AFAIK in almost every culture today, men have short hair and women have long hair.
It seems that for men the “socially acceptable” length has been different throughout time, but for women it has always been long. Why does this happen and how old is this tradition?
It hasn’t always been long for women. Look at a HS yearbook from the 1920s or 1930s: every girl has short hair. OK, not crew-cut short, but not long, either.
Admittedly, however, a perusal of world style history reveals that styles have almost always been long for women, quite variable for men. I think if you were to look at a range of cultures around the world for the past 10,000 years, however, you would find that men’s hair has tended to be long rather than short.
To sum up:
Women’s hair has usually been long, but there have been exceptions.
Men’s hair has been long more often than short, but starting in the 19th century it has tended to be short around the world.
There are some concrete reasons why this might be so. Certain warrior cultures, such as the Spartans (IIRC) and the Romans (my personal conjecture) valued short hair or even shaven heads because long hair could be grabbed in combat to the disadvantage of the grabee. Since women did not engage in combat, this factor was irrelevent to them.
In the US, long hair for men was almost universal until the early 1800s, and it does not seem to have predominated until the latter part of the century. What caused the change? I’m not sure, but many aspects of late-19th century fashion have had remarkable staying power: the modern suit and tie, black tie, white tie, many aspects of casual dress, and shorn faces and short hair for men.
Both George Washington and George Custer would have found modern strictures against beards and long hair odd. I too am puzzled.
I think facial hair is becoming more accepted - at least I see mustaches a lot (and I confess I am attracted to men with facial hair). I think many people associate long hair and beards with the '60’s hippy, anti-war, anti-establishment, drug-addled, sloppy, ill-clothed sex fiends (yes, I vaguely recall those days, but of course I was not into any of that!) My s.o. was a cop (now retired), and is anxious to grow his hair long enough for a ponytail. (He’s always had a mustache.) As a cop, he had to keep his hair short, and no beard allowed. He has grown a “soul patch” – a small patch of hair under his lower lip. Most businesses are conservative in nature and want their employees (especially customer service staff) to be clean-shaven, wear at a minimum a collared shirt and slacks. The higher you go in the chain of command, the more conservative you get – suits and ties. Long hair, beards, and nonconformist clothing mean trouble.
Yes, George Custer had long hair, but he was atypical – most men during that period had short hair; also, he was considered an excellent general and who the heck was going to give him a hard time about his hair? I don’t know if/when it was typical for men to have long hair. There is some question about how the historical Jesus looked – most depictions show him as light-skinned with long hair. In fact, he probably was dark-skinned and had short hair, which was typical of that time in the middle east. Perhaps long hair is associated with women and therefore considered a sign of weakness (?)
Even for women, long hair is not always accepted. I was glancing at one of my wife’s Oprah magazines–at an article of how to dress your age–and they just about said “thou shalt cut or perm your hair beyond a certain age”.
There’s practically nothing more striking and beautiful than a 50+ woman with grey hair who grows it out long and wears it down and loose.
Oprah, huh? Bullshit. I thought we women had gotten over that crap that after a certain age you have to cut your hair. As I said, if you’re in the business world and want to get ahead, conservative is better, in dress and hair, but even then, women can have long hair because you can pin it up! I’m well over, uh, 40-something and my hair is half-way down my back. For work, I pin it up in a French twist or wear it in a French braid or otherwise “tame” it (casual dress Fridays, I sometimes wear it down, but even then, it’s not “wild.”) I see no reason why women have to keep their hair short if they don’t want to – long hair is very versatile (not to mention sexy when the occasion calls for it). Bottom line: some of us don’t go with the flow, but do what the hell we want to, regardless of what “society” thinks.
1 Corinthians 11:14, 15 probably had a lot to do with hair lenths, too.
“Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him; but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? Because her hair is given her instead of a headdress.”
The Bible has been somewhat of an influence over many things for quite a long time. At least, for some people…
Nitpick: the Spartans were longhairs (as were the Gauls).
Heck, yeah. The Gauls used to bleach it with lime to make it light colored and thick like a horse’s mane.
Maybe this sort of thing stems from the short-cropped heads of Roman men? I would imagine long hair became associated with barbarism.
However, as pointed out above, before the early 1800s long hair was common for men in the US, and the US was predominately Christian.