how to explain... Long hair is for 'girls'

[ValerieTheHorse]

Ds is 2 and has long hair (past shoulder length, with a fringe).

I love it but will probably cut it when it starts to be too long to be practical, or in the summer if he's getting very warm, or whatever.

He gets called a girl by strangers sometimes, which doesn't bother me. Sometimes I correct them, sometimes I don't bother.

But how do I respond to the following.. With a male friend.

Friend: his hairs getting really long
Me: lush, isn't it?
Friend:(pulls face) probably too long
Me: why? It doesn't tangle or get in his eyes
Friend:...
Me: you think he looks like a girl, don't you?
Friend:... Yes
Me:what's wrong with that? What's wrong with girls?
Friend:nothing's wrong with girls, it's just that... He's a boy
Me: so? Yes he's a boy, but plenty of boys have long hair and girls have short hair
Friend: yes, you have short hair
Me: yes, so what's wrong with a boy having long hair?
Friend: (pulls face again) he looks like a girl
Me: and that's a bad thing...?
Friend: it is a bad thing if he's a boy.


Am I right to think "because he looks like a girl" isn't really a good enough reason to cut it when you think about what it means, like appearing to be female is a bad thing or something? What was my friend trying to say and how can I better explain my feelings?

It's not just one friend, this has happened fairly regularly with different people and I'd like to be able to put my point across eloquently so they think about what they're implying a bit more.

Fwiw ds is about as stereotypically 'boyish' as you can get aged 2 and wears gender neutral or boyish clothes. I don't think he looks like a girl, but I can't see why it even matters at this age?

[PerspicaciaTick]

Poor OPs friend, going throughout life being unable to tell males or females apart because they've got the wrong hair.

[TeiTetua]

Oh dear, so many things a woman "must" do...

[PinkIndustry]

The other thing that's going on here is that your friend has put you in a position of defending or justifying it. Presumably, you think your 2 year old's hair looks nice long or you would cut it but, interestingly, that is not a good enough reason. You must make the case either that, as you say, it is sexist for him to be considered 'lesser' if he looks like a girl, or that there is a precedent for boys with long hair.

You, as a woman, are being subtly criticised for not conforming to gender norms with your son and, as a woman, the 'I like it' i.e. 'I will do as I please' statement is not acceptable.

I wonder if he would challenge your child's father in the same way. And, even more interestingly, whether your child's father would be allowed to simply say, 'I like it' or whether he, too, would have to justify his reasons for either not conforming to gender norms or for 'allowing' his child's mother not to conform to gender norms.

[greypubes]

I am more worried about the pink dungarees on a two year old boy to be perfectly honest with you. Poor kid, hope he turns out OK.

[VestalVirgin]

It simply doesn't matter if the occasional stranger mistakes your boy for a girl, but some people seem to think it's terribly offensive.

Well, you know, if those strangers mistake him for a girl and treat him like a subhuman future sex object instead of like a person ... that's sooo awkward when they find out that he's actually entitled to being treated like a human!

Only explanation I can think of.

he's 8 and the other kids seem to take it in their stride despite being at the height of "girls/boys have cooties" - which amusingly means all the boys want to marry each other seeing as they've learnt they can!

I always laughed at conservatives who said heterosexual marriage would be doomed if gays were allowed to marry, but now I understand ... those conservative men hate women, and they only married one because they had to. I simply neglected to account for misogyny in my predictions that the number of gay men would remain stable. It all makes sense now!

[caraway33]

I'm a female with a buzz cut hair.
Once was visiting a family with two girls, 5 and 8 year old. The older one after some time suddenly said to me "you look like a boy", as one of other guests was a male with hair bellow the shoulders, I replied "do you think he looks like a girl?".
Clearly it got her thinking as she just started looking at me and him
From time to time I overhear kids asking parents if I'm a girl or a boy...actually I get stares from children a lot. I'm surprised that from such a young age there are expectations based on hair and clothes.
Oh I've been asked also if i'm a lesbian (yes just like that! I'm not btw)

[Londonmamabychance]

I Think it's right what another poster said, that people just don't like ambiguity. My DD is 18 months and her hair has hardly
Grown, it's very short, and on top of that I tend to dress her in boyish clothes, ie trousers and practical shoes, often in blue and red, although i have nothing against pink and use that too, most of her clothes is hand me downs and my main concern is her comfort. Dresses just aren't practical, especially not in winter. Most people assume she's a boy, and always call her 'he', probably even more so because she's very brave for her age and extremely physically active, again, why should this be a male trait? when I then tell them she's a girl, they often seem embarrassed and some times confused, I just think people don't like feeling uncertain, they prefer seeing a girl all in pink with long hair so that can say to the mum 'what a pretty little girl' and a boy with short hair in blue clothing, so they know what to say. Their stuff, not yours, carry on letting your son be himself and be proud that you're teaching him not to give into society's pressure to be a stereotype.

[AgonyBeetle]

Someone up above said her daughter has short hair but you can tell she's a girl by her "pink t-shirt and flowery shorts". So those are not in fact available to all children?

That was me, and no I wasn't stereotyping clothing, the point I was making is that short hair seems to over-ride stereotypically 'girly' clothing as a gender signifier in little girls. Which I find odd, tbh.

My short-haired dd was also on more than one occasion asked by other children, 'why are you wearing a dress?', and when she deadpanned with , 'because I'm a girl', refused to believe that she was a girl, even when I confirmed it for them.

Hair is very loaded as a gender signifier, IME, certainly in primary school. By secondary school there seems to be a wider range of hairstyles.

[TheRadiantAerynSun]

DS has always had short hair, but quite a few times when he was younger was assumed to be a girl becauseand I quote'he's too pretty to be a boy' I put it down to him being very blonde and usually dressed brightly.

I know boys ith long hair and some look great and some look like right scruffbags (but they're kids so who cares.) I cant remember the last time I saw a girl older than a toddler with short hair, which is a shame cos the pixie look is usually very, very cute.

It irritating that these things matter at all.

[ValerieTheHorse]

Thank you all, good to know I'm getting it sort of right questioning why shouldn't he have long hair?

It's not something I get overly frothy about, I was just wondering if there was a better way of putting it. In short my friend said he shouldn't have long hair because it's not a good thing to look like a girl when you're a boy. He said despite my cropped hair I look like a female (anatomically standard adult female here, so yes, I've got boobs. Though I have been asked if I'm a boy or a girl by a small child at a play group I was wearing a mans jumper and no make up, so a fair enough question! She also asked if my ds was a Boy or a girl, so I explained that I was a girl with short hair and he was a boy with long hair and she thought this was fine and pointed out she had long hair too, so I said it was very nice hair. All fine and dandy.)

Yes I think it's mostly because people want to judge male or female straight away by appearance with kids so they don't get it wrong, again fair enough though I try and look at hair and clothes for hints or just say child or little one if I'm not sure. People seem to fixate on the hair and not see past it sometimes.

But with my friend he wasn't saying that because he'd only just realised ds is a boy like a stranger might, he did specifically say it should be cut because he looks like a girl, and that's bad for a boy. Hence my

Tbh ds cried when I brushed it this morning because there were a couple of small tangles and I may trim it soon to prevent this happening, but it's not going to be super short unless he wants it that way in the future and I'm kinda dreading the "you finally cut it then! Now he looks like a proper boy!" Comments I'm inevitably going to get!

[Micah]

Dont bring up the "does he look like a girl". If they say it, point out he doesn't, he has long hair which they are saying should be for girls only, and ask them why.

I once posted on a forum about my dd having short hair and being challenged by total strangers, often insisting she was a boy and asking why she wore dresses.

I got a pretty unanimous response saying i should grow her hair, and saying i was cruel and setting her up for bullying. I shouldnt be making my point through my dd etc etc..

It is gobsmacking how intolerant people are if small children deviate even slightly from gender norms.

[cheminotte]

There is definitely a trend for long hair in little girls. I had short hair throughout primary and it was far more practical.

[TeiTetua]

Someone up above said her daughter has short hair but you can tell she's a girl by her "pink t-shirt and flowery shorts". So those are not in fact available to all children?

[pastmyduedate0208]

babyboyzH
I haven't come across that JPEG before but it does say something doesn't it. (I might save it😜)

Children should be children, present however they want. People should be masculine/feminine, whatever.

Boys should be able to wear pink and have long hair. Girls should be able to have short hair dressed in grey/blue if they want. (I need to add biology is respected, so it is a boy in a pink tutu, not a child transsexual)

It's sad that gendered expectations are so limiting for our children. Before the 20th century, all infants were dressed in white. Then by aged 5 (thereabouts) they became carbon copies of their sex-matching parent.

Times are changing in interesting ways.

Boys can have long hair and grow into a man who has long hair and wears pink. How is this such a hardcore issue!?

[NotCitrus]

I think with a lot of people they think it's very important to know if someone is male or female, but with no real idea why - my guess is they want to be 100% sure they would never chat up someone of the "wrong" sex, but you'd hope toddlers would be off limits. Possibly because people give you funny looks when speaking to your kids in the playground and say "mind that person over there" or "it's that child's turn now" and they snap "He's a boy actually!" I'm terrible at telling sexes apart without obvious visual clues (beards or enormous breasts) so have found using words child or person helps but some people clearly think it's important that you show you are aware of their child's sex!

Long hair on boys seems to be more common and shaved heads less common than say 10 years ago. One of ds's friends has luxurious long wavy hair down to his waist, in a plait or pony tail with lots of bands down it - he's 8 and the other kids seem to take it in their stride despite being at the height of "girls/boys have cooties" - which amusingly means all the boys want to marry each other seeing as they've learnt they can!

[BreakingDad77]

The Hanson boys rocked the long hair as does any heavy metaller worth their salt.

[AgonyBeetle]

A girl at DS's school has always had short hair and I've lost count of the number of times I've heard people saying "why do they cut her hair like that, she looks like a boy, poor thing". I know lots of people who think "little girls should have long hair"

One of my dd's went through a phase of wanting very short hair when she was about 5 or 6 (think Emma Watson crop), and I can confirm that you do get very strange and quite hostile reactions, with the strong implication that you're forcing your child to look like that for weird reasons of your own, rather than simply following the child's wishes. Dd got told off several times by random busybodies for using the women's loos when she was no older than 6 and wearing a pink t-shirt and flowery shorts. In gender-neutral clothes she definitely did look like a boy, and was regularly addressed as 'son' and 'laddy' by random strangers. She thought this was funny, luckily.

Obviously there is a wider issue about girls being seen as lesser than boys, but ime with even quite young children people are very odd about anything that doesn't conform to quite a narrow set of gender expectations.

[MrNoseybonk]

"Or are you suggesting that boys/men aren't considered as 'better' by society?"

Not at all, of course they are.
I'm not quite convinced that when someone says "get his hair cut he looks like a girl" they're saying it because they think girls are inferior and boys shouldn't look like something inferior, but when they say "grow her hair she looks like a boy" it's because they think it's because boys are better so girls shouldn't try and look like them.

I think it's more a case of "does not compute, this confounds my narrow minded expectations therefore you should alter your child to fit what I think children should look like".

[scallopsrgreat]

That's a lovely picture .

[babyboyHarrison]

Lovely picture here showing angelina jolie's daughter and gwen stefani's son. Parenting done right.

[scallopsrgreat]

I know lots of people who think "little girls should have long hair". Yes it does seem to be a stereotype at the moment. When I look back at photos from when I was at school it was about half and half long:short hair. No way are the ratios the same now amongst school age girls.

"Why would looking like a boy be bad if society sees them as better?" Looking like a boy (or being like a boy - because it is all part of the same thing) isn't considered bad. Otherwise it wouldn't be acceptable for girls/women to dress in traditionally male clothing. It is more about keeping girls/women in their gender stereotypical boxes. Because if girls can pass as boys then where would that leave boys (and the gender hierarchy that society has constructed).

Or are you suggesting that boys/men aren't considered as 'better' by society? Because thread after thread on here would suggest otherwise. From when you hear people talking about "pink and glittery shit" to men's hobbies (being expensive, time-consuming, important) compared with traditional women's hobbies e.g. sewing.

[pastmyduedate0208]

3WiseWomen, I agree. Gendered expectations on children are so life-limiting too.

[pastmyduedate0208]

I felt as though I had to cut my lo's hair even though I didnt really want to. I was so proud that he was born with a full head of luscious locks, which were long btt he was 6 months old!

Talking to a best friend she actually said "Noo don't cut it he's so cute!"
But I did.

Social expectations isn't it.

I feel bad. He's such a well-haired angel.

[3WiseWomen]

In my experience, people tend be worse re clothes/colour/hair with children then they are with adults.

So short hair on a woman = Ok
But short hair on a girl = Not OK, will be told she is a boy, how can you differenciate them etc etc Most girls, incl teenagers, have long straight hair around here. becuase that's how you are suppose to have your hair done.

Same the other way around with boys and long hair.

[pastmyduedate0208]

What an inspiring little boy, mama!