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Overview
The first book to explore the role of hair in women's lives and what it reveals about their identities, intimate relationships, and work lives
Hair is one of the first things other people notice about us--and is one of the primary ways we declare our identity to others. Both in our personal relationships and in relationships with the larger world, hair sends an immediate signal that conveys messages about our gender, age, social class, and more.
In Rapunzel's Daughters, Rose Weitz first surveys the history of women's hair, from the covered hair of the Middle Ages to the two-foot-high, wildly ornamented styles of pre-Revolutionary France to the purple dyes worn by some modern teens. In the remainder of the book, Weitz, a prominent sociologist, explores--through interviews with dozens of girls and women across the country--what hair means today, both to young girls and to women; what part it plays in adolescent (and adult) struggles with identity; how it can create conflicts in the workplace; and how women face the changes in their hair that illness and aging can bring. Rapunzel's Daughters is a work of deep scholarship as well as an eye-opening and personal look at a surprisingly complex-and fascinating-subject.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429931137 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Publication date: | 01/12/2005 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Sales rank: | 854,788 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Rose Weitz is a professor of sociology at Arizona State University and is past president of Sociologists for Women in Society. She is the author of several books and the editor of The Politics of Women's Bodies.
Rose Weitz is a professor of sociology at Arizona State University and is past president of Sociologists for Women in Society. She is the author of several books and the editor of The Politics of Women's Bodies.
Read an Excerpt
Rapunzel's Daughters
What Women's Hair Tells Us About Women's Lives
By Rose Weitz
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2004 Rose WeitzAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-3113-7
CHAPTER 1
The History of Women's Hair
Across cultures and down the centuries, women's hairstyles have varied wildly, from the ankle-length false braids worn in twelfth-century England to the chin-length "bobs" of 1920s flappers. But in each time and place, ideas about women's hair reflected ideas about women's nature and about how women should live their lives.
THE ANCIENT WORLD
To understand ideas about women's hair in contemporary America, we need to begin with the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, whose ideas about women's bodies dominated "scientific" thought from the fourth century B.C. through the nineteenth century A.D. Aristotle believed that women were merely "misbegotten men," formed when embryos lacked sufficient "heat" to become male. Lack of heat, he believed, caused women to be smaller, frailer, and less intelligent than men, with emotional and moral weaknesses that endangered any men who came under their spell.
Pre-modern Christian theologians, undoubtedly familiar with Aristotle's philosophy, used a different logic to arrive at similar conclusions. They believed that Eve, and all women after her, were inherently more susceptible than men to the passions of the flesh and the Devil's seductions. As a result, women posed constant dangers to men's souls, having the power to tempt men as Eve had tempted Adam. Meanwhile, folktales told of mermaids and sirens, like the Lorelei, who enchanted and entrapped sailors by singing while combing their long tresses.
Each of these philosophies, theologies, and folktales blamed women for tempting men rather than blaming men for tempting women or for succumbing to women's temptations. Because of this and because women's hair was considered especially seductive, for many centuries both Jewish and Christian law required married women (and, in some times and places, single women) to veil their hair; all nuns — "brides of Christ" — were required to veil their hair until the 1960s.
It's a short leap from these beliefs to ancient — and modern — Western marriage customs. The ancient Greeks, Romans, and Jews always veiled brides before their weddings. During the ceremony the bride would be unveiled for her husband and the audience, then re-veiled by her husband, her hair never again to be seen by another man. These traditions were reflected in language. The Hebrew word for bride, kalah, derives from a word meaning "to cover," and the Latin word for "to marry" — nubere, the source of the English word "nuptials" — literally means to veil, as clouds (nubes) cover the sky. Following the same logic, by the time of Jesus, Jewish law permitted a man to divorce a woman by uncovering her hair. In addition, if a woman ever uncovered her own hair in public, the law took this as evidence of her infidelity and permitted her husband to divorce her without returning her dowry or paying her alimony. For centuries thereafter, Christian and Jewish married women throughout most of Europe wore their hair long, bound, and covered. Most Muslim cultures, which share some of their roots with Christianity and Judaism, still require women to wear veils outside the home. Conversely, those who oppose either traditional Islamic ideas about women's status or the cultural and political power of Islamic groups often oppose hair covering. For example, the fiercely secular Turkish government — which from the nation's founding has feared the rise of Islamic militants — prohibits female students and government employees from wearing head scarves or veils in public schools and government buildings.
THE MIDDLE AGES THROUGH THE ENLIGHTENMENT
In Europe, the requirement that women cover their hair gradually loosened during the Middle Ages, as ideas about fashion began overriding ideas about female modesty. For a brief period in the mid-twelfth century, young, wealthy, married Englishwomen wore their hair uncovered, ornamented with ribbons, and down to their knees or longer, using false additions if needed. Although this fashion soon passed, head covering never regained its former position as an absolute requirement for female propriety. During the sixteenth century, long hair, too, became optional. Because Queen Elizabeth I kept her naturally curly hair relatively short, well-off Englishwomen began to wear their hair cut above their shoulders and curled with the help of awkward and temperamental curling devices. From that point on, increasing numbers of Western women would choose their hairstyles not because of custom but because of fashion, changing their hairstyles as fashions changed. The concept of a "fashionable hairstyle" would spread from the upper classes to the working classes by the 1700s.
But why, given prevailing religious ideas, would men allow their wives and daughters to wear these fashions? The answer lies at least in part in the growing importance of capitalism and the declining significance of religion. If, in a religion-driven world, men gained status by having a wife who appeared modest, in a market-driven world men gained status by displaying an attractive wife. In the emerging capitalist societies, men could help cement their social status by demonstrating that their women enjoyed the time and money needed to maintain fashionable hairstyles, and by demonstrating the market value of their women's beauty (in the same way that wealthy men now sport thin, young "trophy wives" on their arms). At the extreme, women's hair, like women's dress, could be used to turn women into ornaments, incapable of working or even of caring for themselves. "Conspicuous consumption" was perhaps the point of these fashions. Like the crippled, bound feet of wealthy Chinese women, elaborate hairstyles could show the world that the women in a family needn't work.
This tendency reached its apex in western Europe between 1770 and 1790, when wealthy, fashionable women wore their hair in ornate, sculpted arrangements, sometimes including such amazing ornaments as two-foot-high ships and birdcages. Women spent hours having their hair arranged. First the hairdresser would create a framework on the woman's head, made of large pads of rolled wool and horsehair. Then the woman's own hair would be brushed over this framework, pomaded with lard or beef tallow, augmented with purchased human hair, curled, powdered, and woven with jewels, feathers, or ribbons. At night, maids would remove any ornaments, roll any ringlets or sidecurls, and secure the whole arrangement with netting. In the morning, they would unroll and arrange the curls, then pomade and powder the hair again. Once arranged, the hair would not be combed (let alone washed) for several weeks, making wooden head-scratchers a popular accessory. (Not until the twentieth century would even monthly hair washing become the norm.) These elaborate hairstyles were abandoned around the time of — and perhaps because of — the French Revolution.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
In the new U.S. republic, meanwhile, ideas about women's hair divided along racial lines. American Indian women, black women, and white women faced very different expectations and constraints in making decisions about their hair.
AMERICAN INDIANS
Among American Indians before European conquest, each tribe had its own idea of how girls and women should wear their hair. Although numerous tribes expected women to wear their hair in the long braids that white Americans now associate with Indians, other tribes took pride in their own distinctive styles. Seminole girls and women created a smooth canopy of hair by brushing their long hair first toward and then straight out from their foreheads, then drawing it up, back, and under a hatbrim-shaped frame. Hopi women of marriageable age parted their hair in the middle and pulled it tightly into two ponytails, one above each ear. The first three inches of each ponytail were wrapped tightly with colored twine. The remaining hair was woven around a curved wooden stick, then twisted into a bun-like whorl.
As each tribe in turn was subdued by the U.S. Army — and then, to varying degrees, by U.S. culture — these tribal distinctions faded. Much of this process of cultural homogenization was accomplished by federally run boarding schools, which, from 1879 until the mid-twentieth century, most Indian children were forced to attend. Taken from their families as young as age four, unable to return for months or years at a time, and often housed with children from other tribes who had different languages and customs, these children were both physically and psychologically compelled to adopt the clothing and hairstyles of white Americans.
Those who established these boarding schools believed that Indians would only survive if they abandoned Indian culture, a philosophy summarized in the popular slogan "Kill the Indian to save the man [or woman]." From the 1880s on, one photograph after another of children arriving at boarding schools for the first time shows the children's physical transformation. Although the particulars differed from tribe to tribe, in the "before" pictures, the children wear loose, traditional clothes and are often wrapped in blankets or shawls. Most of the girls wear their hair falling haphazardly to their shoulders or below, covering their ears and a sliver of their foreheads and cheeks. The rest wear their hair in two braids, one falling in front of each shoulder (perhaps by choice, perhaps because the photographer instructed them to pull their braids forward for the camera to record their "exotic" nature).
In the "after" pictures, all traces of tribal distinctions are gone and the girls' (and boys') hair — considered by school administrators an especially important marker of Indian "savagery" — is subdued. The girls are dressed in starched and fitted dresses, often wearing or carrying bonnets. Most have their hair tightly pulled back from a center part, exposing their ears. In most cases it's impossible to tell whether the hair is contained in a bun, a braid, or a ponytail, but it certainly is contained.
More rarely, school officials had girls' hair cut (as was the norm for boys). Zitkala-Sa, a Sioux Indian, recalls how she felt when she realized that the teachers intended to cut her hair. The prospect particularly horrified her because among the Sioux short hair was worn only by mourners or those shamed as cowards. To avoid having her hair cut, she hid under a bed, but was soon discovered:
I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast to a chair. I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while, until I felt the cold blade of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit.
Once children returned home from school, their families might restyle their hair traditionally — if the children still had enough hair to do so, and were not now ashamed of tribal ways. Over the generations, traditional styles faded from use, appearing only among the most isolated groups or on special ceremonial occasions.
AMERICAN BLACKS
For American blacks, as for American Indians, hairstyles could indicate either freedom from or suppression by white American culture. Until the early nineteenth century, hairstyling offered one of the few means available to black slaves for expressing pride and identity. Both men and women seized this opportunity, varying their hair's length and texture to create an enormous range of idiosyncratic styles drawing on African, Indian, and white fashions. After this point, however, new machines that increased the productivity of cotton plantations also lengthened slaves' workdays and made it nearly impossible for them to maintain such styles. To keep their hair from matting or tangling, women cut their hair short, braided it in small sections, and wrapped it in rags covered by brightly colored bandannas. Those bandannas now offered them their only opportunity for self-expression. Only on Sundays, their one day off, could women brush out and style their hair.
Yet hair remained central to black women's self-identity. Over the generations, sexual intercourse (usually involuntary) between black women slaves and their white masters and overseers contributed to creating a panoply of hair textures among blacks, from straight to tightly curled. Because the logic of racism taught both blacks and whites that those who looked most white were most beautiful, black women with straighter hair (and "whiter" features) were often coveted as sexual prizes. Plantation records testify to the importance attached to black women's hair: In virtually every recorded incident in which a slave was punished by having his or her head shaved, the punished slave was a woman with straight hair and the person who ordered the punishment was a white woman. By so doing, white women could reduce the threat these slaves posed to their marriages while punishing both the slaves and the white men who found them attractive. In the few recorded instances in which a male slave owner used shaving as a punishment, the sexual allure of straight-haired female slaves also played a pivotal role. In one instance, a light-skinned, long-haired female slave accepted a white man from a neighboring plantation as her lover in hopes of gaining his protection against her owner's sexual advances. Her owner gained vengeance by shaving her head — an action that, he surely expected, would punish both her and her lover.
AMERICAN WHITES
Throughout the nineteenth century, white women's status was far higher than that of American Indian or black women, but still far below that of white men. Not until the 1830s did white women begin gaining the rights to own property or keep their own wages, and not until 1920 would they win the right to vote. What's more, only a few low-paying jobs (primarily in teaching and nursing) were open to them, and most jobs required women to resign once they married. As a result, contracting a good marriage remained women's surest route to financial security.
During these decades, poor white women had little time or money to devote to their hair, and so wore very simple hairstyles. Middle- and upper-class white women, on the other hand, devoted considerable effort to arranging their hair in ways that would emphasize feminine allure. Although fashions evolved continuously, most required long, straight hair, pulled back or pinned up, and ornamented with curls, ringlets, or purchased additions. Each night, women would braid the long sections of their hair and then either pin up their curls or wrap them in rags. In the morning they used flat irons to straighten the uncurled portions of their hair, used heated curling irons (if they had them) to curl the other portions, and then arranged their curls, ringlets, and additions. Given the time and effort required to create these hairstyles, women avoided any activities that might damage them.
Beginning in the 1850s, periodic calls from feminists for simpler hairstyles that wouldn't press women to restrict their activities found few takers, even among feminists. Those calls, at any rate, were only a footnote in the larger struggle for "dress reform," which primarily — and, for decades, unsuccessfully — aimed to free women from incapacitating corsets, heavy skirts, multiple petticoats, and floor-length dresses. Instead of adopting simpler hairstyles, from the 1870s into the early twentieth century women turned to styles that were even more difficult to maintain, requiring thick masses of hair pinned in intricate arrangements. Women could achieve this look only by hiring professional hairstylists and purchasing false hair; advertisements for hair additions took up three pages in the 1905 Sears, Roebuck catalog. Although these expenses could strain a family's budget, maintaining these hairstyles was essential, for hair was considered central to feminine beauty (so central that Louisa May Alcott, in her still-popular 1868 book Little Women, could use Jo's decision to sell her hair to aid her impoverished family as a pivotal scene, knowing that her readers would understand the importance of Jo's sacrifice).
THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
Hairstyles for white women changed dramatically with the rise of the "bob" — in which the hair fell straight to about mid-neck and then curled under at the ends — and the even shorter "shingle." Not only were both styles shockingly short, but they also lacked any feminizing ringlets or curls. These hairstyles first appeared on both sides of the Atlantic during World War I, and within a decade became the norm for fashionable young women.
The bob and the shingle were roundly attacked by many who considered them evidence of female vanity, "loose" morals, or dangerous feminist ideas. Newspaper articles from the time describe employers who refused to hire women with bobbed hair on the grounds that such women were "not thinking about business, but only about having a good time." Other articles tell of men who beat or abandoned their wives or fiancées for having their hair bobbed. These hairstyles — and public dismay over them — quickly spread around the world. In Japan, a speaker at a national hairdressers' convention declared, "All bobbers are not dissolute women, but all dissolute women are bobbers."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Rapunzel's Daughters by Rose Weitz. Copyright © 2004 Rose Weitz. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Introduction,
ONE - The History of Women's Hair,
TWO - Hot Combs and Scarlet Ribbons,
THREE - Ponytails and Purple Mohawks,
FOUR - What We Do for Love,
FIVE - Paychecks and Power Haircuts,
SIX - Bald Truths,
SEVEN - At the Salon,
EIGHT - "I'll Dye Until I Die",
NINE - No More Bad Hair Days,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Acknowledgments,
Index,
Copyright Page,
Reading Group Guide
INTRODUCTION
This guide is meant to increase your understanding and enjoyment of Rapunzel's Daughters: What Women's Hair Tells Us About Women's Lives, whether you read it on your own or with a group.
In Rapunzel's Daughters, author and sociologist Rose Weitz explores what women's struggles with "bad hair days" reveal about women's identities, intimate relationships, work lives, and attitudes toward their bodies. Based on four years of interviews and focus groups conducted with a diverse sample of American girls and women, the book is organized around the stages of a woman's life, from girlhood to old age. It shows how girls learn to view their hair as central to their identities, how during adulthood women's hair affects their intimate relationships and work lives, and how as women's hair changes through aging or illness they struggle to learn new lessons about living life fully and about accepting themselves as they are.
The following questions focus on these concerns, and are designed to deepen your understanding of both the book and your own "hair history."
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. In her introduction, Weitz argues that although hair might seem a trivial topic, it is not trivial at all (p. xii). Does she convince you? If yes, how? If no, why not?
2. In chapter 1, "The History of Women's Hair," Weitz writes: "Across cultures and down the centuries, . . . ideas about women's hair reflected ideas about women's nature and about how women should live their lives" (p. 3). What does she mean by this? Can you provide some examples?
3. How does the history of blacks in America affect ideas about black women's appearances nowadays, among both whites and blacks? How does this history continue to affect contemporary black girls' and women's experiences with their hair?
4. Overall, how do the experiences and feelings of minority women (black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American) regarding their hair differ from those of white women? How has your ethnicity, race, or religion affected your experiences about and feelings toward your hair?
5. In both chapter 2, "Hot Combs and Scarlet Ribbons," and chapter 3, "Ponytails and Purple Mohawks," the author discusses the messages girls receive about their hair from the media (pp. 49–53 and 65–70). What are those messages? Which parts of those messages do you think are healthy? Which parts are dangerous? What can you do to protect the girls in your life from the dangerous messages?
6. The author argues that girls quickly learn to consider their hair, and their appearance more generally, as central to their identity. How do girls learn this lesson?
7. Is your hair a part of your identity—of who you are? What do you want your hair to tell others about you? Do others ever misinterpret what you are trying to say with your hair?
8. In chapter 2, "Hot Combs and Scarlet Ribbons," Weitz argues that mothers often teach their daughters that they should suffer for beauty (pp. 37–39). Why is it mothers who take on this role? Can you give examples from your own life in which your mother taught you that you should—or should not—sacrifice for beauty?
9. What role does hair play in competition among girls and among women? Who and what are they competing for, and how do they compete?
10. What are some of the pleasures that hair offers girls? Can you remember examples from your own life?
11. In chapter 3, "Ponytails and Purple Mohawks," Weitz argues, "The notion that we can change our identity by changing our appearance is deeply rooted in American culture" (p. 64). What does she mean by this, and do you agree or disagree? Did you ever change your hair to change your identity?
12. Weitz writes, "As girls enter adolescence, not only do the rewards for looking attractive increase, but the rewards available from other sources diminish" (p. 72). What does she mean by this? Is her argument convincing?
13. How do boys' and men's experiences with hair differ from girls' and women's? How do men's experiences of hair loss differ from women's? On what basis does Weitz argue that hair and appearance have far more impact on females than on males?
14. How do the hair struggles of lesbians differ from those of heterosexual women?
15. Chapter 4, "What We Do for Love," explores the role hair plays in women's romantic relationships. How do women use their hair to increase their power in relationships? How do men use women's hair to show their power in relationships? Have you ever used your hair to get what you want from a man? Has a man ever used your hair to show his power over you?
16. In chapter 5, "Paychecks and Power Haircuts," Weitz documents what women's hair tells us about women's work lives. As she shows, one basic question women face is whether to emphasize or downplay femininity in styling their hair for work. Why do some working women emphasize femininity in their hair choices? Why do others downplay femininity? What are the benefits and problems of each strategy? Do you think your hair makes it harder or easier for you to achieve what you want at work?
17. Chapter 6, "Bald Truths," describes the experiences of women who lose their hair to chemotherapy or genetic conditions. How do women adapt—or fail to adapt—to severe hair loss? Why do so many women find losing their hair to chemotherapy more traumatic than losing a breast to mastectomy?
18. For chapter 6, the author also interviewed women who chose to shave their heads. What were their reasons for doing so? What, if anything, can we learn from their experiences?
19. Chapter 7, "At the Salon," explores the pleasures women find at beauty salons. What are the social, psychological, and physical pleasures women can find in beauty salons?
20. For chapter 7, the author interviewed several stylists about their work and their lives. In what ways is the work of hair stylists similar to, and different from, that of psychotherapists? What are the difficulties stylists face in deciding how to interact with clients? What kind of relationship do you have with your stylist?
21. Weitz opens chapter 8, "‘I'll Dye Until I Die,'" by discussing the stereotypes of aging women in American media and culture (pp. 190–96). What are those stereotypes? What older women characters can you think of in mass media, and how are those characters portrayed?
22. What are women's fears of growing old? How do stereotypes of older women, along with women's fears of growing old, affect women's hair decisions?
23. What are the benefits women obtain from dyeing their hair to cover the gray? From not dyeing their hair? In what circumstances, if any, do you think women should dye their gray hair?
24. Did the book change your impression regarding whether blondes really do have more fun? What, if anything, do you think is a good reason for dyeing one's hair? What, if anything, do you think is a bad reason? If you have ever dyed your hair a different color, did it affect how others thought about you, or how you thought about yourself?
25. Were you surprised by what you read in the book about the experiences of those whose race, religion, or ethnicity differs from your own?
26. The final chapter, "No More Bad Hair Days," addresses how we can create a society in which girls and women will be freer from social pressures and better able simply to enjoy their hair. What changes can individuals make to help create such a society? What broader social changes are needed to accomplish this goal?
QUOTE
"[A] great, clever, and insightful book [that] gives new insight into our cultural fetish." --Pepper Schwartz, University of Washington
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ROSE WEITZ is a professor of sociology and women's studies at Arizona State University. She is the author of several books, including Life with AIDS, as well as the editor of The Politics of Women's Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior.