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Original poster

To wonder why do few girls have short hair nowadays

526 replies

Chewystick · 05/12/2021 00:52

That’s it really. When I was at high school (80s), half the girls had short hair. However, I can only think of one girl my DDs (who have long hair) have known through school who had short hair and she has long hair now. When did short hair fall out of favour?

OP posts:
dropitlikeitsloth · 05/12/2021 09:18

@m00rfarm

I live in Portugal and so many girls have long, straight black hair parted in the centre. As many have very high foreheads (not sure if this is a genetic thing in this area) it really is not very flattering. Most of them dye their hair black (as opposed to their natural nearly black colour) and the hair looks odd and unhealthy. I hate it. It looks a mess 99% of the time unless they have just washed it, and there is long hair left everywhere! They would look so pretty with hair that was looked after better and slightly shorter. And less samey. OK - so this is proof I am getting old. When I see one of them with shorter or curly hair, it looks amazing.
Honestly this post and some others on here! So judgey and rude. We don’t need to worry about men comment long negatively on our appearance as women do we, when other women will gladly do it for us. I actually despair, it’s the 21st century and we are still commenting on women’s appearances.

I hate it.

You hate it, you hate it…So what. Why do you think your opinion on someone’s else’s hair matters to them or anyone else. Why do you have to announce you hate it, what does this achieve. How does it affect you. It’s not up to you. So much to unpick from that snippet alone. Why are we our own worst enemies?

ChoporNot · 05/12/2021 09:22

I was an exam invigilator 6/7 years ago and remember thinking the exact same thing back then. I looked across a hall of 150 odd 16 years olds - and 99% of the girls about long hair.

I think there are more shorter styles around now. Slightly. But not many.

kowari · 05/12/2021 09:23

@CouldThisReallyBe

Cost maybe? Shorter hair is more costly to keep in style
Mine costs £14 for a cut every six weeks or so, probably 8 times a year. I wash it every three days but need hardly any shampoo or conditioner and it saves me time. Quicker to wash, towel dry, one minute to style.
AtlasPine · 05/12/2021 09:24

@TurquoiseBaubles

Because if they cut off their hair they have to deal with peers (and some adults) assuming they want to be boys. Or are trans or non-binary or whatever.

It's not just hair. I look back at my childhood photographs and all the girls had short hair, jeans, standard coats, t-shirts; pretty much exactly what their brothers wore (and in my case direct hand-me-downs from my brothers). Now even t-shirts for boys and girls are different. Jeans for girls are tight, with no pockets; tops are crop tops with short or no sleeves.

Girls are expect to fit "gender norms" in a way that we weren't back in the 70s and 80s.

I agree with this. I think we are far more ‘gendered’ in so many ways now. The whole sea of pink toys - bikes, scooters, trainers - for example.
gofg · 05/12/2021 09:24

I would love to have short hair but I find it much more work than long hair, maybe some girls/women find the same.

Same here!

Wash, brush, leave!

I have short hair. I wash once or twice a week, leave! So I've cut out one extra step. I don't even own a brush.

ArblemarchTFruitbat · 05/12/2021 09:27

My mum had mine and my sister's hair cut very short 'because it was easier' - we were always being mistaken for boys. That was in the 70s - I don't think the phenomenon of short hair = boy is a new one.

I hated being taken for a boy and grew my hair as soon as I had any say in the matter. It's been long most of my life apart from a mullet I had briefly in 1985.

It would probably look better a bit shorter now I am nearly 50 - shoulder length perhaps - but I'm frightened of cutting it because it's very slow growing, if it turns out I don't like it.

lazylinguist · 05/12/2021 09:28

Because society's stereotypical views of how women 'should' look have got worse not better in recent times. Girls have long hair, boys have short hair. If you're a girl and you have short hair you must be identifying as a boy Angry.

It's not just fashion. Fashion changes constantly and rapidly, whereas virtually all girls having long hair has been a thing for a very long time now. I'm a secondary teacher. I see maybe one or two girls with short hair in a year group of 200+. I'm starting to see a couple more, but they often do identify as nb.

Rollmopsrule · 05/12/2021 09:30

EnidFrighten That video is amazing!!! Puts the fat girl comments right in their place.

Benjispruce5 · 05/12/2021 09:31

I had my hair short in early 80s as Princess Diana was an icon then. Later I had it scrunchy like Madonna. I can’t think of any celebs/stars with short hair now. My two have had long hair forever and they’re 17&21.

AuntDympna · 05/12/2021 09:35

@foodiscomplicated

When I was a child in the seventies my Mum, bless her (not) seemed to think long hair was a sign of vanity. Then as others have said, in the 80s we were more androgynous- baggy clothes, Doc martens etc. So shorter hair suited the look
Ah now, this totally! Is it a Catholic thing? All the nuns had to crop their hair - some wore headdresses but others had bare heads with a number 4 or 3 looked like. In my family there were a lot of very strict ideas of modesty and humility, and long flowing hair was regarded as "sensual". My mum used to wear a scarf or veil in church. Many of the beautiful women in my family wore what can only be described as belligerently ugly shapeless dresses and pudding-bowl haircuts.
schnubbins · 05/12/2021 09:43

I think it also because you CAN have long hair now .There are so many products for washing and styling hair that were not available in the 80's and early 90's .I have got thick wavy hair but could only grow it to shoulder length when I was young as it just became so unmanageable and frizzy .When I see what I can style my hair now it makes me kind of sad that I cut it all off when I was younger .

deathbyprocrastination · 05/12/2021 09:43

Quite a lot of girls at my DD's school have short hair. it's a girls' school, mind. I think at mixed schools there's perhaps more pressure to adopt more "feminine" styles... seems to be the way with the schools round here anyway

schnubbins · 05/12/2021 09:45

P.S we didn't even have a hairdryer in our house growing up!

AnOldCynic · 05/12/2021 09:50

@NoddyMcdoddy

Hair styles follow trends. Long hair is the current trend. You don’t tend to see mojawks, perms or mullets these days either.
Actually mullets are on trend. Google shaggy mullet....
ancientgran · 05/12/2021 09:51

I think for older children it can be their choice and fashion will play a part in that. For little ones I can only think the parents make the decision and going by my experience with my DGD I don't think long hair is anything other than a pain or the average 2, 3 or 4 year old.

DGD has thick long hair, her mother has always been very proud of it and it is lovely but she hates having it washed, she hates having it brushed, it is a nightmare to brush as it is so thick, long and a bit curly. Every day seems to start with tears and upset. She thinks she has to have long hair because she's a girl.

NdujaWannaDance · 05/12/2021 09:52

Meh. It goes in cycles of fashion. There was a period around the very early noughties when very short hair was all the rage.

And it's always appealed more to a certain type of girl/young woman who has a more edgy, grungey or boho style rather than the identikit Barbie doll glamour model wannabes with their permatans and lip fillers overly heavy eyebrows.

Lots of the first type of girl are still getting their pixie cuts or their undercuts or those very edgy looking super-short fringes, or some other version of short hair, while most of the second type of girl would never get short hair regardless of how much it was in fashion, because they aspire to a different asthetic althogether, that's much less about high fashion and much more about looking sexy and glamorous.

AnOldCynic · 05/12/2021 09:52

@Stroopwaffle5000

Because most females look shit with short hair
Really? 🤨
Lovemusic33 · 05/12/2021 09:53

My daughter has short hair as do a few of her friends. I think girls are always mostly had long hair, when I was at school most girls had long hair until the Bob became fashionable.

dottiedodah · 05/12/2021 09:55

I think short hair is difficult to pull off really. Get it wrong and it can easily look a bit severe .Also long hair can be tied back ,put up in a bun ,whatever . left loose looks great! I am older and still have shoulder length hair .Pop up in ponytail if needed .

NdujaWannaDance · 05/12/2021 09:55

Actually mullets are on trend. Google shaggy mullet....

Yes, my point exactly! See Miley Cyrus in that Gucci fragrance advert. That look will be EVERYWHERE by next summer.

The glamour model wannabes are always very much behind the times when it comes to fashion. They'll get there eventually by embracing 70s style feathery layers (on longer hair) but the cool girls will have moved onto something else by then.

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 05/12/2021 09:57

My DD is 19 and I noticed when she was in Secondary (all the pupils in uniform so noticed hair rather than clothes ) the girls had long straight loose hair .

My DD hair has always been long , she had it cut to a shoulderlength and hated it .
When she gets her hair cut I always tell her "don't get more cut off than you want - you can come back to have more cut but you cannot stick it back once its cut "

One thing I have noticed though is the number of young men with beards . That seems to be the fashion now !

Benjispruce5 · 05/12/2021 09:57

My hair is wavy so short hair is hard work.

ronniz · 05/12/2021 09:59

I’m amazed at the number of people saying long hair is easier to look after. Doesn’t it get tangled and take ages to dry?

I wash it every 3/4 days, don't brush it much. Don't blow dry or style it.

ronniz · 05/12/2021 10:03

Is homogeneity new? I'm a Londoner & when I left London for the first time to go to another city for uni (early 00s) I was quite surprised how the young people all dressed the same. There seemed to be quite a narrow model of what was considered attractive. I felt really out of place & not that pretty which felt strange as I wasn't used to it (can't say this without sounding big headed so apologies).

GetTheFlockOutOfHere · 05/12/2021 10:03

It is literally just fashion. Not because girls are much FATTER these days Hmm And I doubt most girls/young women have long hair because people will think they are non binary. I had short hair as a teen as it was the 1980s and the little pixie cut was popular, and it looked cute on me, as it did other girls. (My hair looked like the one on the picture here...)

Most girls DO have long hair now incl most on TV and in Love Island. and the like... But many of them have extensions. The hair is around 3-6" below the shoulders, and they have extensions that are 2 feet long. So they often look obvious.

I do agree with @dropitlikeitsloth and a few others, that some posts on here are so rude and spiteful. Who gives a shit if someone has short hair, or long black (dyed) hair that has very little maintenance, and isn't quite up to your standards? And as for the comments like 'oooh girls would look sooooo much PRETTIER if blah blah blah....' Hmm Prettier for WHO? Da menz?! Confused Such misogynistic bollocks.

@Stroopwaffle5000

Because most females look shit with short hair.

And talking of misogynistic bollocks! ^

To wonder why do few girls have short hair nowadays