The answer is: increasingly, yes. Undoubtedly, more men and women are choosing shaved and buzzed styles than before. Just in my town alone, not a day goes by in which I don't see at least a few bald men, and most days I encounter at least one or two bald women sporting a bald head or buzz cut. Why this newfound acceptance?

First, there have been a number of societal changes over the last few decades. Complex economic changes that have brought women into the workforce and an active feminist movement over the last few decades have caused us to challenge traditional gender roles. The old roles no longer seem to work, and collectively we have been struggling to redefine "masculinity" and "femininity" in new terms. Everything has become fair game, from career choices to what counts as attractive in terms of physical appearance. In terms of hair specifically, we now live at a time where neither long-haired men nor bald women seem outlandish. To have hair or not to have hair has become merely a choice.

In addition, bald men and women are now increasingly visible in the mass media. Countless male actors, athletes, musicians, etc. appear daily on just about any media outlet imaginable. And bald females are becoming increasingly commonplace. We now take for granted that each year several actresses will shave their heads for movie, television, and advertising roles; and several musical performers representing a variety of genres around the world have adopted this look as well. Also, fashion models have been increasingly adopting this look since the beginning of the 1990s, and this trend has continued into the 21st century. Over the last few years, several major ad campaigns on television and in popular magazines in the U.S. and Europe have featured women with shaved heads or in the process of having their heads shaved. We've seen talk shows recently featuring a number of bald women in a positive light. Finally, the phenomenon of women shaving their heads for charitable causes such as cancer research has become prominent over the last several years in the US, Canada, and Australia.

Of course, the presence of bald women on the internet has also increased -- some very beautiful women appear in everything from personal websites to websites devoted to the topic of bald women. In the mid 1990s, these sites tended to be primarily geared towards fetishists, but that has changed considerably during the first few years of the new century.

What other factors pushed this particular look into the mainstream? Cultural changes don't occur in a vacuum. Acceptable cultural ideas and practices do change, but usually there are a couple factors that facilitate any sort of change. One is how easily a novel or alternative idea or practice can be communicated to others. It's safe to say that images in film or via photo are highly communicable. The other major factor has to do with how counterintuitive a new idea or behavior might be. Anthropologists and other cultural researchers tell us that ideas that are slightly counterintuitive - just enough to grab others' attention, but not so much that they cannot be easily understood - tend to have the most staying power. In Euro-American cultures, where long hair on women has traditionally been the accepted norm, the shaved head offers a striking, yet plausible contrast. Short hair-dos have been largely accepted since the 1920s, making a shaved or bald head easy enough to imagine. Although initially the shaved head might have been limited to the domain of sci-fi features, fetish photography, or religious cults, the potential for mainstream acceptance was reached as early as the 1980s. Women who might have not even considered such a look for themselves began to at least discuss - and sometimes put into practice - going bald. As more tried it successfully, more pondered emulating the bald look.

The above suggests that the bald look on women has reached a sort of critical mass. Although still considered extreme, it is no longer automatically associated with illness or violence, nor are bald women looked upon as outlandish. For women, the shaved head has achieved a sort of mainstream credibility, becoming merely another haircut among many possibilities. Much of the cultural resistance to the style is fading away -- slowly perhaps, but surely. And along with less cultural resistance has been a decrease in employer resistance. My best guess is that it is a look that is here to stay for the foreseeable future.