To think there's a lot of hypocrisy on here about feminism and long hair?

[AlpineAnja]

Noticed tons of threads over past few years, and i mean tons, where poster asks if long hair is ok after 40, etc.
All answers naturally say of course it is! And i agree!

But i also notice this weird thing where people go on to insult women over 40 who prefer short cuts. They claim that growing hair long as a mature woman is a feminist act, yet insult shorter haired women for choosing a 'dated' or 'ageing' style.

This is a massive contradiction, because if wearing hair long was a feminist act, so should wearing it short! All hair choices should be supported by feminism. If a woman grows her hair long and receives insults such as 'witchy' or 'mutton', then it is equally wrong to throw shade on short hair, too.

Surely I am not the only one who has noticed this. I am tempted to think this contemporary obsession with long hair as faminism belies a deep fear of ageing and a keeness to copy gen z.

So, all hair styles are acceptable, whether frizzy, short, 'karen' style, wavy, curly or straight. All lengths are acceptable, also. The endless threads about long hair and the users who pile on to tell everyone to grow it longer seems to me to be hiding a different issue than feminism.

Bash away!

You wouldn't BU if Mumsnetters were collectively characterising hairstyles as un/feminist at certain life stages. I've never seen this, however. I'm on here far too much and my favourite boards are FWR and S&B, so I'd be aware if there were more than a random sprinkling of comments to that effect.

It's an utterly batshit premise and, like everywhere else, there are some batshit people around.

Encouraging women to grow hair isn't quite the same as attributing a political value to the length of an older woman's hair, is it?

It's mostly - sure, grow your hair, you can always cut it if you don't like it after all; and - sure, cut your hair, you can grow it again if you change your mind. So far, so normal!

Last hair thread I was on was about graduated bobs. I'm old and have recently got this cut. Prior to that, I was old with long hair. Feminism unchanged.

I’ve never noticed that issue re hairstyles (especially not on the feminism board) but I do see quite a few generally bashing feminists and feminism. And also criticising ‘mumsnet’ in general because of the views expressed on various issues by small subsets of posters.🤷‍♀️

You get a few tone deaf posts on every thread, but I’ve never once seen anyone criticising a poster’s choice of haircut. The consensus is always ‘however you feel most comfortable’, regardless of age, weight or any other metric that women feel judged by.

You lost me anyway at ‘Karen hair’. How in the ever living fuck are you creating a post about feminism and not understanding the hypocrisy of including a misogynistic slur aimed specifically at silencing middle aged women?

I haven't seen any threads about this, op, but the explanation might be that MN has more than one user, I believe.

Nope. Never seen this type of comment.

What a misogynistic post. Stick with your scones, Anya. Leave the feminism to women who are interested in feminism.

Nor me.

It's just hair and the majority tend not to give a shit what others do with theirs.

Not seen this but I have seen plenty saying that long hair is aging.

I didn’t see much room for nuanced debate in your OP. I saw a bit of insulting women who dared to keep long hair as desperate to avoid ageing and ‘copying gen z’.

I actually think having short hair is more of an act of feminism while long hair is seen as ‘feminine’ (if either choice is; I mean it’s just hair and hair doesn’t close the gender pay gap or decide who’s taking the bins out).

You sound as though you don’t believe a feminist can have long hair (can she wear lipstick? Short skirts?) but I’m tired, I’m hot, and this is Mumsnet not the Oxford Union, so I may be missing your point nuance.

She’s only interested in intellectual debate, apparently, and we’re all falling woefully short …

But I asked for evidence to support her position - you know data … which sounds like a key part of any intellectual debate surely ?

Im 40 in december and my hair is down my back after i shaved it off 2 and half years ago.
My sister 42 has a shved head number 4 all over, shes had this style for years.

Neither of us care what others think and neither of us care what others have.

I thought everyone saw short hair as more radical and feminist for a woman! I've never seen it criticised tbh

My mum used to go on and on about how women over 40 shouldn't have long hair, it was unbecoming, slutty, mutton dressed as lamb etc.

She's 64 now with hair down to her shoulders, has never cut it. Totally denies she ever said it!

Now goes on about how short hair is aging!

Yanbu OP.

Nuanced debate died on here about 20 years ago 😁😁😁
(yes I’ve been in here on and off fir that long 😂😂)

You can’t go from single instances to whole generalisations though without an intermediate stage

Aye.
What's going on today? There's been a few of these utterly moronic posts in the last few hours. Has there been a clarion call somewhere?

is your mum on Mumsnet, and if so is she expressing these views on the feminism board?

I always find a huge amount of support on here when a woman asks if she should shave her head with posters queuing up to tell her to do it and that thwy jave done it too. Irl it's extremely rare a woman would do this.

God I hope not. But it wouldn't surprise me.

There are lots of people here with varied views. That is not hypocrisy

OP put the word “ Karen “ in inverted commas to indicate that this was a word she has see used ( and we obviously all understand ) rather than a term she is endorsing.

For the record I have short hair. I have not particularly seen much debate about hair lengths on here but I have seen a number of posts on SM by influencers advocating for women to keep their hair long. Obviously I have no issue with that message. What happens though is a good percentage of the comments will be from posters who will comment “ no way am I cutting my hair - short hair is so ugly / aging/ unflattering “ etc etc which will be liked by content creator. A fairly neutral post about choice becomes exploited. I obviously notice because it feels like an attack on my choice. I don’t feel the need to put down other women’s choices to justify my own decision.

Not everything a woman does is a feminist act.

Hair choices are not a feminist act, and what one chooses to do with ones hair is not inherently feminist.

I suppose some night make deliberate choices about their appearance that they might believe signals something about how feminist they are. But I don't think this has any real bearing on or gives any true indication of how feminist either their beliefs or their actions are.

I have never seen anything like that here.

Ever.

What's with the scones?