Hair cares

The thing is I like shaving my legs—the act and its effect. It's a stretch to call it empowering, but it's definitely pleasant to lather the legs and pass a blade over them. And the resulting smoothness is terrific. I love to rub my own soft legs. I love for Aron to rub them. The good feelings that follow leg-shavings are as inevitable as the stubble that, soon thereafter, puts an end to the good feelings.

The other thing is that one of my goals lately has been to become a feminist. Graham is a little, little boy—only 98 days old—but eventually, he'll be a man. If I were capable of really believing it, that fact would break my heart. Babies are perfect:  they're cute; they only cry for really good reasons; they're not petty or manipulative; they smell nice; they smile. Adults don't smell nice, and sometimes they smile for mean reasons. A baby would never smile at a sexist joke. Babies only smile kindly. Men rarely cry. Women sometimes fake-cry.

What has been frustrating me most about adults lately is how enamored of a certain kind of attractiveness we are. It's so senseless and disappointing:  senseless because there doesn't seem to be any good reason why mascara should add to a woman's attractiveness (but apparently it does), and disappointing because conventional beauty includes so few and precludes so many. Graham is probably going to grow up to like the way some people look and not like the way other people look, and then this crazy thing will happen where the way a person appears to him will contribute in a major way to what he'll viscerally regard as his or her worth to him, and he probably won't even recognize that's what's happening. It just happens. I don't know how it happens. My husband is handsome. I don't know why I picked a handsome husband. I think Jennifer Connelly is crazy gorgeous. I don't know why I think that.

In my women's studies class we recently read Rose Weitz's essay, "Women and Their Hair:  Seeking Power through Resistance and Accommodation," a compelling analysis of hair politics that convinced me that my and Graham's moral health demands that I shave my head. Three fears prevent me from doing it:  1. my fear that Graham won't recognize me; 2. my fear of being mistaken for a man; 3. my fear of being unable to subsequently resist the time-consuming compensatory act of makeup application.

A woman who is conventionally beautiful in the face and has a body that is both unmistakably womanly and fit might be able to "pull off" (be pretty regardless of) a short haircut or shaved head. I wouldn't be able to pull off a shaved head; I'd wind up looking either like an ugly man or an ugly boy, so I won't do it. Because I have these fears of looking manish and hideous, if I shaved my head I would compensate by wearing earrings, makeup and skirts, none of which I do now. And that would undermine the whole point of shaving my head.

The point of shaving my head would be to eschew standards of beauty that are, like I said earlier, arbitrary and disappointing, standards that create and perpetuate professional and personal inequities. This is the sort of thing that would be difficult to definitively prove, but think about bartenders:  all the women bartenders I have ever seen qualify as hotties, and hotness never seems to be a criterion for men bartenders. Head-shaving motivation that relates to being a mommy:  I like the idea of Graham growing up with the main lady in his life having an attitude and hair style that announce that a woman's worth in no way depends on whether she is or makes efforts to be conventionally attractive.

Here's another lame thing that hairstyles that contribute to a woman's conventional beauty do:  they "reflect and sustain competition between women for men's attention, thus diminishing the potential for alliances among women." It's as if women are pressuring women to look like most other women look, and it's so fucking boring, and it's not too fair.

It's scary to think how precarious appearances make relationships. Aron told me the other day, after I shared with him these recent hair concerns of mine, that he likes the way my hair looks, to which I responded, "UHHH! YOU WOULD!" I'm certain Aron's love for me would be none diminished if I shaved my head, but I'm also close to certain that every relationship must always-already be at least somewhat about how each party regards, or initially regarded, the other's looks.

Appearance problems are so untenable because how I feel about how I look immensely influences how comfortable I am just being me. My leftover pregnancy weight makes me like being me less. Why?

The more I shave my legs and the less I shave my head the further I am from the revolution. Which revolution? Any revolution. I am close to no revolution. I wish I would've given birth at an Occupy movement. I could've had a shaved head then, and no one would've doubted that I'm a woman.