Monday, May 18, 2009

Get your herr did

I've been meaning to write about hair for a while now, but Sarah beat me to it with her excellent post. Losing my hair was a very difficult part of my eating disorder - it was already baby-fine, so the loss was noticeable.

Oh. I just remembered gathering it behind my head (it was about shoulder length) and being able to twist it around two fingers. Holy crap, that was a visceral memory.

Now I'm patting my head to make sure my bob is the same as it was the last time I looked in a mirror.

Why does this society put so much emphasis on women's hair?

5 comments:

lisalisa said...

my husband was looking at an old picture of me in which i had long, blonde hair and he said "it would be ok if you had hair like that again" which kind of hurt my feelings. So i turned to him and said "it would be ok if YOU had hair like that again" which was a cheap shot, cause he's pretty bald. But come on, society in general (and men in particular) really like to tell women that they will be more beautiful, successful, accepted, ect if they wear their hair a certain way. I guess i could go on and on with this one but that would be rude since this isn't my blog. Congrats on finishing school! What's your degree in?

Lisa said...

LOL, Lisa, I love getting comments, so don't worry about rambling. Last week my significant other told me he liked my hair longer, too - which is odd, because he only saw the straggly anorexia hair anyway.

Hair, like any other external part of ourselves, can act as a status symbol.

And my degree, when I get it in a few weeks, will be in anthropology.

Kristina said...

It's particularly interesting in the African-American community, where they will say that a woman (or a girl) "has good hair". Which means???

Tiptoe said...

Kristina, not sure what that exact comment means, but many African-Americans would say that about my hair.

Lisa, I think hair is part of the epitome of being female in society.

ola said...

It´s funny, because I want to write post about hair as well.

Ad anorexia vs hair: I had a hair cut lately and now I am quite surprised how fast my hair are growing when I am eating properly!

Ad society vs hair: i think hair is bigger part of identity than we realize. When I have spoken to patients during/before chemotherapy, they were often much more scared of losing their hair than any other adverse effect.

And back to ED: It´s weird, because I am often quite scared of every possible physical attribute of femininity - with the exception of hair.