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?

@starlight13

This really is a bizarre thread. Long hair is easier to manage and more often than not looks more stylish and less like a boy. That's it.

Bollocks. Short hair can look really sharp and stylish. Long hair can just look a bit meh if it’s thin or not in tip top condition.

So the one thing I have learned from this thread: some people find short hair easier to manage. Other people find long hair easier to manage.

You can't put an Elsa hairdo in a 1980s standard-issue fringed primary school bob.

Which, to be fair, is a plus point in favour of the 80's primary school Bob 😂

Coffeepot, I've also learned that some people think it's 'lol' that I know girls who don't mind being mistaken for boy

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

Yes, this. It's the same with clothes, toys etc.

Can we stop making out the 70s/80s to be some enlightened eras.

I was made to have short hair ( by my long haired mother). It was seen as being progressive and feminist and pretty much forced on a lot of us in the same way that most girls have long hair these days.

Mostly it was because it was easier for her to manage and could be cut ( badly) at home ( we had plenty of money for hairdressers).

Sorry I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make, this discussion seems to dredge up unpleasant memories from my childhood which wasn't a bad one on the whole.

[quote EnidFrighten]What bollocks about short hair looking bad on fat faces. It's just fashion. DD has short hair (but wants to grow it out)

Incidentally I watched this vid about Harris through the ages, it's great! www.google.com/url?q=m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DWao0_uB4Zw4&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjKmZus18v0AhXIilwKHZZqCmMQtwJ6BAgJEAE&usg=AOvVaw283glGmMi6FqiI5_MGtSs5[/quote]
Did she actually cut / shave her own hair?

It was the 1920s when women cut their hair into bobs as a sign of liberation. While long hair never went away, short styles for women were also in fashion for decades. Think Audrey Hepburn, Twiggy, Julie Andrews, Princess Diana, Annie Lennox. People might mistakenly think you were a boy at first glance, but no-one thought it meant you must actually be a boy in the wrong body.

I started primary early 80s. Very long hair was seen as old fashioned. Being ultra feminine was actually quite frowned upon at that point. Many of us boasted about being tomboys. In my 80s party photos there are some girls in frills with long hair but most don’t look like that. I had a pudding basin cut 😂

I will also had that I had no concept of my appearance whereas my 6 year old DD does and has for a while. She has long hair 🙄it gets tangled

Haven't read the whole thread, but short hair is high maintenance and hard to keep up with during a pandemic when hairdressers keep closing. I don't want a pixie cut or a short bob that needs regular trims or starts to look rubbish. Long, straight hair that I can just wash twice a week and throw up in a messy bun or ponytail is ideal. I've grown my fringe out too because it's much easier to just pull it back and not need to wash it every couple of days.

Also - in the 80s and 90s the fashionable female figure was slim, quite straight even skinny in the 90s and now it is hyper feminine tiny waist big hips and bum so there is something going on.

I too was forced to have short hair as a child. I hated it.

Hairdressers have massively gone up in price. To keep short hair looking neat and tidy requires regular hairdresser tips. With long hair you can just tie it back off your face.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s. Had my hair short until I was about 6. Can’t remember disliking it or being conscious about it. It was actually quite nice not having anything to get caught on zips or pulled by boys. Then mum let it grow and by the time I started secondary school in the early 70s it was mid back length. I always had incredibly thick hair and can remember my mum drying it with a fan heater as the hair dryer took hours. I had it cut to shoulder length around 14 and cut short at 16. Had it various lengths as an adult and grew it out to just shoulder length over lock down but now have it in a mid neck length bluntish bob.

I find it very funny on this thread that so many posters cannot accept that short hair has ever been fashionable and insisting that short hair in the past was for practical reasons. And insisting that short hair looks crap unless you are beautiful, makes you look like a boy etc. I was never mistaken for a boy when I had my hair short, because short hair on girls was just as normal as long.

@hangrylady

"It's depressing. 90% of girls at the local high school wear tiny skirts and have long, straightened hair. They seem to spend most of their time pulling at their skirts to stop their underwear showing - they look incredibly uncomfortable. So why the tiny skirts and the long, straight hair - conformity? So the boys will notice them? Dunno, but it definitely feels retrogressive"

Absolute bollocks. I remember in the 90s wearing a miniscule skirt for school and getting a spiral perm. What about in the 60s when miniskirts and beehives were in fashion? Everyone had the same uniform look then. If you actually look at young women on a night out now, most of them are wearing trainers/flats, unlike the high heels we used to totter about in back in the day, so if anything girls are now putting comfort first.

Beehives and mini skirts didn't go together. Beehives were late fifties early 60s worn with tight pencil skirts and stilettos. Mini skirts were a reaction against this look. A-line mid-thigh skirts, cuban heeled or flat Mary-Janes or boots, topped by a Vidal Sassoon geometric or long hair á la Marianne Faithful. Or sometimes a head of curls like Julie Driscoll.

In the sixties we used to iron long hair - it amounted to pretty much the same thing as GHDs.

No minis at school although we did the waistband rolling thing. Our minis were short but they covered our crotches and were also worn with tights- another barrier against knicker flash. Usually white or pale beige Mary Quant tights.

Omg I thought the exact same thing. I was in comp in the 80s and everyone had short hair. I went to a girls school. If you watch old Totp most of the girls in the audience had short hair!

www.heart.co.uk/lifestyle/beauty/hairstyles-through-the-ages-1920s-2015/jean-harlow-1930s-blonde-waves/

It stops short at 2015, but then we had the very long/extensions look.In 2020 mullets,undercuts, layers etc made a comeback.

It really,really comes and goes . I personally prefer any style that isn't fussy and the least work as possible. Short,long, middle whatever.

it all part of ‘lets all look the same’ look. has anyone else noticed how girls all create the same look. hard to tell one from another with all the pouty lips, heavy make up and fake tan

@wowzer1

it all part of ‘lets all look the same’ look. has anyone else noticed how girls all create the same look. hard to tell one from another with all the pouty lips, heavy make up and fake tan

When I was a teenager in the 90s the grown ups would say all teens looked the same too. Everyone had really thin eyebrows, really dark foundation and lip liner.

@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.

Well it is, you have just described the hassle.

I have waist length hair. I have the ends trimmed at home by a family member free of charge about 3 or 4 times a year. I wash it twice a week, and run a brush through it daily. I don't use any styling products or tools. I wear it loose or tied back however it takes my fancy but it rarely takes more than a minute or two. And I don't care about getting wet because it doesn't affect my hairstyle.

I know plenty of people who have short hair and unless it is crew cut short they need to blow dry and use product. They often need to wash it daily too.

People with long fine lank hair often need to wash it every day and people with short thick hair can often get away with washing it once a week. I don’t think the length of hair is always an indicator of how hard it is to manage.

It makes me laugh that someone who has to go to the hairdresser every 8 weeks for an expensive cut and needs to wash it, dry it and use product daily thinks their hair isn't high maintenance.

I wash my hair twice a week. Shampoo, condition, comb, towel dry, leave an hour while I get on with other things and then roughly blow dry for 2 minutes. That's it. Twice a week. No expensive cut, no product, no daily styling. I get it cut maybe every six months at a cheap hairdresser, but I can go much longer between cuts if I need to because it doesn't look crap or messy if it gets a bit long. That's low maintenance.

I think the question should be turned around... why did so few girls have long hair in the past? Seventies child, eighties teen and long hair was frowned on fir being a sign of vanity or looseness I think 🤔
Also washing hair was a nuisance - no one had showers, the hairdryers were crap. What sane prentice would let their daughter have long hair?

The women in my family thought long hair looked old fashioned. It was that simple.
See the history of hair bobbing.

Iwas just looking at an old school photo c1969. Roughly half the girls had short hair and half long.