Short Hair is Braving

Short Hair is Braving

When I became a touch child, I used to recoil while humans instructed me they had been "proud" of me. It wasn't from a lack of confidence (I turned into lots pleased with myself at that age). Instead, it changed into definitely that, even at 6 or 7, I sensed a tiny whisper of condescension on this word. I got that it changed into supposed to be a compliment, however, while a person said they had been happy with me, it nearly felt like the character turned into implying that I'd amazed them by way of doing something properly—getting an awesome grade, performing nicely at a violin recital—or that my achievements have been "cute" but not awesome (which, on the time, was probably authentic).

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We all have phrases that rub us the wrong way for some reason, and to my youth ear, there was a hint of judgment lurking beneath the phrase "proud" that I just couldn't forget about.

Of course, humans let you know they may be pleased with you way more whilst you're a kid than they do when you're a grownup, so I have not heard that one in some time. (Maybe via adulthood people recognize how condescending it's miles?) But now that I'm in my mid-20s, I've commenced listening to a phrase that irks me even greater: The phrase "courageous." Not courageous in the context of going to war or fighting most cancers—I'm speaking about the bizarrely common phenomenon of using the phrase "courageous" to describe a haircut. As in, "Wow, you're so courageous for cutting your hair short!" Or, "I ought to never cut my hair like that—you're so brave!" As a person who's passed through a few hair variations in current years, I've been known as "brave" extra instances than I deserve.

Here's the thing, even though: Changing your coiffure isn't always brave, and pronouncing that it's far isn't always praise. In my opinion, all of us want to prevent telling human beings that making aware selections about their look is "brave." Let me give an explanation for…First, some backstory: About a month in the past, I reduce my hair the shortest it is been due to the fact that I turned into a little one. I bid adieu to about four inches, resulting in a blunt bob that ended right on the criminal of my smile. For me, this becomes no longer an emotional haircut, even though I've had those before. (At 23, I cut off eight inches of hair, a move that symbolized my letting pass of vintage insecurities). But this reduces become simply aesthetic. I idea a cropped bob could modernize my look, deliver me some area. I decided to do it on a whim, after which I texted my stylish pal Melissa Hoyle (the only man or woman I've permit reduce my hair in three years).

"I suppose I want a type of Tavy Vinson, Lea Sioux, cool-lady crop," I advised her.

The next day, I went into the salon (Spoke + Weal in Los Angeles), and that is simply what we did. I failed to cry when the inches got here off or experience like a "new character." Yet for a few motives, within the days after, approximately a dozen humans told me how "brave" I changed into for making the chop. "Wow, it takes self-belief to reduce your hair that short—you are so bold, so brave!" buddies and co-employees instructed me.

Again, I figured they all intended this as praise, but due to the fact my haircut didn't experience courageous, it turned into hard to take. I needed to surprise: What was courageous about slicing my hair quick, exactly? That I didn't look like every different lady in Los Angeles? That I'd dare to want a haircut that took much less than hours to style? Is it actually "courageous" without a doubt to be a woman who doesn't look (or care to look) like a contestant on The Bachelor and now not sense ashamed?

It was tough for me to pinpoint exactly what was so bothersome approximately associating my haircut with the word "brave." Then, I remembered something the writer Megan Datum told me. I interviewed Datum a few years ago, and sooner or later, I advised that the subjects she wrote about took bravery, to which she answered, "I hate being called 'courageous.' … 'Brave' is doing something you're afraid to do. 'Brave' … entails relinquishing manipulate."

Datum defined that it might be terrifying to blindly dump the unfiltered contents of her mind onto a web page and hit publish, but that could never occur. Her words, like my haircut, had been an aware choice, completely inside her manage. To call them brave become to miss how carefully they had been taken into consideration. Similarly, to name my haircut courageous turned into to suggest that I had no say in it, that I had performed it through accident, or for any motive other than I thought it become cool. Which, in a way, implied that it wasn’t?

Lena Dunham has expressed similar contempt when fanatics and critics have referred to as her "courageous" for exposing her bare frame on Girls. Here, the word "courageous" felt like a dig, a passive-competitive insinuation that her nude body turned into, in Dunham's phrases, "fucking funny searching." In an Integra post earlier this yr., Dunham allows us to know her genuine thoughts on the matter: "Let's get something instantly: I did not hate what I seemed like—I hated the lifestyle that turned into telling me to hate it. When my profession started, some human beings celebrated my look but constantly via the lens of, 'Isn't she brave?

Isn't it one of these ambitious moves to reveal THAT frame on TV?'"

Calling my brief hair courageous felt similarly backhanded. To me, the subtext examines, "Your hair isn't as pretty as other women. How audacious of you to appearance this manner."

Of course, all of this goes without announcing that my haircut wasn't even that extreme: It became a bob, for goodness' sake. It's now not as though I buzzed my head and dyed my eyebrows blue. (Although labeling that choice "courageous" would likely be just as intricate for all of the equal reasons I've mentioned right here.) Not to say that calling a haircut courageous absolutely minimizes actual bravery—, that thing that people showcase while confronting legitimately dangerous situations, like combat or lifestyles-threatening surgical operation.

Not only did I actively need to reduce my hair, but there have been additionally 0 risks worried. May I repeat: My bob haircut does not make me brave?

Of course, every now and then a haircut does constitute something deeper. The first time I reduce my hair quick felt like liberation—a loss of teenage self-hatred and desperation. "In my experience, girls chop their hair to get rid of what isn't serving them anymore," my stylist Melissa Hoyle explains. "Emotions are tied to everything. In most instances, slicing off the useless inches approach you are geared up for a fresh begin."

In other words, for lots of women, a quick haircut would possibly represent newfound independence, confidence, or self-recognition. But is it honestly that radical, that "courageous," for a female no longer to need long hair to accept her? If so, I desire all the rad short-haired women inside the world are inspiring that to exchange. And within the intervening time, I'm going to preserve my chin-duration crop, no longer for the political assertion, no longer for the compliments, but because I think it is cool. And because I like to feel the breeze on my neck within the summer time.
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