Hey Guys! Your aggressive perceptions of female beauty are fucked up!

The topic of the depraved short hair woman pops up so often in the realm of internet media. Previously there was an internet feminist shit storm after the clickbait Returnofkings' website published a piece entitled “Short haired women are damaged”. More recently, one piece by some other straight, white guy with entitlement issues caught my eye. The piece which is entitled “Hey, Ladies! Short hair is rape” explains how yes, you may look like a woman from the back but when I'm doing you from behind and you look like a boy, well I'm not gay so this is rape! Despite being hilarious and intelligent, the author, Gavin is clearly not someone to have ever suffered from the act and long-standing emotional, mental and physical trauma that comes from enduring rape and was clearly so utterly clueless about the severity of his actions that two months later, he had to release an apology. Well no, he just defended his actions further by calling women stupid and laughing at their teeny tiny women IQs. But then again he's also the author of thought-provoking, intellectual pieces on how woman are inherently lazy and I quote “straight men are a great scapegoats because we rarely complain”. Oh and he also interviewed Terry Richardson, and decided he's a-okay guy.

Ignoring the stupidity of white men for a moment. I still do believe that the exasperation that women can feel from something so minuscule as a buzzed hair cut is horrific, archaic and really dangerous. However for many women, short hair is political and it says “fuck you” to a system which rejects them, which rejects anything that isn't femme. It's a statement towards every guy who think that they are owed their own Tresemme advert goddess complete with tousled chestnut hair. Its a statement that they do not conform to the largely perpetuated idea that beauty has only one image and can only look one way. It says “fuck you” to anyone who think that they have a say on anyone else's body. And I believe that is a righteous. I will forever support any woman's right to do what the fuck she wants with any of her hair because it's her fucking hair.

However maybe I'm the poster child for the crazed girl with the short hair. Maybe I'm the prime example of whatever the fuck Returnofkings is talking about when they speak of all the 'damaged' women with pixie crops they've slept with. From the age of 10, I often cut my hair off. All of it. Or as much as I could muster with a pair of blunt, craft scissors. Cutting off my hair went hand in hand with overwhelming anxiety and not knowing how to relieve myself of it and so every six months I would go from having some hair to another bad, choppy hair cut that then would have to be 'fixed' by a hairdresser.

For me, it was less about having hair and cutting it off for the exhilarating purpose of reinventing myself or personally protesting against the patriarchy. When I was 10, I didn't have any idea who Germaine Greer was. For me, it was more to do with finding the little something that I had control over during a period in my life when I was very alone and depressed while dealing with an emotionally abusive relationship with my parents. I have been growing my hair out for a year now, and that’s a sign of something good – no mental break downs, no feeling like I'm losing control.

This is why I have such an issue with men and women who believe that a woman with short hair is unattractive, mental, or even more extremely, not a woman. The idea that a woman's femininity, and apparently her sanity, is contained in her hair is one that resonates in me because of my past and one that is completely fucking ridiculous. The fact you think you can over-simplify or over-complicate what short hair might mean is offensive to me and to other women. There are a huge array of reasons why women do very different things with their bodies, it is not up for debate or judgement. Maybe I am a short haired women and maybe I am damaged but do not think or a moment that I do it with men on my mind. My short hair was a symbol of control when I had none and my long hair is a symbol of my freedom now I have some.

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