I always wondered why females have long hair (allow their hair to grow long)
and males keep their hair short.
Where did this come from? Who decided this should be the general ideal for male and females? Why couldn’t it have been the other way around where men have long hair
and women all have short hair?
Then it made me think, when I see a female with long hair, her hair seems a lot more attractive/beautiful than a guy with long hair…his hair always seems less silky, less smooth, damaged, shabby, etc.
Even if I try and think of a man with longer hair like Thor (lol), his hair is still not as attractive as say a woman with long hair.
Do women actually have better hair genes made to be long? Maybe they just take better care of it then men if they had long hair? I don’t know.
Who decides what is a desirable secondary sex characteristic for each sex at this moment in this place? Sometimes it is as simple as a celebrity popularizing a style.
Men’s hair has been optimally long and flowing at various times and places. 1970’s rock stars, for example. 17th century French nobility.
Women don’t have that pesky male pattern baldness to contend with …
haha, I have but even his hair doesn’t seem the same as a woman’s hair. I’m not sure if it’s just perception or if there is actually a physiological difference. For a man, he’s got great hair (or had) no doubt.
Long hair is something that gets in your way doing a lot of daily activities. It can get wound around things with hazardous consequences, and it can also have damage done to it by things splashing into it or getting snarled in it.
As with the bound feet of upper class Chinese women of a couple centuries ago, it at some point became the symbol of a wealthy upper class male: “Behold, my wife doesn’t have to work, you can tell because look at all this long impractical hair!”.
Which made the possession of it a desirable feminine accoutrement, which in turn made it worthwhile to put it up in a bun or braid it or tie it up in a bonnet, etc, instead of keeping it short, even if one were a working woman, for the signaling advantages when it is let down.
The hair on the male head is the same stuff. It becomes long and luxurious and gorgeous if you don’t cut it and you take care of it.
All you have to do is tie it back, or tie it up, or tie a scarf over it.
Short hair has to be cut all the time; which is a royal nuisance, especially as few people can do a good job of cutting their own hair.
– OP, there have been plenty of times and places in which men wore/wear their hair long. And as to thinking women’s hair somehow naturally looks better, I think that really is just your perception; at least, unless your particular social circles are such that the men you see with long hair are treating it differently than the women you see.
Just an anecdote. I’m male. Today I have a 9mm Corona crew cut, but from age 20 to 28, I let my hair grow and only one time, after 6 years of growth, I went to a hairdresser in between. She looked at my hair and said “My god, you have hair every woman would envy you for!”. But that’s past glory, today with my bald spots my hair would look ridiculous that long.
?!?!?? Did you mean to direct that last comment at me? Were you somehow of the impression that I’d asserted something akin to what you’re calling my “perception”?
My manly mane never descended past my shoulders but would split, crack, and naturally set a length. And it never regained even that length after my Army stint because jobs. One gf’s scalp hair had never seen scissors. Awesome!
Fabio has what I’d call typical mussy guy locks … the hair has made it not far past his shoulders and it’s already thinning out at the ends and looks like it’s reached its limit. IME if you take care of it the way a woman typically would - conditioning it and cutting it regularly - it will end up a lot longer, glossier, and straighter. A lot of guys (particularly if they’re going for something like the biker aesthetic) don’t seem real keen to have a proper haircut all the way round so the ends are completely straight - but that’s what will stop you getting split ends, and actually enable you to grow really impressively long hair.
This is fair. Many (most?) women spend a lot of time, effort and money on their hair. Heck, mine isn’t even long but my monthly cut costs £65 and my quarterly dye costs an additional £120. My hairdryer cost £400, and that’s important because it doesn’t dry out my hair, so my hair is glossier than it would be with a normal dryer. I use expensive shampoo and additional hair products.
Women who sport long, flowing, glossy locks will, for the average person, have to spend many hours a week with straighteners, brushes, rollers, conditioning serums and finishing products to have the effect. They don’t wake up like that. They wake up like Fabio.
If I left my hair to its own devices it would grow very long, very thick, and very fine. At different points in my life it reached to my waist easily. I didn’t do anything to it at all, just shampooed it a few times a week and evened out the ends a few times a year. It spent most of its time in braids. I did not own a blow dryer, I never dyed it or bleached it. Nothing added at all.
Hair that long is kind of troublesome. It wraps around your neck when you sleep. You have to get it out of the way whenever you are working at anything with your hands. It takes forever to dry (if you air dry it like you should). My hair being very fine diameter and straight, it slides out of any clasp, pin, barrette, or tie. I hate hair in my face. So eventually I gave up and cut it all off. My hair is now two to four inches long, typically.
I have great hair-growing genes plus I never did manage to adapt to standards of female hair care. My hair cutter still can’t believe I don’t want “product” in my hair, and will never blow dry or style it. I can brush and floss my teeth and take a shower every day and that is the extent of my personal beautification ritual. I don’t even know what women are talking about when they discuss threading, waxing, shining, extracting, polishing, grinding, or whatever the hell they do.
Have you heard that before the Europeans arrived there were people in North and South America? And that in many, if not most, of those cultures men wore their hair long?
We live in a culture that values long, silky hair in women far more than in men, and from a young age women are socially programmed to seek such hair, maintain their hair, spend lots of money on their hair, and if they have crappy hair themselves they might even purchase hair (wigs) to wear over their own.
In HS I knew a guy who was super christian. I asked him if it was true that Jesus had long hair like a lot of paintings. I said they did not cut hair much back then. He said Roman soldiers sometimes had shaved heads so we don’t know what Jesus’ hair was like.
I’m going to call “some women” here. At its most protected (kept in a bun), my hair can reach slightly over my shoulders and that’s it. My mother could manage half a foot longer, also protected.
