YES. Picturing Rachel Dratch in a wig the whole time.
That link is awesome, by the way. “I would wear this turtleneck with strawberries on it and penny loafers and I thought I was really rocking the house.”
At my last job, all the women in my department had this haircut, or extremely highlighted blonde hair, or both. They all drove SUVs they didn’t need and were just as you describe above-- anal, controlling, detail-oriented, catty, insular, and conformist. They actually TOLD me to cut my hair in order to fit in with them because my waist-length hair looked “unprofessional” because it had no “style.” They also told me to get rid of my ankle-length skirts and sweaters and shop at the Petite Sophisticate like them.
You can understand, then, my hostility towards this hair style.
First of all, these women had to go to the hairdresser every 3 weeks or so or they’d get too shaggy, and their roots would show. How much those appointments costs I have no idea, but it’s more than I’d be willing to spend on my own vanity. Also, they used tons of product in their hair; it was literally a helmet head that didn’t move in the wind. I don’t understand the appeal.
I cut my own hair in a straight line across every 6 months or so, and just blow my roots dry in the morning. Low maintenance hair = long hair for me. If I got that Soccer Mom 'do, I’d have to do so much work to make it stand up in a poof like that, since I have wavy hair with insane cowlicks that only show when my hair is short (I had in infamous 70’s bowl cut as a kid, which was hideous).
All these women with short hair getting defensive in this thread-- if you have a man-cut or a pixie, this isn’t about you. It’s that overly blown out poof, perfectly symmetrical, often more blonde than nature intended, that we’re talking about here. It just says Stepford Wife from Hell to me.
So I saw the one new mom at church today who’s hair keeps getting shorter and shorter(one child, six months, works full time as a teacher)…I swear she’s been to the hairdresser more in the last 6 months than I’ve been in six years…and asked her what was going on with her hair. She’s delighted with it short…“I can take a shower at night now and not have to get up early in the morning!” she said. “If I could I’d shave it all off and look like Sinead O’Connor!” Her husband came up at that point and made a comment about Sinead, but I couldn’t get a take on how he really feels about the disappearing hair. She never had really long hair, but it wasn’t this boy cut, either. She sang in a quartet with anothet young mom who has kept her hair shoulder length (two kids under 4, working on her masters) who keeps hers in a simple ponytail, and all I could think about was this thread!
As much as I like long hair, I do think that really long hair on older women can look really bad, almost as if they are trying too hard to hang on to youth, especially if they let it go gray. But I will never, ever be a “standing appointment” type woman who gets it washed, set and combed out once a week. I believe hair is meant to be messed up, and if you’re married and not working up a sweat at least once a week it’s sad!
Here’s my question-- when my hair starts going gray, if I understand you correctly, I should either cut it or dye it? I really have no intention of doing either. I know if my hair was short it would look terrible due to the aforementioned cowlicks, and I really don’t want to dye my hair because it’s so long, and if I had to dye it regularly to keep the roots covered, it would ruin the ends. So I guess I’m going to be one of those old ladies with long white hair, trying to old onto my youth. It’s preferable to having Soccer Mom Head.
As the OP, I’ll say “exactly” - thanks for making things clearer, Ruby.
We’re not criticizing or analyzing female hair that is just plain short; many of us agree that short hair on women can be attractive. Like Ruby said, it’s the poofy, piled all-above-the-ears, symmetrical, often more-blonde-than-nature-intended, neo-mall hair that is not truly low-maintenance; in some cases, it’s Peggy Hill-like. Those that are seen on match.com are almost always single mothers.
Here’s an example of Small Market Female Television Newscaster/Host hair. It’s a variant of the bulb/bubble we’ve been talking about. This variant isn’t as poofy, but it still has that bulb shape. Borderline, IMHO, but the accompanying childbirth narrative on the page might qualify it.
Just a thought about the maintenance requirements of this kind of hair, especially as it applies to women with small kids to look after. I think when people say it’s “low maintenance” what they really mean is that once it’s done it will stay looking like that all day without needing any more work. So it’s more “get all the maintenance done in one go, with the added bonus of leaving the kids and sitting in the hairdressers for a couple of hours every couple of weeks” hair.
Don’t know what this one is called but it’s a textured cut. Some short hairs, some long.
Different strokes for different folks.
Some of those pics just suggest the woman has given up on any attempts at an attractive hairstyle. Or maybe they think it’s attractive, I don’t know. Ain’t no thang to me.
I think super short hair can be kicky and cute on younger, stylish women, or women with exceptionally pretty faces. But when you’re not terribly pretty or thin, short hair just draws attention to it.
“The more hair you have, the smaller your ass looks.” That’s my theory. 
(zoogirl tugs on her hair, trying desparately to get just…a…few…more…inches)
I call that hairdo(n’t) the football helmet. From Steel Magnolias, where Shelby decribes her mother’s hair as “a brown football helmet.”
Many women look great in short hair. I am not one of them. I once (in college :smack: ) had my hair cut in a pixie cut. My head looked like a grape perched on a hill. And I had an unnerving resemblance to the guy who used to say BR-549 on Hee Haw. Know what I mean? Fugly.
So I have long hair. I like my long hair. My husband likes my long hair. But the rest of the planet… “You’re nearly 40. When are you going to cut your hair?” Well my grammy didn’t cut her’s so I see no reason to cut mine.
That’s henley, and I question the reliability of your sources.
Though we did come up with “wedge”.
Oddly enough, that hair style doesn’t say “mommy” to me so much as it says, “My name is Kathy and I want to be YOUR Realtor!”
I always thought of mommy hair as being pulled up in a pony tail and always a bit disheveled.
Was pondering this thread this morning as I battled with my own hair (short, but bob not bud) and could the ‘turn-off’ factor arise mainly as a backlash to the intended message?
The intended message? “I am in control.” It does not matter what chaos might occur around me – mobs of screaming kids, the chaos of a newsroom – I am calm and in control, as shown by my perfectly and immovably coiffed hair.
You can understand why women dealing with young children are drawn to that message, purely because they really aren’t in control of their lives at the moment. Child care is rather the opposite of being in a situation that is calm, controlled, predictable.
You can also understand why female newscasters want to deliver a very similar message: “I know many of you in the viewing audience are still highly suspicious that women are flighty, emotion-driven, illogical creatures. But not me! See my perfectly controlled hair! See, it’s nice and neat and leaves my ears just as cleanly exposed as anchormen’s are. So I am wise and thoughtful and in control of myself and you can trust what I say.”
Which sounds silly, but I really do think that conveying that message has a large role in the way anchorwomen and ‘serious’ newsreporters dress and groom themselves. And NOT doing it may have repercussions on your career. There is a woman reporter for Channel 7 news in Boston who has long (shoulder length or a bit more) blonde (way too) and extremely curly hair which she wears loose. She does mainly reports from out in the streets, and whenever there is the least bit of wind, she is always fighting with her hair, trying to keep it out of her mouth and out of her eyes. And every time I see her I wince and think things like, “How unprofessional! My god, get a haircut! You look like a poodle!”
And the non-sexiness of it…well, look at the women in glamour/sexy shots. Are they controlled? Hell, no. They’re deliciously disheveled, curls tumbling randomly, maybe a stray button undone, laughing… The polar opposite of the Bulb-headed women.
I talked this line of thought over with hubby, and he mostly agreed, but said it was even simpler than that. Men have this game plan of the stages in ‘conquering’ a woman, that runs from getting your fingers into her hair, to getting your tongue in her mouth, and on to getting your (uh, which forum are we in?) well, your tab in her slot. He says these women have turned their hair into a barricade a guy can’t even imagine she’d let him play with. And if you can’t even get into her hair, well, what’re the odds of getting into the other places? Best look elsewhere for a more approachable woman.
My hair is as short as some of those photos. I’d like to think it’s more stylish than the styles you showed, but it definitely has the ears cut out.
There are a lot of reasons why it’s so short–and none of them involve mom-hood (since I’m not a mom and totally not maternal). I’d love to have long, luxurious hair. Unfortunately, my DNA didn’t come with instructions for thick, beautiful locks. My own hair is thin and fine. Anything longer than mid-neck and it looks stringy and scraggly. I had it slightly longer than chin length for a while, but that didn’t work for me. I’m pretty active physically and hate having sweaty hair against my neck and face. If my hair isn’t long enough for a pony tail, then I’ve got to get it cut short enough that it’s out of the way. So I’m pretty much stuck getting some really short cut.
I finally settled on the style I have because I really like the way it frames my eyes and cheekbones. I don’t like a lot about my physical appearance, but I do like my eyes and bone structure. This cut really plays those up.
It is a lot less maintenance. Sure, I do have to get it cut more frequently, but I don’t have to do much with it day to day. I can schedule an appointment at the hairdresser’s. I can’t schedule time every morning for styling. If I have a special event or hot date, I’ll spend time styling my hair–but I don’t have to. If I want, I can step out of the shower, throw some product into it, and go. Plus, it just doesn’t get messed up as easily during the day. While I’m working out and sweating (I sweat like a guy), it really doesn’t look all that bad short. When it’s longer, it looks like crap all sweaty (plus I get that sweaty hair against the face and neck thing). If I go out after work, all I have to do to refresh my hair is wet it a bit and possibly throw in more product. When it was longer it never looked good at the end of the day unless I totally restyled it.
To be honest, the women in some of the photos probably wouldn’t have really stylish or attractive cuts even if they had longer hair. They’d probably have equally dowdy, longer hair.
That’s interesting because as long as the woman in question has nice hair, I actually find it really refreshing to see that. Most women around here have short hair by 40, and definitely the elderly women are big on the poodle curls here. So when I actually see a nice long head of hair on an older woman, I can’t help but really notice and appreciate it!
Tucker-Babe, who has long hair, is often asked by her mom “When is she going to get it cut?” She mentioned this to me again yesterday. I quipped, “Maybe she wants you to get one of those minivan hairstyles.” Tucker-Babe, not having read this board, knew exactly what I was talking about, even though that was the first time I had ever mentioned the term.
This is exactly why I will never ever cut my hair! I find short hair on women so unattractive. Mine will always be below my shoulder blades, at least, so help me og!
As far as short hair being easier to maintain or style? I don’t think so. All I have to do is brush it, wash it, let it dry naturally and voila! It’s perfect. No maintenance involved whatsoever.
I, too, look like absolute hell in short hair. My hair has celebrated my new middle age by becoming CURLY–like ringlet curly. So, I look like Shirly Temple in any short cut-just not a redhead. Oh, I could apply product, and blow dry etc–HIGH maintenance.
I wash my hair at night, it dries overnoc, I either flatiron it (for a change) or up it goes…“maintenance” is about 10 minutes, not 60+. I will never have short hair again–it’s too much trouble. But I do know many women who look great in it–but NONE of them have that cut…
I’m going to propose a name: the “Power Mom Poof”. All in favor?
Sounds good to me.