To wonder why all girls have long hair?

[Mightymoog]

Just driving past the secondary school at home time and every single girl had long hair. Different colours, some wavy, some straight, but every last one of them had long hair.
Where are all the short cuts or even mid length.
when I was at school (admittedly many moons ago )there was a huge range from short and spiky to mid length bobs to long.
just a little something I've been musing on for a while and prepared for people to tell me the local school is an aberration of long hair lovers

. I'm not criticising it. Just wondering why there appears to be so much more homogeneity compared to previously

I think you are just noticing it. It's always been the case that if you see a group of young people (men or women) they ALL look the same. A group of goths in dark black clothes. Group of mean girl types with long straight blonde hair, same style jeans same style cropped tops. The jocks in their letterman jackets. Same in any era

Look at the group picture here (fifth image on the page if you scroll down) huge group and they all look identical.

https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/1920s-women-flappers-bright-young-things-roaring-twenties/

It's a combination of fashion and the sub-set of fashion in the group that the individual is in.

Social media also has a big influence and long hair probably looks more flattering in small close up selfie images - you can hide all sorts of things and flick it about, more styling flexibility and different looks.

I may well have accidentally destroyed all the photographic evidence of mine...
Honestly, I looked like Terry from Brookside, without the mooose-tache of course.

DTs spend forever straightening their hair!

It's just fashion.

But why is long hair considered intrinsically more attractive than something like this (Eve Gilles, Miss France 2024), sorry for the Daily Mail link but it seems we are no longer allowed to post images - is this now a premium feature?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12876333/eve-gilles-miss-france-winner-woke-row.html

Most schools have uniform and rules on dying hair, jewellery, shoes so probably quite difficult to look much like a goth, townie etc. Or at least the schools in our area do. They all just look school kids.

In my teens, there were many different styles, from Punk to new romantic and everything in between. So many different styles, these days they are carbon copies of each other, so scared to step out of line and that is really sad for them.

My grammar school in the 80's had very strict rules but even with no dyeing, jewellry, make up there was a much bigger range of styles of hair

That's the irony though! I think girls are being pushed into retrogressive stereotypes by SM; to this male idea of what a female should look like. Most celebrity women look very traditional in this sense. There isn't really the equivalent for men because of this. Because men aren't objectified.

It depends, mine definitely would. DD hasn’t cut her hair in over a year and doesn’t need to blow dry it either. It’s sleek, smooth and shiny - I am bloody envious!

haha.
Maybe I'm due a haircut 😁

I have very short hair and get 'mistaken' for a man on a regular basis when at work, despite a curvy figure and a female name badge. I'd guess that cries of 'you're a boy, you want to be a boy, ha ha you're having a sex change!' is pretty rife among the teenage fraternity when they want to bully. Anything that marks you out as different is absolute meat and drink to the bullies, so conforming totally is the best way to avoid it.

Ohh dear I remember those hairstyles and I had some right horrors during secondary school the really short spiky at the back and just above the chin at the front 🙈 even have photograph evidence of that awful hairstyle 😂😂.

I have also done the wild colours the one that took everyone by craze was the blonde on top and dark underneath, burgundy plum colours, Bluey black so when my roots started to show it looked like I had grey hair growing the black out and bob haircuts 😂.

I think I would advise my DD to leave her hair alone and as natural for as long as she can before melding with it.

Haha I just read that the Human League are playing in my city this summer. I found a picture of Phil Oakey and showed my teen dc and their faces were a picture. I just googled and he has no hair at all now!

I actually think young people are missing out on experimenting with hair and fashion compared to when I was young. The girls in my area absolutely look the same with long straight hair. Not so much my dc as they go to school elsewhere so maybe it does vary from place to place.

Stricter gender stereotypes than there used to be.

I remember perms and varying degrees of frizz! I was desperate for a perm like Kylie’s

I'm mid 30s and I don't remember anyone of my age group having short hair. Some started chopping it off as we hit our 30s but still nothing above shoulder length. Even when Frankie Bridge and Rihanna had short haircuts noone i knew in real life actually copied them.

To be honest I do see shorter hair as something older women have, people seem to want to cut it when they have kids or less time to wash/style.

Also I and many others would look bloody awful with shorter hair.

I think you are overthinking this. I have 3 girls and its just much easier and nicer to have long hair. No need for hair dressers or styling. Of course they can choose a different style when older.

But I went to a pretty strict girls school with ties and blazers and the lot and it was still noticeable...

I think it's more than that because you'll find long hair on young, unmarried women going back centuries and then in some cultures the hair is put up or cut when the woman marries. It's because they have healthy hair that looks good long and is a way to display their beauty I suppose.

There was a fashion for short in the 80s-90s, but what is the norm historically?

Didn't they have strong long hair in the 70s? There was more short hair around in the 80s, but still not every girl.

You're also never going to have 'nicer' better condition hair than when you're young.

Long hair requires a lot of maintenance to keep it looking in tiptop condition though.
Long hair doesn't have to mean glossy shiny curls or stick straight, it can just be a practical brush and ponytail. Both DS and DD have long more as cba to think about style and have it cut than any desire to look glamorous.

I had a perm. let me just say you dodged a bullet!
but it was exciting to experiment with hair styles. I had all sorts and try not to regret them!

Mine has short hair - she is a teen.