Ask lots of women like me, who lived through the 1960s, and
they’ll tell you flat out that human hair is considerably more than an
enigmatic mix of melanin and water, trace elements, lipids and proteins.
Indeed, in all its myriad variations, hair is downright political.
And though some people seldom think of it that way, at least in the US , what we
choose to do to our hair - and the often love-hate relationship that we have
with it - is likely to be seen as an eloquent, very public statement of our ideological
views. In fact, the way we choose to present our hair to the world can be construed as a
telling signifier of where we stand on the continuum between ultra-repressed
conservative and raging lefty let-it-all-hang-out
progressive. Need a bit of corroboration of that premise? Think about the 60s
rock musical Hair, a long-haired homage to the burgeoning hippie
counter-culture of the era. Wildly popular on Broadway and beyond, it was viewed
as a symbol of a particular political ideology, just as the so-called “Afro” hair
style, popular among blacks, was seen as a signifier of black political power and
pride during roughly the same time.
