Good question
I hit the New York Times site daily for their three free Sudoku puzzles, and occasionally click on an interesting-looking link, like this one:
Why Can’t Middle-Aged Women Have Long Hair?
If asked, I'd say I have medium length, graying hair (slightly shorter than my icon pictures) as a matter of convenience and economy, and what women do with their hair in terms of cut, color and general decor is their own business. Then I had a strong, almost viscerally negative reaction to the photograph of long, graying hair that accompanies that article.
WTF? Am I losing feminista cred now, too? Because challenging society's expectations of women is pretty much the foundation of feminism (at least to me,) and the author brings up a valid question about why it was okay for young women to do so by getting the "feminist chop" back in the 70's, (which she did) but not by having hair long enough to braid in their 50's (which she does, much to her mother's and friends' dismay.)
(Note: yes, I was alive during the 70's. I was even in high school for the last half! I don't remember the "feminist chop," though. Mom chopped my hair off because like most redheads, I have very thick but fiendishly fine hair that mattes and tangles if you look at it funny.)
I blush to disclose that my first explanation of my negative reaction came straight from the pages of Charla Krupp's How Not to Look Old in the form of "she's trying too hard." Krupp stresses that a too-young look ages women more than an age-appropriate look, which means I'm accepting the premise that hair long enough to braid is a young woman's look. Well, fine, but young women don't usually have graying hair, do they?
(Note: Unless they're one of the lucky, lucky few like nialla42, women don't go noticeably gray until their mid to late 30's or, like me, their very late 40's. Mom and Dad still swear they can't see gray in my hair, but they have a vested interest in not having an older child, don't they? When they start aging gracefully, so will I!)
I've now rationalized that I can be a feminist and still have an issue with long hair on a middle-aged woman. The part of the article I finished emphasized the issue of societal expectations, well and good. How about this? Challenging societal expectations through one's appearance is what children and young adults do. Picking battles of more substance is what adults do. Asking if someone who doesn't look her age is actually acting her age may be unfair, but I'd almost like to tell that author to call me when she's grown up and ready to go to war on something less superficial, like whether she got paid what she's worth for writing that article.
Right, wrong or indifferent, the current standard of appearance for a middle-aged woman is medium to short hair with whether or not it's dyed as the acceptably non-superficial, appearance-based battle to pick. (See Anne Kreamer's Going Gray: What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters for the first inkling I got that hair color was going to be A Thing. Good news, everybody! I'm no longer cheap or lazy for letting my hair go gray! Bad news: Single and child-free might not be considered authentic adulthood. :P Am I going to have to write my own book now?) Going to war at work over whether I get paid or promoted equally means removing some of the superficial bars to it and adhering to a "professional look" or "demeanor." Girlishly long hair is not on the agenda, and it strikes me as a rather juvenile battle to pick in the war on societal expectations in middle age.
Why Can’t Middle-Aged Women Have Long Hair?
If asked, I'd say I have medium length, graying hair (slightly shorter than my icon pictures) as a matter of convenience and economy, and what women do with their hair in terms of cut, color and general decor is their own business. Then I had a strong, almost viscerally negative reaction to the photograph of long, graying hair that accompanies that article.
WTF? Am I losing feminista cred now, too? Because challenging society's expectations of women is pretty much the foundation of feminism (at least to me,) and the author brings up a valid question about why it was okay for young women to do so by getting the "feminist chop" back in the 70's, (which she did) but not by having hair long enough to braid in their 50's (which she does, much to her mother's and friends' dismay.)
(Note: yes, I was alive during the 70's. I was even in high school for the last half! I don't remember the "feminist chop," though. Mom chopped my hair off because like most redheads, I have very thick but fiendishly fine hair that mattes and tangles if you look at it funny.)
I blush to disclose that my first explanation of my negative reaction came straight from the pages of Charla Krupp's How Not to Look Old in the form of "she's trying too hard." Krupp stresses that a too-young look ages women more than an age-appropriate look, which means I'm accepting the premise that hair long enough to braid is a young woman's look. Well, fine, but young women don't usually have graying hair, do they?
(Note: Unless they're one of the lucky, lucky few like nialla42, women don't go noticeably gray until their mid to late 30's or, like me, their very late 40's. Mom and Dad still swear they can't see gray in my hair, but they have a vested interest in not having an older child, don't they? When they start aging gracefully, so will I!)
I've now rationalized that I can be a feminist and still have an issue with long hair on a middle-aged woman. The part of the article I finished emphasized the issue of societal expectations, well and good. How about this? Challenging societal expectations through one's appearance is what children and young adults do. Picking battles of more substance is what adults do. Asking if someone who doesn't look her age is actually acting her age may be unfair, but I'd almost like to tell that author to call me when she's grown up and ready to go to war on something less superficial, like whether she got paid what she's worth for writing that article.
Right, wrong or indifferent, the current standard of appearance for a middle-aged woman is medium to short hair with whether or not it's dyed as the acceptably non-superficial, appearance-based battle to pick. (See Anne Kreamer's Going Gray: What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters for the first inkling I got that hair color was going to be A Thing. Good news, everybody! I'm no longer cheap or lazy for letting my hair go gray! Bad news: Single and child-free might not be considered authentic adulthood. :P Am I going to have to write my own book now?) Going to war at work over whether I get paid or promoted equally means removing some of the superficial bars to it and adhering to a "professional look" or "demeanor." Girlishly long hair is not on the agenda, and it strikes me as a rather juvenile battle to pick in the war on societal expectations in middle age.