I was seventeen when I cut my hair from inches below shoulder length to just inches long. It was my junior year of high school, and it had been an ongoing internal battle as I tried to decide if I was ready to make the chop. Besides a brief stint in my freshman year of college when I tried to grow it out, my hair has remained short. In fact, it’s gotten progressively shorter, culminating in a straight up buzz cut when I lived in the woods for six weeks one summer. Now, at twenty-two, I keep my hair clipped pretty close to my head. I don’t put product in it; I describe it, affectionately, as fuzzy, and I (involuntarily) give my numerous cowlicks free reign.

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Among the encouraging remarks when I first mused about the prospect of cutting a pixie was the phrase, “Boys don’t really like girls with short hair.”

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Oh, okay.

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Probably any woman you ask would tell you that she’s no stranger to unsolicited opinions and advice regarding her looks. Whether it’s a woman’s clothing, makeup (or lack thereof), hair, etc., you can bet someone has thoughts on it. Men and women alike often feel entitled to give advice or comments, unprompted, on women’s physical appearances.

Far more often than not, the comments I get on my hair are positive. There are more women than men who comment, but people across the board have nice things to say about my style choice (which, truthfully, was motivated by sheer laziness). It’s really nice to be complimented, and I feel kind of smug every time a man goes out of his way to tell me he likes my hair (even though I don’t love this side of myself).

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There are days when I look in the mirror and I’m sick of how much of my face is visible with no hair to hide it. There are days when I feel like I bear way too strong a resemblance to a prepubescent boy. But none of this is enough to make me want to return to the days of heat damaging my hair when I took 40 minutes to straighten it every morning, or to the struggle of finding a mousse that wouldn’t make my hair crunch like raw ramen. When I cut my hair, it wasn’t to make a statement. It was because my hair was big and I wanted to sleep more. In my mind, there were two options: sleep less and spend the time styling my hair, or chop my hair and reap the benefits of an alarm set a half hour later. I didn’t know then that there was a third option: just leave it alone. Sleep in, forget about my hair, let it frizz.

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The way some women compliment my hair is really interesting. They often tell me that they like my hair and say how brave I am to have my hair so short. They lament about not being able to “pull off” the short hair look. They tell me that they wish they were to take the risk and cut their hair like I did. Some women feel it’s really important that I know that I shouldn’t let people tell me my hair doesn’t look good.  

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I didn’t consider sleeping in and letting my hair frizz as a legitimate option for the same reason that women use words like “brave” and tell me that they wish they could cut their their hair while never considering that they could chop it any time. Hair symbolizes femininity. There’s nothing more conventionally beautiful than long, straight, silky hair. Feeling like others might see you as attractive is wound up in having pretty hair. The women on the street who are insistent that I shouldn’t let people make me believe anything negative about my hair are doing so because they’ve internalized this standard; even while they’re defying the notion that it takes long hair to look good, they’re assuming that it is just accepted, that I might need to be reassured that the choice I made is permissible.

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Don’t get me wrong, I think this is kind of them. I’ve internalized the standard too, and it often takes effort and active work to look at myself and others outside the lens of what is the normalized standard of beauty. I’ve been pretty lucky, too; by being white, I’m already ahead of the game in terms of what is considered acceptable by society.

The thing about expecting that hair look a certain way is that these expectations don’t discriminate based on hair texture, cultural styles, etc. Ankita Rao writes that there are “societal pressures to adhere to beauty standards that typically embody a white, European aesthetic” that are especially harmful to women of color. Society doesn’t care what is possible for your hair; it wants straight and shiny. This, besides being arbitrary and ridiculous, is actively toxic, especially for women of color. And while the standards of beauty are toxic in many ways that goes behind haircare, looking strictly at hair is enough to show how problematic the expectations—and the lengths they drive women to—are.

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Some women choose, for themselves, to straighten their hair, to perm it, to dye it, to do whatever with it. I support that wholeheartedly—I’m here for whatever makes a woman most comfortable in her skin. What I don’t like is the pressures that make us feel like there’s a right option for us, and that the option should be pursued, even if it’s not in our best interest. But studies and circumstances have shown that women of color in particular are often forced into a position where they must do something more harmful to their bodies to avoid repercussions.  In the spring of 2017, a Massachusetts punished two girls for their braided hair, claiming that the style was an infraction against their uniform policy, which prohibited “hair extensions.” Women of color are fired from jobs and discriminated against based on the hair styles they choose; hair styles that, because they are culturally significant and particular to textured hair that is not conventional in Western beauty standards, are seen as unprofessional and unattractive.

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And even if they are not actively facing consequences for styling their hair naturally, women often struggle to find natural hairstyles represented. Natural hair is often erased from the public eye; the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has gone on for twenty two years, and only in the last three years has it include models wearing natural hair. In November of 2017, Lupita Nyong’o took to Instagram to call out the magazine Grazia UK for editing and smoothing her hair without her consent when they featured her on the front page.

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In response to all of these factors, women of color often feel pressure to use heat or chemicals to straighten their hair, meaning that “compared with white women, women of color have higher levels of beauty product–related environmental chemicals in their bodies.” Not only are the attitudes surrounding hair and beauty expectations toxic, but these expectations are literally, physically toxic.

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There are women, too, who may lose their hair because of treatment for an illness, or because of a condition like alopecia. Being able to adhere to the traditional model of femininity by sporting long, silky hair, is a luxury not everyone is afforded. It’s a luxury that is largely meaningless, but one that takes a toll on women’s confidence and self-image when it cannot be reached. These women then have to grapple with their notions of femininity and value because of the pervasive standards of beauty. Whether it’s a condition or a symptom of an illness or treatment, women who have involuntarily lost their hair have more to deal with than just the hair loss, but it often carries a lot of weight. The value we attach to hair adds a mental and emotional burden and acts as an unnecessary stressor. The pressures to conform to a certain standard are both internal and external, and all they do is cause trouble.  

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Hair can seem so trivial. Besides the work we might put into styling it for events, haircare is everyday procedure. But when we think about how deeply ingrained hair is in our view of beauty, it’s important to consider what this might tell women who do not conform to the typical standards, by choice or otherwise. We shouldn’t be communicating that those who can’t wear long, silky hair are settling for worse; instead, we should be promoting the beauty of all hairstyles.​

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People took to the internet to praise the movie Black Panther for (among many other things) the female characters and their natural hairstyles. Patrice Williams, in an article for Hello Giggles, questions whether her own journey to accept natural hair might have been made easier if there were more representation like that in Black Panther. From braids, to curls, to bald heads, the women in the movie are strong, powerful, and rocking natural hairstyles. In fact, the most physically powerful women in the movie, the Wakanda warriors, are styling bald heads the entire movie. Representation like this allows women (and men!) to see that there is beauty outside enforced societal standards. Beauty standards are largely arbitrary, and showing women who don’t fit into a mold is so important for young girls growing up and figuring out how they feel about themselves.

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Every time a woman tells me that she wishes she could cut her hair, I want to tell her, “But you can!” I want to tell her that it’s worth it to take the leap, that even if she isn’t doing it to make a statement or liberate herself, she might find that these things happen anyway. It’s scary to know that people might stare, to know that you’re deliberately going against what the world tells you to do to be beautiful. But maybe we should think about what we’re afraid of, why we can’t all just go ahead and chop it off. And this is something that take effort on the individual and on the societal level. Women shouldn’t be worrying that their job is in jeopardy because of the hairstyle they choose to wear; women shouldn’t feel that their value is at stake because they’re straying from the expected. Pulling it off isn’t real; what is real is following your heart and rejoicing in the first shampoo with inches of hair gone.