Girls can have short hair too campaign

Hair is one of those cultural signals isn't it? So a bit of a barometer for change.
Many of us grew up in a time when being female was less aggressively coded and the gender policing was very different.
I've had short hair, long hair, permed hair, bleached hair, etc, and never thought twice about anything more than how I wanted it to look.
My DD had short hair at high school and was judged for it, her sexuality presumed and comments made to her about it.
It's a less free choice for young women now, which is a regression from a feminist point of view. She's thought hard about growing it as she's annoyed by the implications of that choice too.
I think the point about the mental/financial/time load of maintaining the 'beauty standard ' is insane too. So much time and effort and money to fit a uniform vision of feminity.
I don't know how successful this campaign will be, but I am happy to see a push back and sadly these battles are never won.

There was also the Purdy cut - Joanna Lumley in the Avengers

I remember thinking when I was watching the women's football a couple years ago, why do nearly all of them have long, poker straight, highlighted hair in a high ponytail?
When you look at the variation in male footballer's haircuts, it seems a bit weird.
Surely short hair is practical and at least some of them would choose it?

I always had short hair from aged 8 to 28. It didn't seem remotely strange back then?! Not that I play football. 🤷

One thing I do not see mentioned is the time and behaviour involved in maintaining long hair. Schoolgirls I see at the end of the day have smooth hair which has obviously been straightened before school, and they must have done very little active during the day to keep it that way.What do they do with it at night? When I had mine long - it never grew that long - it tangled. When I had it cut off the difference in weight was amazing. I think the long hair thing must be like other fashions in the past, corsets, hobble skirts, not wearing trousers, stiletto heels, foot binding in China, ways of limiting women's movement.

Shortshriftandlethal · I think the marketisation of 'pink' for girls really began in the 1980's..... Disney became a huge marketing machine...pushing gender stereotypes and imagery and all of that princess guff.

Great post, Shortshriftandlethal.

The rise of the pink/fluffy/princess/glitter/butterfly thing can also be linked to a backlash against feminism and the limited advances made by the women's movement in the 1970s. I think that's what was called 'Second Wave feminism' but TBH I'm a bit vague about all that wave business - anyway it was the time when equal rights for women were being mainstreamed, the first rape crisis centres and women's refuges, Our Bodies Ourselves published - really fundamental stuff that is now at risk.

The possibility of little girls growing up to believe that they could be and do anything they wanted and be the equal of their brothers was obviously very threatening, so along came the fluffy pink princess 'guff'.

It sounds fluffy and silly, but the influences on little children's early years are so important to their hopes and aspirations AND to their acquisition of motor skills and dexterity - running around, catching, kicking and throwing balls, handling construction toys, learning to use basic tools, etc. are not just playing, they are developing important skills.
Princesses don't run around and kick footballs, do they?

You also mention the 'skin care regimes' being pushed - including wall-to-wall ads on MN - for little girls from as young as 8 or 9. This has been criticised for all sorts of reasons, including on FWR, and by me, amongst others. There are so many things wrong with it, from damaging self esteem to financial to dermatological (children's skin shouldn't be subjected to this kind of treatment), but is another one of those daft, expensive and potentially damaging fads that girls get subjected to at regular intervals😠

I disagree. If you read the article, the girls were not made fun of for looking like boys, or for not looking girly enough, the specific accusation thrown at them was that they were boys and the team was cheating for having them on the team. This absolutely is about girl's not feeling confident that their sport is being protected..

Unfortunately in the current climate where girls' sports are not protected, the ' 'girls can have short hair too' campaign will just shame girls into not raising concerns if they feel they are not playing against an all girls team.

Those campaigners would be better off campaigning to protect girls sports. Dealing with bullying girls for how they look would then be a clearly separate issue.

My dd looks amazing with short hair and it's so much easier however she's a dancer and the exams are so strict on hairstyles that it does need to be a certain length to style it appropriately so long it is.

I can't believe we're still dealing with this sh*t.

This is not entirely true. Most of the Japanese players that I see in the WSL have short hair. On the other hand I can only think off the top of my head one English player with short hair.

I was actually surprised at how visceral I felt when I was misgendered. I know I'm not beautiful or girlie, but being called 'that man over there' (I wear a work uniform so it's not a clothing issue, we all wear the same) really got to me in a way I can't describe. It was like being called ugly but...with more of a spin? Bearing in mind I wear a (very female) name badge it's like being told you're not really a woman because you don't have long swishy hair. Yet none of the men who grow their hair long are being told that they can't be a man because they've got a pony tail, are they?

It makes me so glad to have grown up in the 80s. I had a flat top for years and dressed in jeans tee shirts and leather jacket. I was often mistaken for a boy. A girl once asked what school I went to, and when I told her she said "but that's a girls school?" I laughed and said I am a girl, and we laughed. These days I'd be told I'm male etc.

My friend's daughter got a short hair cut recently and my friend is terrified of the pressure that's coming with it. She's being told she's really a boy, but so far she's able to fend it off. It's awful.

Absolutely this! Its not about hair, its about the fact that girls being guaranteed a fair competition has been destroyed by gender ideology. Its fucking outrageous that it has come to this. These people and all those who have supported them should hang their heads in shame that they have made little children have to question if the adults have allowed them a fair competition.

I agree with that too. I don't like to see girls dismissed for being too "girly" either. I wish there was less pressure all round.

This is incredibly sad.

The only female footballer who has short hair is Quinn. Give she role-models pretending not to be female, there’s no one to look up to.

Even the men in women’s football grow their hair out, like Barbra Banda, because otherwise how else would people think he’s actually a woman?🤨

I'm uncomfortable with any campaign that says "Some people are....... Get over it". I think it 1. doesn't help their case by being too aggressive 2. makes it sound like anyone with eyes and a curious mind is automatically a bigot/utter evil, and that any discussion Must Be Shut Down. In this case, they just don't want boys in girls sports.

Also, I don't think there's anything wrong with girls liking girly things. Many (most?) do. I don't think they should be pressured to shun girly things if they like them, just as much as I don't think I should be pressured to be girly. But, yes, I understand the extremes of girls to be what they are not.

And ever younger women are having botox, fillers and surgical 'enhancements'.
Again, it comes down to consumer culture being extended to every aspect of life - accompanied by continual advertising ( and pornography, of course).

Lots of young women where I live look like porn stars or drag queens. Barely dressed, and with big fake eyelashes and fake everything else. I was shopping at a newly opened supermarket one day, and looked up from the salad section to be confronted, close up, by a young woman with a huge trout pout, a ton of make-up, and wearing a stretchy pink tracksuit thing.......Seriously, I got a shock. I was stunned for a moment.

my 16yo dd recently had her hair cut short.. its sort of a shortened wolf cut, not a pixie, but not a bob, and while some commented it looks nice, there was definitely an undercurrent of 'boy hair' from some of her male peers.

That's sad. Lots of my school friends had short hair in the 80s and 90s and no one thought anything of it, it was fashionable.

So infuriating. My DD (14) has had her hair short for the last few years. She's quite petite and doesn't have much of a bust yet and prefers comfortable clothes like tracksuit bottoms and hoodies. She is very much the opposite to her female peers at school and has been mistaken for a boy on many occasions (doesn't bother her) I'm so proud that she doesn't feel the need to conform to stereotypes and is happy to just be herself. I just hope that societal pressure doesn't start to take it's toll on her and make her feel less. Everyone working with young people should be charged with building their confidence and learning to love the skin they're in, rather than enforcing outdated and damaging stereotypes.

My granddaughter is nine and girls in her class have "skin care regimes" with expensive products, and one even held a spa day gathering for the girls in the class on her birthday. The girls got facial treatments and their nails painted.

I have very short hair. ON THIS VERY SITE I've been told to grow my hair (it was in the context of the fact that I keep being mistaken for a man, despite having a 36-25-36 figure and not wearing make up).

i dont think this is necessarily entirely a trans in sport issue, even if this is what sparked this in particular, but the current trend for girls to look traditionally feminine.. aka, long hair.

my 16yo dd recently had her hair cut short.. its sort of a shortened wolf cut, not a pixie, but not a bob, and while some commented it looks nice, there was definitely an undercurrent of 'boy hair' from some of her male peers.

I think the marketisation of 'pink' for girls really began in the 1980's......before that it really wasn't a big thing. Aligned to that was the marketisation of childhood itself, and just about everything else - after the liberalisation of 'the market' and 'the city' under Margaret Thatcher.

Britain really seemed to embrace American consumer culture then. The credit card became a thing......and success was seen as owning lots of consumer products, expensive watches, designer clothing, foreign holidays....even the 'plebs'.

I think that is when more rigid categorisation of girl toys/boy toys and the 'girly pink' thing took off too. I was born in the 60s and grew up in the 70's and this pink business just wasn't a thing, and I had short hair at different times during my childhood, and then again at 12 ( and still do now) when I got my ears pierced for my birthday. Having short hair felt liberating.

Disney became a huge marketing machine...pushing gender stereotypes and imagery and all of that princess guff. My grandmother called me her princess when I was a child, but she didn't mean in in that way......all fluffy and dressed up as Snow White. You can guarantee that whenever there is a World Book day at school now - half the girls will be dressed as Disney princesses.

Toy stores have boy and girl aisles - with certain toys designated for boys and others for girls.

Some female hair stylists simply no longer work with short hair; they don't know how to cut short hair on women. My daughter experienced this when taking her daughter ( my granddaughter) to get her hair cut short when she was 6 ( she'd asked for short hair). The allocated stylist freaked out.....and the owner of the salon had to do it.

Of course this is the bbc, so, sadly, there is also a question about whether they are subscribing to the ‘some girls have a penis’ pov

Quite. Sometimes I think the best thing to do is carry on as normal and ignore the bollocks (so to speak). Because sometimes only by no reaction whatsoever, do things pipe down.