To wonder why do few girls have short hair nowadays

[Chewystick]

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?

@Fomofo

Get the flock, possibly a generalisation yes, but in my experience of of gen z girls in particular, being mistaken for a boy wouldn't bother them in the least

Most of the GenZ girls I know wouldn't be too happy about being mistaken for a boy!

And most of them I know never would be.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I'm even worse than you, *@kowari*, I have taken to cutting it myself! No makeup, no hair products, and yet nobody runs away screaming when I have the temerity to leave the house. I even managed to hold down a job in this unadorned state!

I think many people have taken to cutting their own hair since covid (when they were shut for half a year!) The world didn't implode, and no-one laughed and pointed at them in the street.

I think many hairdressers are a rip-off and have not been since January 2020 (nearly 2 years.) I have been successfully trimming and styling my own hair (and occasionally dying it,) for almost 2 years now, and will probably never go to a hairdresser again.

@idontwanna

It's great if short hair works for a lot of posters and they find it easy and low maintenance. Why can't you accept that the same is applicable to a lot of women with long hair?

Yeah this. ^ There is a ridiculous 'I am right you are wrong' attitude from some on here. As I and many others have said, I find MY hair easier to manage when it's long/shoulder length, than when it is short. It's high maintenance FOR ME when it's short.

Good for you if your hair is easier to manage when it's short, but don't tell me I am wrong when I say my hair is harder to manage when it's short, because I'm not. MY hair is more difficult to manage when it's shorter. As the pp I quoted said, why can people not accept the experience of others is different to theirs? Bizarre and narrow minded.

Gettheflock, fair enough we obviously mix in different circles!

I grew up in the 60s and 70s. In the 60s, EVERYONE'S mum had a perm. Without exception. By the mid-70s they'd gone out of fashion, and they've never really come back in, I suspect because they take a fair bit of maintaining.

I've had a bob of varying lengths for the last 40-odd years, except for about 18 months when I flipped and had my hair cut short.

@Fomofo

Gettheflock, fair enough we obviously mix in different circles!

Yep!

Perms were still trendy in the late 70s going into the 80s

My dd has very short hair, luckily she’s good cheekbones 😀 She the only girl in her class with short hair and it helps to get her noticed. As a secondary teacher I sometimes struggle telling all these similar looking girls apart - terrible I know but true. My son has long red hair - I sometimes wish he was less noticeable 😳. Both have chosen their own hairstyles.

I was 13 in 1981. I had my bun length hair cut off into a Lady Di.

This morphed into a Shirley/girls from Human League cut. MASSIVE flick, loads of eyeliner.

This morphed into the Madonna perm which got bigger and bigger in some photos I look like I'm wearing a horsehair pompadour: see Working Girl.

In the 90's the perm got bobbed via a stint as a brylcremed Robert Palmer girl. So it was a sort of curly triangle that morphed into having loads of glittery butterfly clips and a Rachel.
Then back to short, thank you Posh Spice and Gwyneth in Sliding Doors.

Early 00's long again then ironed to the ninth with GHD's or curled for a big night out/wedding day.

2010-2020 super short pixie a la Tony and Guy.

Post lockdown blunt chin length bob with about 3 different colour highlights.

40 odd years of hair, so much fun, so much hair colour, so much money. I can change my entire look with a haircut and I love it.

The comment the only pretty women can carry short hair is fucking stupid.

My mum didn't have a perm in the 60's but she had a Friday night do that was dried on rollers and teased into a Dusty Springfield.

My mum and her sisters made Harmony hairspray a blue chip company all on their own.

My mum always had a regular short perm from her mid teens around late 1940s and had it washed and dried at the hairdressers in between, she never washed it at home. We only got a shower over the bath in the 80s, before then we had bath nights, and my hair was greasy after a few days. At 14 in the early 80s I was expected by my mum to have it cut short. With incentives like being allowed to wash it more often, get a hairdryer and have it cut more often, it felt good to not have greasy long hair and to be in fashion like most of the other girls, so I didn't argue. If I were a teenager now I'd have it long as per current trends.

At uni grew it out again to mid length. Over the years got straighteners, varied from bob to long, had it coloured.

The older generation of women tended to keep their short styles, often short perms, for life, whereas my age group, 50s, also maybe 40s and 60s, perhaps have the most diverse range of hairstyles, not feeling the need to conform to an expected societal norm and having the benefit of decent shampoo and styling stuff etc (but no time for weekly visits to hairdressers due to working).

If you mean as short as Naga Munchetty, then no. She rocks that hairstyle. But unfortunately, only very pretty woman can pull off short hair

Having no idea who Naga Munchetty is I had to look her up. My hair is as short as hers, and I very much resent your comment above. For what it's worth, I'm no oil painting but for all of my adult life I have been thought of as 10 or so years younger than I am. When I had my hair cut from short to very short several people have told me it takes years off me - so I guess I'm now looking 15 years younger than my actual age - and I got lots of compliments. Saying only very pretty women can pull off short hair is a load of bollocks - and says rather a lot about you as a person!

And surely ‘pretty’ is very subjective anyway!

I wondered this. Between leaving school in 1999 and started to teach in 2006. As a teacher I noticed all the girls had boring long hair. All the boys had creative styles. Still the same now.
I think there is more gender stereotyping from a young age. All the pink and blue.

@ninnynonny

Baffled at people thinking short hair needs work. I am the lowest maintenance woman in the world. I had a good cut (only real expense) once every couple of months, wash it, shove a bit of wax on it and that's that. It's like anything, if you make it hard work, then it is.

This might be news to you, but different people have different types of hair…. Let me guess, you have straight, European, relatively fine/thin hair?

I’ve had short hair, and let me tell you if you have very thick, very curly hair that is prone to frizz, a pixie cut is not low maintenance at all. I need a bit of length to weight it down and let actual curls form.

My hair is currently shoulder blade length, and I don’t have to wash it each morning to get it back into shape, I don’t need so much wax it is like a helmet, to stop it frizzing up the minute I step outside, and I can scrape it back and still look reasonably professional on the days when it isn’t behaving itself. None of which was true when it was short.

I’ve had short hair, and let me tell you if you have very thick, very curly hair that is prone to frizz, a pixie cut is not low maintenance at all. I need a bit of length to weight it down and let actual curls form.

I have reasonably thick, curly hair prone to frizz and mine is sort of a pixie and I literally do nothing to it other than wash it once or twice a week, slap on a bit of leave in conditioner and go. I don't own a brush or styling tools. My hair is the opposite - the longer it is the more the curls disappear!

In my case, rebellion against my mother. She is of the generation of women who cut their hair short after having children. She never stops banging on about how women over 40 should cut their hair short, offers to pay for my sis and I to go to her hairdresser for a "smart" crop. Both my sis and I keep our hair longish in response. We also weren't allowed long hair as children, so that's part of it.

There is definitely a generational thing to the long v short hair debate but just do what suits you / what you like. I get irritated with my mother going on about how I should cut my longish hair because my hair is fuck all to do with her.

TSSDNCOP - loved your very familiar history of haircuts. 🏆

I can scrape it back and still look reasonably professional on the days when it isn’t behaving itself

I find statements like this sad. Hair is hair. How it grows naturally is not a conscious choice. Curly or frizzy hair is not unprofessional. We're heading into the racist views on Black people's natural hair, which led an older generation of women to spend hours of their lives and a small fortune on getting their hair straightened.

I think a pixie cut only looks great on some.....its not true that we need to have a short cut abd perm when we get old.

@Notdoingthis

I wondered this. Between leaving school in 1999 and started to teach in 2006. As a teacher I noticed all the girls had boring long hair. All the boys had creative styles. Still the same now. I think there is more gender stereotyping from a young age. All the pink and blue.

So every single girl had the exact same long hair? No difference in style,texture,braids etc? Even if that is true, why is girls letting their hair do what ot normally does(which is grow) boring?

And every single boy had a different creative haircut? No really short hair because it's cheap and easy on several of them? No following the footballer trend with short sides and longer on top? They all had creative and individual cuts?

The irony of you talking about stereotyping.

all the girls had boring long hair

Why do people keep saying this? There's nothing exciting or better about short hair. I wish people would stop making negative comments about long hair - it's no better than saying "short hair is for boys"

It's hair and people choose how they wan to have it. There have always been homogeneous groups of people with the same style depending on which fashion they have decided to follow (or personal choice, obviously!)

All the boys had creative styles.

All the boys I've known throughout my DSs' years at school/Uni have been the same - variations of a short back and sides. Sometimes with a skin fade but nothing "creative" in the slightest.

I think a pixie cut only looks great on some.

Okay, I'll bite - I think long hair only looks great on some. Glossy, thick, shiny hair - gorgeous. Thin, straggly, out of condition hair which hasn't been trimmed regularly, split ends, overly straightened - not gorgeous.

Thin, straggly, out of condition hair which hasn't been trimmed regularly, split ends, overly straightened - not gorgeous.

That is true regardless of length.

I was having this discussion with my DM the other day, she would have been in her late teens in the early 80s and she and many of her peers still had to wash their hair in the bath with a jug because they didn't have a shower yet. Short hair in those circumstances would be much more practical.