Posted by Bill (other posts) on February 06, 2014 at 13:21:10 Previous Next
In Reply to: Hair History questions. posted by Kenneth on February 06, 2014 at 11:09:15:
: Why did short hair becomes so puritanical from the turn of the 19th century to the 1950s. I know the wars had something to do with it but that doesn't explain why most the civilian males went along with it too.
: Perhaps hollywood had an influence?
: As you know the 19th century was pretty liberal as far as personal style went.
The story goes back way beyond those years, and it ain't pretty:
The short version is that in primitive times, when a village was overrun, the women were raped and the men were shorn. A man's missing hair was taken as a sign that he did not own himself, but rather that he was owned by another. Cutting off hair was "marking territory". Dogs piss on fire hydrants for the same reason. This "rape or cut hair" urge appears to be embedded in the human psyche.
The long version is here:
Dogs and wolves (and many other species) have a procedure where one member of the community establishes himself as the "alpha male". Those subjected to him lose their drive to fight him for dominance. This avoids constant fights and assures the survival of the social group. Constant fights would lead to an increase in injury and death rates among the group, so natural selection engrained this procedure. It is thus likely that shorn men are psychologically changed to not challenge authority, and this comes down as an inherited trait. The fear that men who see themselves as "authority figures" feel toward longhairs is thus based on facts that are sensed as very real in the subconscious mind.
Women and old men are not challenged so often about long hair, because they are not seen as a physical threat.
As human societies in recent centuries became more complex, the application of these feelings about long hair has often been scrambled to some degree. One way this has happened is that men who see themselves as "authority figures" cut their own hair in deference to each other or to "the system".
It was common for hippies in the 1960s and 1970s to say that a man who had cut his hair had "sold out to the system". He was submitting to authority. He no longer owned himself.
It is said that the crime of rape is more often about power than about sex. Similarly, forcing hair cutting on men is more often about power than about fashion. This makes sense, because to the primitive human brain, which lives in us all, the two are the same act, except that one is perpetrated against women and the other against men.
Yes, to the subconscious human mind, forced hair cutting is male rape. And as I said above, the story ain't pretty.
Bill