[Because I do not have children, nor do I have nieces, I feel somewhat removed from the ways in which media mediates girl identity. I have not seen a children’s movie or read a children’s book in several years, so I write this more from a 1980s / 1990s perspective. But I digress.]
The greatest way that media permeates girl identity is through appearance. I didn’t realize how strong media dictates our views of how girls and boys *should* look until I was in high school and stumbled upon the movie Fatal Attraction while channel-surfing. I then realized I had seen it as a child at a neighbor’s house. What makes this significant is that in my memory, the little girl in the movie was actually a little boy. In my mind, at five or six, it had already been engrained that male children have short hair and female children have longer hair. Another similar experience came a few years ago -- I worked in retail, and at the time, my hair was very short (nearly buzzed). A young girl, maybe four, saw me, and asked her mom, “What’s that man doing?”
Media teaches children, especially girls, what is and is not feminine. Short hair is not feminine. I am not sure how much of this is caused by girls looking at men and women and making these deductions, or looking at the way girls specifically are depicted in the media, but from a young age, a woman associates her hair with her femininity. I have had female friends tell me what they did not feel sexy with a short haircut.
And even before their own hair has grown to any significant length, most girls are already playing with dolls that model the long hair ideal.
The more I think about it, hair for girls also serves a number of other purposes, such as bonding with their mothers and bonding with each other. (And for me, punishment -- I cut a neighbor girl’s hair without permission as a young child.)
I hadn’t intended to make this entire post about hair, but I guess I never realized how important it is in the media’s definition of girlhood.
Hayley
You bring up a really great point that hair is also a bonding experience, socially connecting women to their mothers, sisters, friends, etc...I never realized it, but some of my honest memories with both my mother and sister have involved hair. Then, there is also the prohibition from cutting Barbie's hair (more because mom and dad don't want to buy another). But once you cut Barbie's hair, she just isn't Barbie anymore. Great insight.
ReplyDeleteFrom my personal experience, my own daughter and my close friend's daughter, little girls want hair like their mothers. After they are introduced to dolls such as Barbie, they want their mother's and their own hair like the dolls! Now thanks to media and Disney, wants her hair to grown 30 feet long like the Repunzel from the movie tangled! My daughter really puts up a fight when it is time for a haircut.
ReplyDeleteI love this topic. There's a video we look at later in the course called A Girl Like ME. Check it out - a big part of it is the power of "good hair", particularly in certain ethnic communities.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to think about what role media/toys have in perpetuating the importance of long hair. Think Disney princesses, Barbie like Robyn brought up, hairbows for baby girls with no hair. Again it shows the adherence to a certain feminine beauty - a very euro-centric feminine look.
Hair is an important part of the physical appearance of young ladies, perhaps because of what you all have mentioned: media. Women’s hair is also important for men (same reason maybe…they like their women to look like the sexy images of the models on TV). This topic brings to mind a personal anecdote of my teenage years. I used to wear my hair long with soft curls. I got tired of styling it every morning, and one day I told my friends that I was going to cut it short (like a boy) because I didn’t want to spend too much time on it. One of my guy friends told me that if I cut it short, he would stop talking to me. I cut it…and I never heard from him again.
ReplyDeleteNora
Great topic. Hair is such a focus in women's beauty. How many Victoria Secret models have short hair? I remember my dad telling me, in one of the few instances he gave me 'boy' advice, when I was a teenager that boys like long hair, in order to discourage me from cutting my hair short in the summer. Long hair IS feminine (as you wrote), and it is interesting how much attention is paid to how it looks and feels. The commercial for shampoo that promises "touchable feel" comes to mind, where the woman is shown with a man running his hand through her long, flowing, brown hair. Long hair is associated with sexiness and desirability.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great topic. I have a friend, Anna, who had to have some sessions of chemotherapy. I remember her mother telling me if Anna had lost her hair every woman in the family (Anna's three aunts, grandmother, and mother) were ready to shave their heads so Anna would not be the only person in the family with no hair. This speaks to the bonding aspect associated with hair many of you have brought up previously. Even if in this case we are talking about losing one's hair.
ReplyDelete