5 years old: never seen a girl with short hair

[RicketyClickety]

I found out yesterday that my daughter has never (knowingly) seen a girl with "boyish" hair, in real life or fiction. We were reading a poem about a tomboy with an accompanying illustration of a short-haired girl playing football, and my daughter asked me a few times if it was a boy, and then was asking me to explain how the character could have boy's hair if she was a girl, and why the character had hair like that. She was confused but happily fascinated.

She knows all about girl vs boy bodies. But in day-to-day life she also tells girls of her age apart from boys almost exclusively by their hair styles.

It made me realise that none of the girls at her nursery, clubs or school have boyish hair. None of her books have girls that look like that. Or any of the television she watches. Or Disney films. Or music videos.

She doesn't get much screentime though so there might be some very mainstream young kids TV that has tomboys on. Maybe I'm missing the obvious illustrated books. Or has UK media really become so homogenous in how girls are presented that most kids are reaching five without ever seeing girls of their own age with short hair?

Oh ffs

in the 60's we all had long hair … & wore cheesecloth with beads -

I remember being convinced that boys hair simply wouldn't grow long like girls' did and arguing with my mum who was explaining that it could grow just as long if they didn't cut it short.

I thought something similar, I was convinced that old ladies could not grow long hair, and that it turned curly. I thought it was the female version of male pattern baldness.

I think it's instructive though, we often think kids get things when in fact their understanding is both very concrete and very superficial.

If a 5 year old told me she'd never seen a girl with short hair I'd be inclined to think that she probably had, but assumed the person was a boy.

Around here girls short hair is more unusual than when I was young, but on the other hand there are more boys with long or even quite long hair. I've wondered if the cost/time associated with the hairdresser might be one reason, I notice I don't hear about girls going very often compared to when I was a girl. It's one thing to do a short bob at home or a buzz cut, but a pixie type cut is a lot more intimidating.

My eldest daughter has short hair middle son has long hair youngest has sort of inbetween hair my youngest son still gets confused over boys and girls

Straight long hair with a middle parting is pretty much the default for female hair at the moment. I barely see anyone with a side parting or a fringe let alone short hair.

I used to have short hair. Never had it longer than my shoulders until mid 20s but even I fall into the above category at the moment. Can definitely believe she's never seen a female of any age with short hair never mind girls her age.

I cut my long hair very short last year. partly because I wanted to, and partly to show my daughters that women and girls can dress and have whatever hair they want. Dd1 went from drawing pictures of girls with only long hair to all sorts of hairstyles so I think it worked.

There is only one girl in DS' class with short hair, it's a chin length bob.

DS has very long hair, just past his shoulders and frequently gets mistaken for a girl, despite wearing boyish looking clothes and is often dressed similarly/the same as his short haired brother.

Cressida Cowell's Emily Brown books feature a very sensible little girl with fairly short hair, if you wanted a nice story example, OP. I loved them.

Rickety Find some old black and white photos of girls from the 40s/50s etc. to show her. The majority will have had short hair.

Why do most girls and young women have long hair now? It seems to me it changed in the late 90s. When my daughter was little in the early 90s it wasn't common for girls to have short hair but it wasn't unknown. My impression is it changed round about 2000 - advent of straighteners, heavy marketing?

I don't think my mum, born in the early 30s, ever had long hair. Short straight hair as a little girl, permed hair from her teens onwards.

I was born in the very early 60s. As far as I can recall, all through the 60s, 70s and 80s girls could have hair of any length and nobody batted an eyelid. Lots of parents couldn't be bothered with the hassle of little girls needing lots of help with long hair - combing, brushing, tying back, shampooing, drying. I remember my mum took a lot of convincing when I said I'd like to grow my hair a bit once I was 7 or 8. I had it longer till I was 12 and then I had it cut short again and it's always been fairly short since then. So much easier to manage.

My dd had short hair until school.

It was a constant battle of people asking her if she was a boy or a girl. She had short hair but would frequently choose dresses or carey a doll. I’d get old ladies taking the piss because i’d let her go out in her sisters clothes, and children in swimming pools challenging her because she was wearing a girls costume.

Suprisingly, the short hair seems to override all other “girl” cues and she was always assumed to be a boy and asked why she was wearing/doing girl things and not boy stuff.

People really struggle to comprehend a toddler in a dress with short hair. Confuses the fuck out of them.

When she got to school there was one particular child who refused to believe she was a girl and was relentless in telling dd she must be a boy. So dd chose to grow her hair.

She’s a teen now and got it cut very short again about year 5 when she was able to filter out the idiots more easily. Although now she’s at secondary she gets asked if she’s trans as she also wears trousers- out of 150 girls in her year only about 3 wear trousers, and the others are muslim.

Stereotyping has gone to another level over the last few years. There’s no shades of grey. If you don’t fit the stereotype people don’t know what to do.

I've no idea when short hair became so unusual for girls, perhaps was popular in the 80s when Princess Diana came along? I only grew mine longer with the advent of GHDs...
My DD has short hair and my teen DS has (very) long hair; we do get some odd looks when out as a family

The shocking moment I had was when dd taught me to tell male and female animals apart by their eyelashes. She wouldn’t believe me that wasn’t a major differentiation. It was in all the cartoons and picture books that surrounded her.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I saw a great article by India Knight a few years ago linking it to the proliferation of porn. We are now all - even is oldies - living according to the standard of woman as presented in porn. Thus the ever long hair - no one ever has short hair, even in middle age, even when they have awful hair, the mantra seems to be, it must stay long. I cut my hair short two years ago in the heatwave and vowed to keep it short. When I was a child I had every length from short to long but now in my children’s schools, all the girls of all ages have long hair. Again, this could be influencing all the girls who suddenly identify as male in their teens.

I agree with the OP.
I think that people of my generation don’t quite realise how unusual it is for a girl to have short hair BECAUSE we have grown up seeing girls with short hair.

I have had the same realisation than the OP. Girls and teenagers where I live just do NOT have short hair ever. It’s not the case in books, cartoons etc either. Or adverts.

(Same is true about boys btw....)

My dd in y9 and her friends all have long hair, into make up etc but ds’s Y10 Female friends all have quite short hair pixie cut to bob but they are not the type of girls to bother with trends. His male friend has longer (pink) hair than all the girls. It’s definitely something I’ve noticed though in general that teen girls nearly all have long hair.

Yep here almost all the girls have long hair up to year 6. At DD's single sex school a lot have short hair.

DD had no hair until age 2, so by preschool had only very short hair. Utterly gorgeous pixie cut. The other girls were convinced she was a boy. When asked why, one replied "because she is a boy! Look at her!"

Over 500 girls at my daughter's school. The vast majority with long hair but never seen one with a fringe. 🤔

I had an identical conversation with DD at the same age. I seem to remember lots of girls with shorter hair when I was young, IRL and on telly.

I think we've gone backwards on the stereotypes kids get fed through the media over the last 30 years. No wonder so many girls feel they don't relate to the idea of being female.

DD has a pixie cut. She first got one in Yr 1 but alot of the children called her a boy so she grew it long again.

She started competitive swimming in year 4 and decided to get it all chopped off again as she doesn't like the showers at the pool and her hair was very knotty and full of chlorine the next morning but too long to wash and dry before school. She has a lot more confidence now and will stand up for herself if someone calls her a boy but supply teachers often get it wrong as do members of the public. If we see young children out they will often refer to her as a boy because of her hair even if she is wearing a dress which is interesting.

I think a lot of it comes from parents, particularly mums who want their daughters to have long hair despite the morning struggles they have. Several parents have told me they won't let their daughters have their hair cut.

Short hair on girls is becoming more common in the secondary school I teach in, although that's probably only 15/1000 students, if that, who have pixie cuts.

I barely see anyone with a side parting or a fringe let alone short hair.

I do, double crown and very fine hair that goes straggly as soon as it touches my shoulders means that short is better. I tend to keep it in a bob as I like low maintenance. (I am literally wash and go)

My youngest has similar hair, hers is around her shoulder blades but again it is very fine.

I was at senior school to university in the 90's, and I am pretty sure that many of the girls had long hair.

I used to blow out my birthday candles every year and wish I had long hair, so I am not sure short hair was really that common.

@Annasgirl, maybe it varies across the UK? I'm in London. Of the women I know, other than the ones of African heritage whose hair is very different, most have short hair. I'm thinking of women of various ages between early 30s and late 60s, various backgrounds.

I know hardly any women older than 70 with long hair (those are my mum and her friends in Scotland).

When dd2 cut her hair short at the end of y8 it was commented on non-stop, as if no girl in the history of the world had ever had short hair. She was 'brave' and 'individual' (and 'is she trans?').

I grew up in the 80s when long hair was only ever seen in the form of a shaggy perm and everyone else had short hair, or Princess Di style, so this is very weird to me. Is it a Disney thing? (I'm not joking - dd2 had her hair cut to shoulder length at 5. 'Tangled' came out a week later and she was desperate to grow it again.)

We live in the sticks, a long way from London or any city - not sure if this might be something to do with it? But - plenty of boys with long or longish hair.

My Yr 7 dd (age 11) has recently cut her very long hair very short. She’s happy with it, but has got some comments from classmates asking her if she is transgender/gender fluid/ ‘really a girl’ 🤦‍♀️...there’s only one other girl in the whole school who has short hair too apparently, so I can imagine some kids have never come across it.

I think my dd has quite an Eighties look now, as I remember more girls had short hair with big earrings then!

I was born in 1959. I had long hair all through primary and secondary school until I cut it when I was 22. I re-grew it in my 30s.

I do think there is a huge over- egging of how difficult long hair is. Mine wasn't- certainly didn't require the regular trips to the hairdressers which anyone with short styled hair did. Until I got it cut all it needed was to trim the ends with sharp , kitchen shears.

Why don't you (general you) just admit you really dislike long hair? Unless of course it's on a boy when it's so "gender non- conforming" and magically becomes laudable. (Thinking of all the posts I've seen on here about how beautiful some man's hair is)

And I suppose you (general you) need some girls to be dressed in "pink and frilly" so you can pat yourselves on the back about how your daughters aren't like them.