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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The struggles of getting a haircut as a non-binary person

234 replies

Awning10 · 18/02/2020 10:44

twitter.com/i/status/1224664146257620994

OP posts:
NeurotrashWarrior · 18/02/2020 15:05

My main query about this is that the poet's voice appears to be breaking compared to earlier films over the last year.

So how is presenting as male non binary?

Why is male the default?

FloralBunting · 18/02/2020 15:29

Well, male as default is probably best expressed in the trans movement by males keeping and simply renaming their genitals, and females who wish to transition, or simply be 'non binary' feeling it necessary to physically bind their breasts or have them surgically removed.

I don't there's a much starker illustration than that, tbh. Even this daft video realizes that women pay the price of gendered inequalities, but their answer, like so many before, is to set up a special exemption route for the few, rather than an actual feminist response which would be to fight against the structural inequalities for all women.

This is why this is all antithetical to feminism and is, in fact, self serving individualist capitalism.

I commend this video from Magdalen to you as another example of this kind of self serving anti-feminist thinking. Ash Hardell got very whiny at Magdalen in response to this.

Kuponut · 18/02/2020 15:31

I've got short, bleached hair (in a style similar to the video to be honest). I go get it cut and bleached... problem solved. It doesn't require an existential crisis or seeking to be offended - find somewhere that cuts it how you want it, go there, job done.

NeurotrashWarrior · 18/02/2020 15:35

"I booked my top surgery"

Trotted out like

"I booked my flight to Ibiza"

Or

"I booked a table at my fave restaurant."

(In the linked film.)

ffswhatnext · 18/02/2020 15:44

I'm loving some of the comments on twitter 🤣

This has finally woken up followers I have there and elsewhere. More people are starting to see what is happening, and asking questions.

Who knew something as simple as getting a fucking hair cut would get so many to wonder wtaf is going on. Sports, protected spaces etc, nothing. I can understand why. Everyone has a hair story 🤣 It's something lots of people can relate to.

worstofbothworlds · 18/02/2020 15:49

My hairdressers does both men’s and women’s hair. Mind blowing.

I work at a university and there is a hairdresser passed by thousands of students a day that does men's and women's hair.
But I bet they would look at this poor girl and say "nah, sorry, you aren't either, go away".
Oh wait...

feelingverylazytoday · 18/02/2020 16:04

Some of these tweets are very funny. I did actually LOL at some of them.

Redshoeblueshoe · 18/02/2020 16:10

I liked the tweet It doesn't even rhyme, bring back Pam Ayres Grin

FlamingoAndJohn · 18/02/2020 16:12

I saw this on twitter this morning.
I then walked to my local supermarket in my unremarkable, not very woke, provincial town.
On the way I past one unisex hairdressers and one barbers. The barbers had a sign in the window saying ‘women’s short back and sides £8’.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 18/02/2020 16:20

I couldn't stand more than twenty seconds of that silly little person. So I may have missed something of some actual importance, though my bet is not.

There are three women who cut hair at the barbers I go to, and no men who cut hair. One of these women won't cut my hair because she has only been trained to cut men's hair -- no matter that I simply want a cut just like one she would give a man. So I don't go in on Wednesdays when she is there on her own.

I asked one of the others, quietly, what that was all about, and apparently it is an actual thing: some places that train hairdressers do reckon there is a difference between men's and women's hair. She said that quite a few barbers won't cut hair for women because of this, though they don't seem able to explain what the difference actually is.

From my point of view, the real difference is that getting my hair cut the way I want it in a woman's hair salon costs thirty-odd quid minimum round here (and up beyond a ton if I go to one of the stupid places), and in the barber's costs me nine quid.

I have clearly been non-binary all my life, only I preferred to call it "maverick". It all started when I was about thirteen and liked my parents while everyone else else at my school was hating theirs, and it's only got worse since then.

Thinkingabout1t · 18/02/2020 16:34

Because I'm so special, I've had this amazing idea that no one has ever had before. I don't want to look like a stereotypical woman, you know, like a drag queen. This is so amazing that I must be some very special extra sex. Because every woman wants to look like a drag queen and every man wants to look like a superhero. Except me. Because I'm so special.

FrogsFrogs · 18/02/2020 16:44

'JFC I feel sorry for these people. What a crap youth movement they're having.'

Trufact Grin

agentnully · 18/02/2020 16:59

I watched 20 seconds and my niece's Drama Llama pencil case jumped into my mind.

I also had a flashback to the early 70's in my backwards home town where a unisex hairdresser popped up. The blue rinse brigade was horrified (for a fortnight until the special offers arrived). The men refused to set foot inside until the only barber in town (at the time, now they're overrun) broke his arm and went off sick for a month.

Me? I have short hair courtesy of my local mobile hairdresser.

With the power of the internet, you'd think searching for and finding a hairdresser that will happily cut anyone's hair would be pretty simple but there you go. Drama Llama.

FloralBunting · 18/02/2020 17:13

Of course, you realize that the almost universal mockery of the utter non issue presented in this video is simply going to add to the poor wee mite's supreme persecution complex.

We'll probably get a petulant article about the terribly transphobic reaction of the internet to this plaintive plea for social justice, and it will become just another part of the rich, indefinable tapestry of oppression to prove that a law change is desperately needed to protect them.

Haworthia · 18/02/2020 17:23

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Dreamprincess · 18/02/2020 18:36

My ex MIL, who would be about 120 if still alive, always had her hair cut within a inch of its life and then permed every month or so. No gender statement for her - she just wanted her hair to be 'neat'. I suppose now she could have claimed to be somewhere on the Mermaid's scale.

However, in those days, she did what she wanted with probably one of the only parts of her life over which she had full control. (Husband would not let her go to church as he did not believe in such rubbish.)

JuanSheetIsPlenty · 18/02/2020 18:46

On the way I past one unisex hairdressers and one barbers. The barbers had a sign in the window saying ‘women’s short back and sides £8’.

Everyone should send photos of their local unisex salons and the like to this person’s twitter. Grin

Ihatesundays · 18/02/2020 18:55

I’ve had a friend who has used barbers for 30 years. She’s not in the least feminine, but she is 100% a woman. A woman who doesn’t like over paying for a service.

The sad thing is I know someone who shared this on FB. They said it wasn’t really about hairdressers that was the thin end of the wedge. The problem is, it’s a total and utter non fucking issue.

I would say someone needs to open a gender fluid hair emporium or something. Except it would go bankrupt as no one would use it as NO ONE WOULD SEE HOW SPECIAL THEY WERE.

Sexnotgender · 18/02/2020 18:55

Everyone should send photos of their local unisex salons and the like to this person’s twitter.

I’m not sure unisex is speshul enough for they/them.

JuanSheetIsPlenty · 18/02/2020 18:59

True.

What would persuade them? Changing the name to “multigender salon- if you can spell it- we can cut it”?

Eckhart · 18/02/2020 19:10

Lots of people commenting here about how the person should just get on with it without comment.

catwithnohat · 18/02/2020 19:15

My lovely, wonderful hairdresser spends twice as much on my hair as he does SOME of the guys. I have a relatively short haircut but having a weird shaped bonce it takes a fair bit of skill to get a decent result. I've also seen him spend a lot of time and effort on a man's hair on a style that's maybe different but suits them.

That said, it's a "young" salon and they have a real cross-section of clients. Maybe the OP needs to shop around to find the environment that's most accepting (and good at what they do).

UpfieldHatesWomen · 18/02/2020 19:15

I don't believe for a second this person has been asked whether they're a girl or a boy by a hairdresser. That would be incredibly bad customer service. At most I'd imagine they'd ask whether they wanted a more masculine or feminine style, but would probably even skirt around that and just ask lots of questions about the style they want to make sure they've got it right - cos that's their job!

Natsku · 18/02/2020 19:16

Utterly ridiculous, I'm sure she can get her haircut in plenty of places.

I go to the barber to get my haircut (well, if I don't go to the hair dressing school where it's even cheaper but slightly riskier in terms of outcome), they don't advertise as unisex but I asked if they could cut my (medium length, not a masculine style) hair and they did. Cheaper than the local hairdressers and don't have to book an appointment. But I just checked local hairdressers and they don't actually charge differently by sex but by whether it's a clipper cut or a scissor cut, which I suppose makes sense as scissors are more work than just buzzing the clippers over but when it's three times more expensive it's really taking the piss.

Eckhart · 18/02/2020 19:25

I heard a woman told in a barbers that they weren't allowed to cut women's hair for insurance reasons. Can anybody make any sense of that?

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