a wig or head covering (unless wether dictates). My boy friend is now my husband and I am accepted by the people who really know me. I still go to work and to church and do all of the other things a normal 21 year old , mostly conservitive, wife and new mother does.

The only regret is the daily grind or almost daily grind of having to shave, since I became a mother. That is a small price to pay for being able to feel free and and express myself as me and not a cardboard cut out of what a young wife and mother is supposed to be.

Thank you for standing up and being bold Jamie.

Shannon M.