October 7, 2009 • 26 mins
Women and hair have always had a complicated relationship. Tune in as Molly and Cristen take a look at cultural perceptions of women's hair, women's emotional attachment to their locks and bad hair days in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump mom never told you?
From house Stop works dot com? Hey thereon, Welcome to
the podcast. Is this Kristen and this is Molly, So Molly.
Today we're talking about hair. And when I was thinking
(00:24):
about this topic of women's hair and it's placed in
my life, I immediately remembered this thing that happened to
me when I was in the ninth grade. Um. As
you know, I was homeschooled for a very long time
and then, uh, my parents decided to put me in
real high school if so you know, it wasn't a
(00:47):
very hard transition. The first day of school, I met
this girl and we totally hit it off. And I
came home and I was like, high school's gonna be awesome.
I've got this bff. We get along so well. And
she had UM I had really short hair at the time,
and she had really long, pretty dark hair. And about
a month into school, she had this haircut and it
(01:10):
was pretty short. She got it wasn't like a pixie cut,
but she got she got a lot of it cut off.
It's pretty dramatic cut. I went to school the next
day and our entire like social life just changed. Oh,
she was like Felicity. Yes, she was like Felicity when
Felisi gets her hair off, except I wasn't a big
fan of Felicie's haircut. But my friend's hair cut looked amazing,
(01:32):
and all of a sudden, all the popular girls just
swooped in, and I want to be friends with her.
All the jocks started paying attention to her, because, as
you can imagine, I was a little bit of a
dork if you will, in high school, not ch and
and this whole haircut changed everything because for some reason
she started turning all these heads, and you know, gradually
(01:54):
she was she was pulled away from me into the
more popular crowd. And I blamed it all on that haircut.
But my hair was too short. I couldn't cut it anymore,
so I couldn't pull the same couldn't pull the same trick.
I just had to wait for it to grow out.
Um But anyway, I just thought that that was for me,
that was the most um important, I guess haircut of
(02:15):
my formative years. And it wasn't even your hair cut.
It wasn't even mine. And I I don't know why it
sticks in my head so much, but you know, we
obsessed about other people's haircut. Think about um when Britney
shaved her head, Oh yeah, it was news for days. Yeah,
that was almost like more than the pictures of her
being wheeled out on a journey from her house. That
was the sign to everyone that she'd lost it. And
she lost it when she had the razor in her
(02:36):
hand and was shaving it. Yeah, I mean that's the
sign of a woman. Just she she like, like you said,
she's lost it. And that's because I think you know,
what you learned in the ninth grade is that we
have such an emotional attachment to our hair. That was
was a physical attachment on our scalp, yes, but the
emotional attachment and the power associated with it, the the
(02:57):
social stigmas associated with it, they're just overpowering in a
woman's life. Yeah. And and this goes way back in history,
like men and women have always um taken a certain
pride in their head of hair. I think is it
the Bible that refers to it as your crowning glory.
You've got the story of Samson and Delilah, where he's
(03:17):
so strong until Delilah cuts his locks off and he
loses all of his power. And I was reading the
Encyclopedia of Hair, actually, and they noted that even the
venus of Villendorff, which goes back to what thirty thousand bcs,
some way way back, even even in those very crude statues, Um,
there are there's evidence of some kind of hair decoration.
(03:42):
And I remember you sent me a little tibet from
the Encyclopedia of Hair that fascinated me that in colonial America, UM,
a husband had to get permission for his wife to
cut her hair. It was considered like one of his possessions,
and no one could touch it unless he said it
was okay. Yeah, he legally owned her hair. And then there's, um,
the whole connection between shaving ahead as a sign of submission. Um.
(04:05):
There's a really famous photograph from I think it's post
World War two when this frenchwoman has her head shaved
because she had a baby with a Nazi soldier. So
let's just talk about all the different ways people can
judge us based on how our hair looks. And since
you started off this podcast with a story about short hair,
let's go with length, because I think that no matter
(04:27):
how long your hair is, someone someone could make a
judgment call about you on it, Like you said the
woman who had her head shaved, that was seen as
a form of punishment, a form of exerting control over
her because it was so short. And that seems to
be how historically this shapes out. Very short hair is
considered I mean bad, except in the case of your friend,
and long hair is considered much better because it's a
(04:49):
sign of health, it's a sign of attractiveness, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah,
and according to again the Encyclopedia of Hair, longer hair
has been a cross cultural sign of gender differentiation and
between men and women for for ages. So when we
think of, you know, long hair, it's more typically feminine.
For instance, Um, a friend of mine's nephew has a
(05:11):
gorgeous long hair. And the first time he introduced himself
to me, he was I don't know, he's maybe five
or six years old. He told me his name, and
he said I'm a boy, and he had and and
my friend later explained to me that he told me
he was a boy because he has this gorgeous long hair,
and people people often, you know, mistake him for for
being a girl, simple because his hair is long. Right, So,
(05:33):
and you know, I've talked before about how I had
very little hair when I was a child, and the
fact that I didn't have long hair, even at a
somewhat advanced stage for a young child, people thought I
was a boy, so very early on, that is how
we tell apart our girls from our boys. Yes, but
obviously today women have you know, freedom and the luxury
(05:53):
to sport whatever kind of hair do they want. We
got Posh Bice, Victoria Beckham who has the super short
hair or do um than Actually my sister, one of
my sisters has uh emulated. And then you have you know,
like when Natalie Portman shaves all of her hair off
for v for Vendetta and she's looks still amazing. Um
(06:14):
girls got a pretty head. But she does have a
beautiful head. And I found um a study in psychology
today talking about how men rate faces based on whether
they have shorter or longer hair. And this was done
at a university in Hungary, and I thought it was
interesting because they said that women with longer hair seemed healthy,
(06:35):
intelligent and mature, Okay, nice, while women with short hair
are seen as more youthful, honest, caring, and emotional. But
in general, even though women with short hair have those
you know, nice characteristics, those nice associations, um men usually
prefer longer hair because they think of it as the
(06:56):
sign of fertility, right, And that was born out by
a study we found in the Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology where basically they went around and asked women, are
you single, are you married? You know who's looking for
a man? Essentially, and it correlated that the women with
longer hair were single. It was seen as this sign
of a visible sign of hey, I'm here, come hit
(07:17):
on me. Yeah, I'm here. I take care of my hair.
I will be a healthy mother. But Molly, we refer
to these kinds of studies a lot that goes back
to evolutionary biology why we do what we do, and
it all kind of starts boiling down to these you
know women are looking for a mate and an appropriate
person to be around when we have children, and to me,
(07:39):
the you know, they have their place, but I don't
know the conversation about hair, like I don't have long
hair right now because I am looking for an appropriate
father for my future children, you have long hair because
you haven't gotten a haircut in a while. Yeah, I
don't know if a man would think that, because there
was this advice column in the Daily Mail out of
(08:01):
England where a guy rode in and said, my wife
has short hair? Does that mean she doesn't want to
have sex? And it spurred this whole long article where
all these relationship experts wade in and hair stylus wade
in and they came up. I mean, I can't wait
from me in that article that yes, if you have
short hair, you're somehow saying I don't want to have
sex with the man either, because that's not my sexuality.
I just became a mom. Or I feel really unattractive
(08:23):
right now, or Molly, how about the idea that um,
women don't feel like they need to aren't on some
crazed hunt to the point that they are shaping their
hairstyles around whether or not it's going to be attractive
to the opposite sex. But how can you think that
when I found this Men's Fitness article written by jenn
A Miller that dissected every single haircut and told you
(08:45):
what it meant in relation to whether the girl would
like you or not. This was a very scientific formula
for for decoding women's haircuts, and she tossed out a
couple of the best. Okay, if you have boy short
hair what this means. This is what they're telling men.
A boy short haircut means either this girl just went
through a breakup or she's confident enough to have a
cut like her brothers. If it's the latter, she's an
independent gal who doesn't need to hide behind her hair.
(09:07):
You'll have to work for her favor, though there's a
good chance she can match her every move in bed
and out. Family. The thing that I thought was kind
of funny about the article you're referring to was no
matter the haircut, whether it was boy short, long, highlighted, whatever,
it all just ended up with she's going to be
crazy in the sec So, I don't know, I think
(09:28):
that kind of discredits some of jen A. Miller's advice. Yeah,
none of these haircuts are are any any should be
any turn off at all. Although I will say I
was um struck by extensions or weaves. What that means,
according to Jenny Miller's that she's willing to do anything
to impress you because of the time that's involved, or
she's an impatient, spoiled brat who always demands instant gratification. Yeah,
(09:51):
but I mean that's how men think. I guess what
I mean, Men out there, long hair, short hair? Do
you think that there's power and women's hair? We're reading
about how um, back when there are witches, people thought
that the witch got her power from her hair. So
that would be like the first line of attack is
get that hair off that which is I would cut
the hair off. But Molly, okay, So if we're talking
about though hair and attraction, to me, the first phrase
(10:16):
that comes to mind is blonds have more fun. I
don't think that it's so much about length. I think
that you know, if you have a good haircut is
a good haircut, whether it is short and it shows
off your striking jawline and cheekbones, or if it's long
and frames your face in a lovely way. Whatever, good
haircut is good haircut. I think the color makes a
(10:38):
bigger impact. And I was struck. Um. First, I wanted
to investigate whether blondes had more fun. I was looking
at all the three the three main hair colors. In
my opinion, Well, Molly, we are we are coming at
this from a biased angle. We are both brunettes, for
both brunettes, and apparently, according to all the research I found,
we apparently are just having no fun at all, Kristen.
But we are successful. We're successful because we won't get
(11:00):
fired because we have a nice conservative hair color. But
according to the Daily Mail in two thousand six, redheads
are having much more sex than blondes or brunettes. All right,
but tell that to the New York Daily News. Two
years later, they found that blondes have better sex than
all the other hair colors, and they have more confidence. Well,
that was bottle blondes. It wasn't necessarily natural blondes. They
were saying that women who like if I go and
(11:22):
I bleach my hair blonde, can you imagine that I
can at all? Um, If I go and bleach my hair,
then I'm going to have so much more confidence. I'm
gonna come in here, I'm gonna ask for a raise,
and I'm gonna go start approaching more people to date
me and become a wildcat. And the other examples in
those articles were that you'd be more willing to sing
(11:43):
on top of a table. Yeah, I mean, you'll see
brunette doing that. I have to say, all the times
I've been out with you, Chris, and I've been like,
if only she would get up on a table and
sing right now, if only you were blonde. But I
think the big thing that's coming out UM are the
so called gray wars. I was reading this two thousand
seven Time article about how um women are just faced
(12:04):
with this conundrum about whether to dye their hair once
it starts to turn gray. Yeah, because in the early
twentieth century, gray was actually considered a distinguished hair color
for a woman. They thought that it was complimentary to
a woman's skin, it was a natural sign of aging
and wisdom. But now we do so much to keep
(12:27):
away the gray my mom included. And this is, like
most things we talk about, has become this sort of
I don't know, battle over what feminism means today, something
as simple as hair color, because we have so many
more women UM serving as CEO, serving elected offices, holding
these high positions of power. But they feel they can
(12:47):
only hold these high positions of power if they look young, youthful, healthy,
And as we've said, you know, long hair apparently designates
better health, and so too does hair color. That's not
gray in this day and age. Yeah. One point that
Anne Creamer, who wrote this time article that we're referring
to mentions is she says, of the sixteen female U. S.
(13:08):
Senators um who arrange an age from forty six to
seventy four, not a single one has a visible gray hair.
That's odd seventy four. And then that same article, there
was this two thousand five Procter and Gamble serve six
of women had color their hair in the previous year.
So it's it's definitely becoming more of a trend. But
(13:29):
the argument that's made in this article is that it's
just as divisive, you know, say, the same way the
battle between stay at home moms and working moms, you know,
which choice is better for you as a woman for
your children. And they're saying, can you really be open
and honest about who you are as a person, which
were always told to do as women. If you dye
your hair, is it denying your natural self? Right? Because
(13:51):
according to research by Claal very famous you know brand
of hair dye Um, they reported that seventy one of
women who die their hair duce so in order to
look and feel more attractive, and they're obviously associating being
attractive with you know, not having um gray hair, not
having the sign of older age you're associated with youth, right,
(14:13):
So it's it's the question of who is your best self?
If your sixties, it's still the person you were when
you were thirty. I mean, I don't know, I'm I
can't answer that question now. Yeah, I personally hope that
I get my grandmother's hair because it turned so bright
white and it was awesome. I hope I get that
Emmy Lou Harri's hair, that long, curly gray hair. But
I did find it interesting that same Marcle points out
(14:35):
that hair dye only became really popular in the nineteen
fifties because if you did it before that, before sort
of that um at home hair dye craze, you're kind
of thought of his TRAMPI But now Encyclopedia of Hair
pointed out highlights number one request number one requested salon service. Yep.
But well, when we're talking about getting highlights, more coloring
(14:57):
your hair, or even just going in for the routine
trim every couple of months or so, as you're supposed
to do. At least that's what my style is tells
me to do. It adds up very fast. Hit car
is a huge industry in the US, and there was
an article in the I believe it was The Daily
Mail that reported that a British woman spends thirty six
(15:20):
thousand pounds. Okay, and that's just pounds. So let's convert
that to dollars these days. What is that? I don't know,
like seventy thousand dollars seventy five thousand dollars on her
hair in a lifetime. Yeah, and she spends the equivalent
of just under two years of her entire life washing, styling, cutting, coloring,
crimpening and straightening locks. Now, imagine how much more time
(15:44):
men are spending, or the women who are smart and
have the short hair and they can just rinse and go.
But I mean short, that's more. That's more time, and
it's alonging in those regular trims. There's no win on this,
and so that, I mean the very the fact that
we walk around with any hair at all shows we're
making this huge financial investment in our hair. You know,
we were talking about how it was a sign of
(16:04):
attraction and openness to mate. It's also assigned to men
to some extent or women that we have money. Yeah,
I would definitely relate to that. When I was in again,
when I was in high school, I remembered looking at
the you know, the popular girls who were usually you know,
more wealthy, and they had this insane hair and it
(16:24):
could come to find out was because they had the
money to go and get it, you know, professionally straightened
and used insanely expensive products, and you know, it makes
it makes a big difference. You know, when you see
a starlet walking down the street with her her beautiful quaff,
it's gonna probably look a lot better than your five
dollar you know, barbershop haircut. And to go along with
(16:46):
time spend in salon, money spent on this, let's talk
about ethnic care because we're about There's this movie that's
going to come out pretty soon called Good Hair that
was put out by Chris Rock, and Chris Rock maintains
that a black woman hair is the most expensive thing
on her more expensive than any item of clothing that
she wears. Yeah, the black hair hair care industry breaks
(17:11):
in about one point seven billion dollars a year, and
all sorts of products and tools and all of that
to tame to tame their hair and in the advance
of this movie, you may have seen a lot of
articles about the politics of black hair. Tyra did her
first show with her natural hair to make a statement
about beauty. Think Oprah just did a show with Chris
(17:33):
Rock where she revealed her natural hair. Um, there's a
lot of talk about what Michelle Obama does with her
hair versus the trip that Malia Obama went on to
Europe where she wore twists in her hair. So we
did a lot of reading about Um. How any choice
that a black woman makes in terms of what to
do with her hair, be it straighten it, relax it,
or corn rose braids, just pulling it back in a ponytail,
(17:56):
you really can't walk down the street as a black
woman without being judge for the decision you make. That's
the point that many of these articles make em only
and I found a study by Tracy Owns Patent that
really digs into this idea of the politics of black
woman's hair because she goes back to colonial America and
slavery when women were, you know, trying to assimilate more
(18:18):
into white culture. And basically the argument is today, even
by trying to straighten your hair out using the hot iron,
spending all the money on we've only to have, you know,
the straighter, more Caucasian types of hair. It's simply today's
form of still assimilating to white culture and not honoring
your African roots. Right. And then there are others who
(18:40):
say the choice to be able to straighten the hair
is just as important as being in touch with your
African roots, because they have the power now to make
that decision. But there's this question of do you need
to accept yourself as you are as a black woman.
But what we've just talked about, Kristen is that, um,
we none of us accept ourselves who we are if
we die our hair, if we cut it off, if
(19:01):
we shave. I mean, everyone is manipulating their hair to
some extent to prove a point to somebody, but only
I think that it is. It is kind of impossible, though,
to generalize every woman's relationship with her hair, because, especially
going back to this um this paper we found by
Tracy Owens patent, the history uh that black women have
(19:24):
with their hair is simply not the same as you
know the history of you know, a white woman. And
that's right because, for instance, um, she talks about how
you know, in enslave communities, that straighter hair was associated
more with a free persons status, and that people with
more textured hair were usually sent to work out in
the fields, whereas people with the straighter hair would work
(19:46):
um inside the plantation homes. And she even pointed out
that the most vocal opponents of hair straightening were Um Booker, T.
Washington and Marcus Garvey and other abolitionists of the day.
So even back then, the issue of hair was very politicized,
and we're talking about it, you know, in two thousand nine,
you know, with the Good Hair documentary coming out with
(20:07):
Michelle Obama. It's a it's a conversation that's still going
around today. And I thought, what was most interesting about um,
the stuff, the slavery stuff that you're bringing up is
how if the woman did have straight hair that was
very neat um, even if she did work in the house. Uh,
if the mistress of the home got too jealous of
the woman, she'd cut all her hair off, Just showing
(20:28):
that even back then women understood the power that hair has.
And Molly, when when you bring up, you know, shaving
as a form of demanding submission, it reminds me of
a case that was brought up. I think it was
that we read about in the New York Times where
a student, a female student at the Citadel was going
to have to shave her head along with the other
(20:49):
male cadets, and it went to court because they were
saying that, you know, there's a patent difference between a
guy having to have his head shaved and a girl
having to have his head shaved. And I thought that
it was a really interesting argument because the Citadel was
saying that, no, she's going to have to go through
the same experience as all the other cadets and is
going to be bonding. But on the other hand, people
such as Naomi Wolf, who wrote The Beauty Myth, said no,
(21:12):
absolutely not. It's a shaming experience for a girl to
have to go through. And I think that one person
I forget who was even a defense of them shipping
her head, said well, it will at least keep other
soldiers from raping her. Going back this whole thing we
were talking about before about um, short hair is just
not deemed as attractive as long hair because of these
(21:32):
perceptions of ill health, insanity, um, you know, general poor
physical state compared to those with longer hair. Yeah, and
we're going to get into uh like shorter hair and
baldness specifically in the follow up podcasts that we're doing.
But uh, but moly, I think you bring up an
interesting point about this connection between a woman's long hair
(21:54):
specifically and her sexuality because it goes back to you know,
if you think about uh uh the sirens, you know,
back in the day, who would be luring all these
men and while they were combing their long tresses. Yeah,
and there are societies now that work on covering up
that symbol of attractiveness. You know, you think about societies
(22:16):
where a woman wears a veil, or where when a
woman gets married, then you know, what might have been
long ring let's go up into a bun or are
cut off to symbol to symbolize the fact that she
is now married, she's a woman, she belongs to this
one man. And obviously only one of the first things
that comes to mind probably when we talk about women
who have to cover their hair, because the modesty would
be in the Muslim world where women have to wear burkas.
(22:39):
And I think that we read um also in the
New York Times that after the Iran Iranian Revolution, one
of the very first laws that they really cracked down
on was on women keeping their head covered and not
showing any hair at all when they were out in public.
And The Times went on to talk about these um
hair salons and how they're immensely popular because the little
(23:02):
hair that women can show they want to look good,
and how having great hair over there is seen as
resistance defiance to this um cultural norm that's being enforced
on them. Right. But also one thing that I really
didn't know before this researching for this podcast was the
Orthodox Jewish women are also required to cover their hair
in public. And then you have other um other strands
(23:25):
of religion, such as the Mennonites, you have to wear it.
It's it's not a full head covering, but the women
will wear like what looks like kerchiefs on their head um.
And then there are also some Amish women who have
to cover their hair in public as well. Yeah, men's
fitness doesn't really say how you interpret a woman who's
got a head covering. Yeah, I guess they're really not
(23:45):
considered on the market. But that's the thing is we
use our hair to show people how we're on the market,
even though we might just be walking around with our
hair in pointtail because we're lazy. Yeah, I mean, I
think it it said it does say a lot about you.
I think that you do. And for men to you know,
the difference between a guy you know and a crew
cut and a guy standing aside with a mohawk. You're
(24:06):
going to see them and they're probably you're probably going
to judge them differently. And I think that your hair
does say a lot about you, and I think that
it can demonstrate a lot. You know, when I'm having
a down day, my hair is up on the top
of my head and I could care less right now,
Whereas if I want to feel feel good and on
top of the world, I'm gonna actually wash my hair
(24:26):
and maybe blow dry and maybe maybe put a put
a hair bow in it. I don't know. Right it's
a reflection of who you are, for better, for worse.
But it's just it seems weird to think that it's
such a big deal, because, as people say, when they
get a bad haircut, it's just hair. It's just hair.
It's gonna grow, it'll grow back. But there's no denying
that a bad hair day can ruin your mood. But Molly,
(24:50):
I do have one fun factoid to close things out.
Studies have shown bad hair days affect men more than women. Wow. Yes,
men supposedly get more upset about having a bad hair
day than we do. But there's no denying the emotional
power that hair has for everyone, especially when you start
(25:12):
to lose it. And that is gonna be the topic
of our next podcast, Love Hanger. Stay tuned to hear
about female baldness. Yes, but in the meantime, if you
have a story about your hair particular style you like,
did you go with the rachel or not? Um email
us at mom stuff at how stuff works dot com.
Maybe we'll throw some hairstyling tips on our blog how
(25:36):
to stuff. And there are tons of articles about scalp
care and hair care at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics is
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two
(26:01):
thousand twelve Camrey. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump mom never told you?
From house Stop works dot com? Hey thereon, Welcome to
the podcast. Is this Kristen and this is Molly, So Molly.
Today we're talking about hair. And when I was thinking
(00:24):
about this topic of women's hair and it's placed in
my life, I immediately remembered this thing that happened to
me when I was in the ninth grade. Um. As
you know, I was homeschooled for a very long time
and then, uh, my parents decided to put me in
real high school if so you know, it wasn't a
(00:47):
very hard transition. The first day of school, I met
this girl and we totally hit it off. And I
came home and I was like, high school's gonna be awesome.
I've got this bff. We get along so well. And
she had UM I had really short hair at the time,
and she had really long, pretty dark hair. And about
a month into school, she had this haircut and it
(01:10):
was pretty short. She got it wasn't like a pixie cut,
but she got she got a lot of it cut off.
It's pretty dramatic cut. I went to school the next
day and our entire like social life just changed. Oh,
she was like Felicity. Yes, she was like Felicity when
Felisi gets her hair off, except I wasn't a big
fan of Felicie's haircut. But my friend's hair cut looked amazing,
(01:32):
and all of a sudden, all the popular girls just
swooped in, and I want to be friends with her.
All the jocks started paying attention to her, because, as
you can imagine, I was a little bit of a
dork if you will, in high school, not ch and
and this whole haircut changed everything because for some reason
she started turning all these heads, and you know, gradually
(01:54):
she was she was pulled away from me into the
more popular crowd. And I blamed it all on that haircut.
But my hair was too short. I couldn't cut it anymore,
so I couldn't pull the same couldn't pull the same trick.
I just had to wait for it to grow out.
Um But anyway, I just thought that that was for me,
that was the most um important, I guess haircut of
(02:15):
my formative years. And it wasn't even your hair cut.
It wasn't even mine. And I I don't know why it
sticks in my head so much, but you know, we
obsessed about other people's haircut. Think about um when Britney
shaved her head, Oh yeah, it was news for days. Yeah,
that was almost like more than the pictures of her
being wheeled out on a journey from her house. That
was the sign to everyone that she'd lost it. And
she lost it when she had the razor in her
(02:36):
hand and was shaving it. Yeah, I mean that's the
sign of a woman. Just she she like, like you said,
she's lost it. And that's because I think you know,
what you learned in the ninth grade is that we
have such an emotional attachment to our hair. That was
was a physical attachment on our scalp, yes, but the
emotional attachment and the power associated with it, the the
(02:57):
social stigmas associated with it, they're just overpowering in a
woman's life. Yeah. And and this goes way back in history,
like men and women have always um taken a certain
pride in their head of hair. I think is it
the Bible that refers to it as your crowning glory.
You've got the story of Samson and Delilah, where he's
(03:17):
so strong until Delilah cuts his locks off and he
loses all of his power. And I was reading the
Encyclopedia of Hair, actually, and they noted that even the
venus of Villendorff, which goes back to what thirty thousand bcs,
some way way back, even even in those very crude statues, Um,
there are there's evidence of some kind of hair decoration.
(03:42):
And I remember you sent me a little tibet from
the Encyclopedia of Hair that fascinated me that in colonial America, UM,
a husband had to get permission for his wife to
cut her hair. It was considered like one of his possessions,
and no one could touch it unless he said it
was okay. Yeah, he legally owned her hair. And then there's, um,
the whole connection between shaving ahead as a sign of submission. Um.
(04:05):
There's a really famous photograph from I think it's post
World War two when this frenchwoman has her head shaved
because she had a baby with a Nazi soldier. So
let's just talk about all the different ways people can
judge us based on how our hair looks. And since
you started off this podcast with a story about short hair,
let's go with length, because I think that no matter
(04:27):
how long your hair is, someone someone could make a
judgment call about you on it, Like you said the
woman who had her head shaved, that was seen as
a form of punishment, a form of exerting control over
her because it was so short. And that seems to
be how historically this shapes out. Very short hair is
considered I mean bad, except in the case of your friend,
and long hair is considered much better because it's a
(04:49):
sign of health, it's a sign of attractiveness, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah,
and according to again the Encyclopedia of Hair, longer hair
has been a cross cultural sign of gender differentiation and
between men and women for for ages. So when we
think of, you know, long hair, it's more typically feminine.
For instance, Um, a friend of mine's nephew has a
(05:11):
gorgeous long hair. And the first time he introduced himself
to me, he was I don't know, he's maybe five
or six years old. He told me his name, and
he said I'm a boy, and he had and and
my friend later explained to me that he told me
he was a boy because he has this gorgeous long hair,
and people people often, you know, mistake him for for
being a girl, simple because his hair is long. Right, So,
(05:33):
and you know, I've talked before about how I had
very little hair when I was a child, and the
fact that I didn't have long hair, even at a
somewhat advanced stage for a young child, people thought I
was a boy, so very early on, that is how
we tell apart our girls from our boys. Yes, but
obviously today women have you know, freedom and the luxury
(05:53):
to sport whatever kind of hair do they want. We
got Posh Bice, Victoria Beckham who has the super short
hair or do um than Actually my sister, one of
my sisters has uh emulated. And then you have you know,
like when Natalie Portman shaves all of her hair off
for v for Vendetta and she's looks still amazing. Um
(06:14):
girls got a pretty head. But she does have a
beautiful head. And I found um a study in psychology
today talking about how men rate faces based on whether
they have shorter or longer hair. And this was done
at a university in Hungary, and I thought it was
interesting because they said that women with longer hair seemed healthy,
(06:35):
intelligent and mature, Okay, nice, while women with short hair
are seen as more youthful, honest, caring, and emotional. But
in general, even though women with short hair have those
you know, nice characteristics, those nice associations, um men usually
prefer longer hair because they think of it as the
(06:56):
sign of fertility, right, And that was born out by
a study we found in the Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology where basically they went around and asked women, are
you single, are you married? You know who's looking for
a man? Essentially, and it correlated that the women with
longer hair were single. It was seen as this sign
of a visible sign of hey, I'm here, come hit
(07:17):
on me. Yeah, I'm here. I take care of my hair.
I will be a healthy mother. But Molly, we refer
to these kinds of studies a lot that goes back
to evolutionary biology why we do what we do, and
it all kind of starts boiling down to these you
know women are looking for a mate and an appropriate
person to be around when we have children, and to me,
(07:39):
the you know, they have their place, but I don't
know the conversation about hair, like I don't have long
hair right now because I am looking for an appropriate
father for my future children, you have long hair because
you haven't gotten a haircut in a while. Yeah, I
don't know if a man would think that, because there
was this advice column in the Daily Mail out of
(08:01):
England where a guy rode in and said, my wife
has short hair? Does that mean she doesn't want to
have sex? And it spurred this whole long article where
all these relationship experts wade in and hair stylus wade
in and they came up. I mean, I can't wait
from me in that article that yes, if you have
short hair, you're somehow saying I don't want to have
sex with the man either, because that's not my sexuality.
I just became a mom. Or I feel really unattractive
(08:23):
right now, or Molly, how about the idea that um,
women don't feel like they need to aren't on some
crazed hunt to the point that they are shaping their
hairstyles around whether or not it's going to be attractive
to the opposite sex. But how can you think that
when I found this Men's Fitness article written by jenn
A Miller that dissected every single haircut and told you
(08:45):
what it meant in relation to whether the girl would
like you or not. This was a very scientific formula
for for decoding women's haircuts, and she tossed out a
couple of the best. Okay, if you have boy short
hair what this means. This is what they're telling men.
A boy short haircut means either this girl just went
through a breakup or she's confident enough to have a
cut like her brothers. If it's the latter, she's an
independent gal who doesn't need to hide behind her hair.
(09:07):
You'll have to work for her favor, though there's a
good chance she can match her every move in bed
and out. Family. The thing that I thought was kind
of funny about the article you're referring to was no
matter the haircut, whether it was boy short, long, highlighted, whatever,
it all just ended up with she's going to be
crazy in the sec So, I don't know, I think
(09:28):
that kind of discredits some of jen A. Miller's advice. Yeah,
none of these haircuts are are any any should be
any turn off at all. Although I will say I
was um struck by extensions or weaves. What that means,
according to Jenny Miller's that she's willing to do anything
to impress you because of the time that's involved, or
she's an impatient, spoiled brat who always demands instant gratification. Yeah,
(09:51):
but I mean that's how men think. I guess what
I mean, Men out there, long hair, short hair? Do
you think that there's power and women's hair? We're reading
about how um, back when there are witches, people thought
that the witch got her power from her hair. So
that would be like the first line of attack is
get that hair off that which is I would cut
the hair off. But Molly, okay, So if we're talking
about though hair and attraction, to me, the first phrase
(10:16):
that comes to mind is blonds have more fun. I
don't think that it's so much about length. I think
that you know, if you have a good haircut is
a good haircut, whether it is short and it shows
off your striking jawline and cheekbones, or if it's long
and frames your face in a lovely way. Whatever, good
haircut is good haircut. I think the color makes a
(10:38):
bigger impact. And I was struck. Um. First, I wanted
to investigate whether blondes had more fun. I was looking
at all the three the three main hair colors. In
my opinion, Well, Molly, we are we are coming at
this from a biased angle. We are both brunettes, for
both brunettes, and apparently, according to all the research I found,
we apparently are just having no fun at all, Kristen.
But we are successful. We're successful because we won't get
(11:00):
fired because we have a nice conservative hair color. But
according to the Daily Mail in two thousand six, redheads
are having much more sex than blondes or brunettes. All right,
but tell that to the New York Daily News. Two
years later, they found that blondes have better sex than
all the other hair colors, and they have more confidence. Well,
that was bottle blondes. It wasn't necessarily natural blondes. They
were saying that women who like if I go and
(11:22):
I bleach my hair blonde, can you imagine that I
can at all? Um, If I go and bleach my hair,
then I'm going to have so much more confidence. I'm
gonna come in here, I'm gonna ask for a raise,
and I'm gonna go start approaching more people to date
me and become a wildcat. And the other examples in
those articles were that you'd be more willing to sing
(11:43):
on top of a table. Yeah, I mean, you'll see
brunette doing that. I have to say, all the times
I've been out with you, Chris, and I've been like,
if only she would get up on a table and
sing right now, if only you were blonde. But I
think the big thing that's coming out UM are the
so called gray wars. I was reading this two thousand
seven Time article about how um women are just faced
(12:04):
with this conundrum about whether to dye their hair once
it starts to turn gray. Yeah, because in the early
twentieth century, gray was actually considered a distinguished hair color
for a woman. They thought that it was complimentary to
a woman's skin, it was a natural sign of aging
and wisdom. But now we do so much to keep
(12:27):
away the gray my mom included. And this is, like
most things we talk about, has become this sort of
I don't know, battle over what feminism means today, something
as simple as hair color, because we have so many
more women UM serving as CEO, serving elected offices, holding
these high positions of power. But they feel they can
(12:47):
only hold these high positions of power if they look young, youthful, healthy,
And as we've said, you know, long hair apparently designates
better health, and so too does hair color. That's not
gray in this day and age. Yeah. One point that
Anne Creamer, who wrote this time article that we're referring
to mentions is she says, of the sixteen female U. S.
(13:08):
Senators um who arrange an age from forty six to
seventy four, not a single one has a visible gray hair.
That's odd seventy four. And then that same article, there
was this two thousand five Procter and Gamble serve six
of women had color their hair in the previous year.
So it's it's definitely becoming more of a trend. But
(13:29):
the argument that's made in this article is that it's
just as divisive, you know, say, the same way the
battle between stay at home moms and working moms, you know,
which choice is better for you as a woman for
your children. And they're saying, can you really be open
and honest about who you are as a person, which
were always told to do as women. If you dye
your hair, is it denying your natural self? Right? Because
(13:51):
according to research by Claal very famous you know brand
of hair dye Um, they reported that seventy one of
women who die their hair duce so in order to
look and feel more attractive, and they're obviously associating being
attractive with you know, not having um gray hair, not
having the sign of older age you're associated with youth, right,
(14:13):
So it's it's the question of who is your best self?
If your sixties, it's still the person you were when
you were thirty. I mean, I don't know, I'm I
can't answer that question now. Yeah, I personally hope that
I get my grandmother's hair because it turned so bright
white and it was awesome. I hope I get that
Emmy Lou Harri's hair, that long, curly gray hair. But
I did find it interesting that same Marcle points out
(14:35):
that hair dye only became really popular in the nineteen
fifties because if you did it before that, before sort
of that um at home hair dye craze, you're kind
of thought of his TRAMPI But now Encyclopedia of Hair
pointed out highlights number one request number one requested salon service. Yep.
But well, when we're talking about getting highlights, more coloring
(14:57):
your hair, or even just going in for the routine
trim every couple of months or so, as you're supposed
to do. At least that's what my style is tells
me to do. It adds up very fast. Hit car
is a huge industry in the US, and there was
an article in the I believe it was The Daily
Mail that reported that a British woman spends thirty six
(15:20):
thousand pounds. Okay, and that's just pounds. So let's convert
that to dollars these days. What is that? I don't know,
like seventy thousand dollars seventy five thousand dollars on her
hair in a lifetime. Yeah, and she spends the equivalent
of just under two years of her entire life washing, styling, cutting, coloring,
crimpening and straightening locks. Now, imagine how much more time
(15:44):
men are spending, or the women who are smart and
have the short hair and they can just rinse and go.
But I mean short, that's more. That's more time, and
it's alonging in those regular trims. There's no win on this,
and so that, I mean the very the fact that
we walk around with any hair at all shows we're
making this huge financial investment in our hair. You know,
we were talking about how it was a sign of
(16:04):
attraction and openness to mate. It's also assigned to men
to some extent or women that we have money. Yeah,
I would definitely relate to that. When I was in again,
when I was in high school, I remembered looking at
the you know, the popular girls who were usually you know,
more wealthy, and they had this insane hair and it
(16:24):
could come to find out was because they had the
money to go and get it, you know, professionally straightened
and used insanely expensive products, and you know, it makes
it makes a big difference. You know, when you see
a starlet walking down the street with her her beautiful quaff,
it's gonna probably look a lot better than your five
dollar you know, barbershop haircut. And to go along with
(16:46):
time spend in salon, money spent on this, let's talk
about ethnic care because we're about There's this movie that's
going to come out pretty soon called Good Hair that
was put out by Chris Rock, and Chris Rock maintains
that a black woman hair is the most expensive thing
on her more expensive than any item of clothing that
she wears. Yeah, the black hair hair care industry breaks
(17:11):
in about one point seven billion dollars a year, and
all sorts of products and tools and all of that
to tame to tame their hair and in the advance
of this movie, you may have seen a lot of
articles about the politics of black hair. Tyra did her
first show with her natural hair to make a statement
about beauty. Think Oprah just did a show with Chris
(17:33):
Rock where she revealed her natural hair. Um, there's a
lot of talk about what Michelle Obama does with her
hair versus the trip that Malia Obama went on to
Europe where she wore twists in her hair. So we
did a lot of reading about Um. How any choice
that a black woman makes in terms of what to
do with her hair, be it straighten it, relax it,
or corn rose braids, just pulling it back in a ponytail,
(17:56):
you really can't walk down the street as a black
woman without being judge for the decision you make. That's
the point that many of these articles make em only
and I found a study by Tracy Owns Patent that
really digs into this idea of the politics of black
woman's hair because she goes back to colonial America and
slavery when women were, you know, trying to assimilate more
(18:18):
into white culture. And basically the argument is today, even
by trying to straighten your hair out using the hot iron,
spending all the money on we've only to have, you know,
the straighter, more Caucasian types of hair. It's simply today's
form of still assimilating to white culture and not honoring
your African roots. Right. And then there are others who
(18:40):
say the choice to be able to straighten the hair
is just as important as being in touch with your
African roots, because they have the power now to make
that decision. But there's this question of do you need
to accept yourself as you are as a black woman.
But what we've just talked about, Kristen is that, um,
we none of us accept ourselves who we are if
we die our hair, if we cut it off, if
(19:01):
we shave. I mean, everyone is manipulating their hair to
some extent to prove a point to somebody, but only
I think that it is. It is kind of impossible, though,
to generalize every woman's relationship with her hair, because, especially
going back to this um this paper we found by
Tracy Owens patent, the history uh that black women have
(19:24):
with their hair is simply not the same as you
know the history of you know, a white woman. And
that's right because, for instance, um, she talks about how
you know, in enslave communities, that straighter hair was associated
more with a free persons status, and that people with
more textured hair were usually sent to work out in
the fields, whereas people with the straighter hair would work
(19:46):
um inside the plantation homes. And she even pointed out
that the most vocal opponents of hair straightening were Um Booker, T.
Washington and Marcus Garvey and other abolitionists of the day.
So even back then, the issue of hair was very politicized,
and we're talking about it, you know, in two thousand nine,
you know, with the Good Hair documentary coming out with
(20:07):
Michelle Obama. It's a it's a conversation that's still going
around today. And I thought, what was most interesting about um,
the stuff, the slavery stuff that you're bringing up is
how if the woman did have straight hair that was
very neat um, even if she did work in the house. Uh,
if the mistress of the home got too jealous of
the woman, she'd cut all her hair off, Just showing
(20:28):
that even back then women understood the power that hair has.
And Molly, when when you bring up, you know, shaving
as a form of demanding submission, it reminds me of
a case that was brought up. I think it was
that we read about in the New York Times where
a student, a female student at the Citadel was going
to have to shave her head along with the other
(20:49):
male cadets, and it went to court because they were
saying that, you know, there's a patent difference between a
guy having to have his head shaved and a girl
having to have his head shaved. And I thought that
it was a really interesting argument because the Citadel was
saying that, no, she's going to have to go through
the same experience as all the other cadets and is
going to be bonding. But on the other hand, people
such as Naomi Wolf, who wrote The Beauty Myth, said no,
(21:12):
absolutely not. It's a shaming experience for a girl to
have to go through. And I think that one person
I forget who was even a defense of them shipping
her head, said well, it will at least keep other
soldiers from raping her. Going back this whole thing we
were talking about before about um, short hair is just
not deemed as attractive as long hair because of these
(21:32):
perceptions of ill health, insanity, um, you know, general poor
physical state compared to those with longer hair. Yeah, and
we're going to get into uh like shorter hair and
baldness specifically in the follow up podcasts that we're doing.
But uh, but moly, I think you bring up an
interesting point about this connection between a woman's long hair
(21:54):
specifically and her sexuality because it goes back to you know,
if you think about uh uh the sirens, you know,
back in the day, who would be luring all these
men and while they were combing their long tresses. Yeah,
and there are societies now that work on covering up
that symbol of attractiveness. You know, you think about societies
(22:16):
where a woman wears a veil, or where when a
woman gets married, then you know, what might have been
long ring let's go up into a bun or are
cut off to symbol to symbolize the fact that she
is now married, she's a woman, she belongs to this
one man. And obviously only one of the first things
that comes to mind probably when we talk about women
who have to cover their hair, because the modesty would
be in the Muslim world where women have to wear burkas.
(22:39):
And I think that we read um also in the
New York Times that after the Iran Iranian Revolution, one
of the very first laws that they really cracked down
on was on women keeping their head covered and not
showing any hair at all when they were out in public.
And The Times went on to talk about these um
hair salons and how they're immensely popular because the little
(23:02):
hair that women can show they want to look good,
and how having great hair over there is seen as
resistance defiance to this um cultural norm that's being enforced
on them. Right. But also one thing that I really
didn't know before this researching for this podcast was the
Orthodox Jewish women are also required to cover their hair
in public. And then you have other um other strands
(23:25):
of religion, such as the Mennonites, you have to wear it.
It's it's not a full head covering, but the women
will wear like what looks like kerchiefs on their head um.
And then there are also some Amish women who have
to cover their hair in public as well. Yeah, men's
fitness doesn't really say how you interpret a woman who's
got a head covering. Yeah, I guess they're really not
(23:45):
considered on the market. But that's the thing is we
use our hair to show people how we're on the market,
even though we might just be walking around with our
hair in pointtail because we're lazy. Yeah, I mean, I
think it it said it does say a lot about you.
I think that you do. And for men to you know,
the difference between a guy you know and a crew
cut and a guy standing aside with a mohawk. You're
(24:06):
going to see them and they're probably you're probably going
to judge them differently. And I think that your hair
does say a lot about you, and I think that
it can demonstrate a lot. You know, when I'm having
a down day, my hair is up on the top
of my head and I could care less right now,
Whereas if I want to feel feel good and on
top of the world, I'm gonna actually wash my hair
(24:26):
and maybe blow dry and maybe maybe put a put
a hair bow in it. I don't know. Right it's
a reflection of who you are, for better, for worse.
But it's just it seems weird to think that it's
such a big deal, because, as people say, when they
get a bad haircut, it's just hair. It's just hair.
It's gonna grow, it'll grow back. But there's no denying
that a bad hair day can ruin your mood. But Molly,
(24:50):
I do have one fun factoid to close things out.
Studies have shown bad hair days affect men more than women. Wow. Yes,
men supposedly get more upset about having a bad hair
day than we do. But there's no denying the emotional
power that hair has for everyone, especially when you start
(25:12):
to lose it. And that is gonna be the topic
of our next podcast, Love Hanger. Stay tuned to hear
about female baldness. Yes, but in the meantime, if you
have a story about your hair particular style you like,
did you go with the rachel or not? Um email
us at mom stuff at how stuff works dot com.
Maybe we'll throw some hairstyling tips on our blog how
(25:36):
to stuff. And there are tons of articles about scalp
care and hair care at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics is
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two
(26:01):
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