The ultimate control freak
Dec. 8th, 2005 02:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shalannaToday: Control freaks in action. People, especially women, seem to want to control other people's hair. Why IS that? I've never understood it.
That's been going on forever, I'm sure, but in the sixties and seventies, half the world went berserk over guys who had long hair (mostly early Beatles-style hair, and, later on, John Travolta Saturday Night Fever blow-dries parted in the middle) and made all kinds of crazy rules. Why do they care about how someone else likes his or her hair? Women are always bugging other women, usually wanting them to go shorter. This is not always a flattering improvement, but the critics seem to get some sort of kick out of seeing people change in response to their nagging. These other people's hair doesn't have one thing to do with these control freaks, you see, but if their talk doesn't work, they sometimes take action.
Inappropriately.
The other day, a crazy school secretary in Toledo lopped off a kindergarten student's bangs. Sure, maybe she thought the child's bangs were too long, and possibly they were by some standard, but that is NOT her judgment call. Not on a minor, not on anyone. Would she have dared to do that to her boss? Could she have written a note to the parent suggesting that the bangs were in the child's eyes? (What if they were growing them out?!) Maybe offering the kid a headband or barrettes would have been the appropriate thing, instead of doing something irreversible. We're talking about public school here, not prison or indentured servitude where the rulers "own" you, so that was a total invasion on the woman's part. I would sue for assault if someone did that to ME as an adult, and I think I'd have a fairly good case. I suppose people perceive children as being subject to any adult's whims, so that probably won't happen. It'll be a funny joke to most people.
You just don't invade another's personal space like that.
This is not "just about hair." Yes, we realize it grows back (if you don't have something wrong with you.) Yes, we know it's not as if the woman chopped off the kid's *head*. Still, this is not appropriate, and those who are blowing it off and laughing must never have had anything traumatic happen in their childhoods. (In this case, the mother is all angry and upset, so that would traumatize the child after the fact even if she hadn't been upset during the cut.) Lots of people remember quite clearly these kinds of events from when they were children. It's simply not anyone's place except a parent's to "do something to" a child. (And I always have thought that parents shouldn't have complete control over kids' hair the way they do. I'll bet you know at least one woman who has a story about how her mother cut off her hair or made her get a pixie cut when she was a child, and how it was unflattering and people thought she was a boy or made remarks, or she just didn't like it herself, and the childhood resentment is still there.)
Of course a child needs to be old enough to manage her/his own grooming before she or he has the final word, but I've seen *so many* power struggles between parents--usually mothers--and children of both genders over a silly issue like hair. It's really an issue of control--of me controlling the way YOU look and having control over a part of your body. It's bad enough that kids have to put up with parents who put fuzzy Toni Twin perms in their hair (not me, but my cousins and all the neighbor kids) and so forth . . . and dress them funny to boot . . . but when you can't predict when some stranger or acquaintance will lunge at you to make you over in her idea of what you should look like, that's stepping over the line.
Good grief!
That's been going on forever, I'm sure, but in the sixties and seventies, half the world went berserk over guys who had long hair (mostly early Beatles-style hair, and, later on, John Travolta Saturday Night Fever blow-dries parted in the middle) and made all kinds of crazy rules. Why do they care about how someone else likes his or her hair? Women are always bugging other women, usually wanting them to go shorter. This is not always a flattering improvement, but the critics seem to get some sort of kick out of seeing people change in response to their nagging. These other people's hair doesn't have one thing to do with these control freaks, you see, but if their talk doesn't work, they sometimes take action.
Inappropriately.
The other day, a crazy school secretary in Toledo lopped off a kindergarten student's bangs. Sure, maybe she thought the child's bangs were too long, and possibly they were by some standard, but that is NOT her judgment call. Not on a minor, not on anyone. Would she have dared to do that to her boss? Could she have written a note to the parent suggesting that the bangs were in the child's eyes? (What if they were growing them out?!) Maybe offering the kid a headband or barrettes would have been the appropriate thing, instead of doing something irreversible. We're talking about public school here, not prison or indentured servitude where the rulers "own" you, so that was a total invasion on the woman's part. I would sue for assault if someone did that to ME as an adult, and I think I'd have a fairly good case. I suppose people perceive children as being subject to any adult's whims, so that probably won't happen. It'll be a funny joke to most people.
You just don't invade another's personal space like that.
This is not "just about hair." Yes, we realize it grows back (if you don't have something wrong with you.) Yes, we know it's not as if the woman chopped off the kid's *head*. Still, this is not appropriate, and those who are blowing it off and laughing must never have had anything traumatic happen in their childhoods. (In this case, the mother is all angry and upset, so that would traumatize the child after the fact even if she hadn't been upset during the cut.) Lots of people remember quite clearly these kinds of events from when they were children. It's simply not anyone's place except a parent's to "do something to" a child. (And I always have thought that parents shouldn't have complete control over kids' hair the way they do. I'll bet you know at least one woman who has a story about how her mother cut off her hair or made her get a pixie cut when she was a child, and how it was unflattering and people thought she was a boy or made remarks, or she just didn't like it herself, and the childhood resentment is still there.)
Of course a child needs to be old enough to manage her/his own grooming before she or he has the final word, but I've seen *so many* power struggles between parents--usually mothers--and children of both genders over a silly issue like hair. It's really an issue of control--of me controlling the way YOU look and having control over a part of your body. It's bad enough that kids have to put up with parents who put fuzzy Toni Twin perms in their hair (not me, but my cousins and all the neighbor kids) and so forth . . . and dress them funny to boot . . . but when you can't predict when some stranger or acquaintance will lunge at you to make you over in her idea of what you should look like, that's stepping over the line.
Good grief!
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 08:49 am (UTC)There are cultures in which the cutting of hair indicates a period of serious mourning. There are cultures where long, strong hair denotes power.
Heck, in our society, it denotes OUR power to wear our hair however want want it.
I'm over 40, and I am NOT cutting it (other than trims) I will keep it long when it's silver (sadly, my family doesn't go completely gray; my mom's 75 and still has more auburn than gray)
It's even EASIER. I don't have to do anything but wash it and let it hang dry. If I want to go fancy, I can throw hot rollers in it and make it shiny and curly. I can pull it back, put it up and NONE of these things requires hours out of my life each week with gels, mousses, blow dryers, curling irons, etc...
If I cut my hair and get a old lady perm, I hope someone SHOOTS me. (I've actually asked friends to do this in the event I go insane and try it)
In any event. Other people need to mind their own business and not be RUDE.
What ever happened to manners?
~L
no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 12:27 pm (UTC)And yes on women trying to make other women cut their hair shorter, for some reason. A friend of mine who is a shrink says it's because long (at least below shoulders) loose hair indicate a female's sexual confidence--she sort of accentuates her femaleness that way -- which makes some women feel secretly competitive.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 01:33 pm (UTC)And you're right. It is very much about sexuality. At the most base level (eons ago), a head of long shiny hair would indicate that someone was healthy and a potential good breeding partner. When we get a certain age, there are some who think that we should no longer be (at least overtly) sexual.
Yeah well... Guess what. It's BETTER when you're 40.
I personally don't like extremely short hair on men or women. I think it's very asexual (not to mention unattractive)
But at least I have the manners not to say it.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-11 02:36 pm (UTC)Me, I prefer to wear my hair short. I like it because (a) it's naturally curly, and gets tangled when it's long; (b) I live in a humid climate, and my hair gets REALLY frizzy when it's long; (c) I was in the military and liked the regulation cut; (d) with long hair, I look like a bloated toad; and (e) I'm basically lazy. (grin)
But that's the way I like MY hair. I don't give a rat's fart in a windstorm whether anyone else has short or long or teased or whatever. If it pleases them, that's enough. I have to say, though, that the hairdos that look like someone lost a round with a mixmaster make me cringe inwardly just a little bit. But I don't say a word! (grin)
As for looking sexy, I'm too damn old and infirm to worry about that! Heeheehee.