I’m glad you got out of a horrible situation. I can sort of relate. I had cancer and my hair thinned a little, but I didn’t shave it. I did cut it shorter and was relieved when my “cancer hair” had grown out.
People talking about zombies just means you bumped an old thread.
Why is baldness normalized for men, but there can be so much drama around a bald woman, anyway?
They look ridiculous, as I so voted.
As sexually UNattractive as is humanly possible.
Most women who do it, though–unless of course they are suffering from some sort of illness that causes hair-loss, like cancer’s radiation/chemo-therapy–aren’t trying to look attractive. They trying to look masculine. Since…well, they’re usually dykes and all. LOL
I refrained from voting because nothing matched my opinion - women with shaved heads look literally incomprehensible to me; I don’t understand them or what they’re doing. (Unless they’re cancer patients; then I understand what they’re doing.) However alien they become to me, though, their heads are their own damn business and none of mine, so they can do what they want. But I do not find them beautiful or admirable, and I do not find them ridiculous or ugly; I just don’t categorize their not-hair at all.
Obviously any person can do whatever they want with their body, but I personally find all the bald women I have seen to be particularly unattractive and bizzare looking.
If the woman has a nice shaped head I think it looks fine . I knew a woman that shaved her head and she could pull it off, she was beautiful and had a nice shaped head .
There’s no exact box for “why should I care in the slightest way what someone else chooses to look like? I’m sure they aren’t doing it for me.”
Maybe they’re trying to please themselves and not some male-imposed standard of beauty. Homophobia doesn’t usually go over too well here, either.
Taking the question literally, my answer would be “they’re either receiving chemo or they had chemo and decided they like the look.” That may not be fair, but that’s my first impression.
Wow, there are some names in this thread I haven’t seen in a while.
Shaved heads look perfectly fine on women. Some carry it better than others, I agree, but, eh, it looks fine.
I must confess a bias though. My wife shaves her head during the summer heat.
She has a very full head of hair that combined with a job that often has her working outside leaves her in discomfort and more vulnerable to dehydration.
lilsmolbean, if shaving your head is what it takes to feel better, renewed and to move past a bad situation, more power to you, you look just fine, no matter what anyone says.
I think it’s a strong, symbolic, move. Cheers to you and your new life!
No, no. There’s lots of things uglier than a shaved head.
Hate speech and the slurs associated with it are not allowed here. Do not do this again.
That being said I find it more attractive as I get older and it has become less unusual. Some ladies it looks great on but some others not so much but you can say that for men as well. On Yul Brynner it looked great - on me it looks like a cross between Uncle Fester and Charlie Brown. Mileage varies.
I generally like the look interesting-looking, but there wasn’t really a poll option that fit well (I picked the ‘as long as it’s not a Nazi thing’ one). The poll doesn’t really have a ‘I tend to like it, but it’s not always 100% beautiful or admirable, it can be just a thing’ option.
I know the poster is banned, but I’ll point out that there is a significant number of people, including straight men, who find masculine-looking women attractive. So the ‘not trying to look attractive, instead they’re trying to look masculine’ doesn’t actually work; they may not be trying to look attractive to Lickety_Split, but they may well be trying to look attractive.
I voted, “I’m okay with shaved heads, as long as it’s not a skinhead political statement.”
Overall, though, any person’s choice of hair style (or even lack of hair) is their own. So even bald Nazi chicks are “okay,” if that’s how they roll, no matter how dimly I view their politics.
Just speaking of my own preferences and standards of beauty: when it comes to women, some can pull off bald or extremely short hair, some can’t.
It does, but it is because of that, I often associate women with shaved heads as trying to make some sort of empowering personal statement. Like when actresses have shaved their heads for movie roles (Sigourney Weaver for Alien3, Natalie Portman for V for Vendetta, Demi Moore for GI Jane, I think Kate Hudson just shaved hers for something as well). There always seems to be of a “look how brave and empowered they are for their new brave and empowered movie role”.
But yeah, it doesn’t usually look attractive IMHO. Even a pixie cut or similarly short haircut only looks good on women with certain shaped faces/heads. Charlize Theron circa The Astronauts Wife pulled it off. Katy Perry…no so much. Makes her look like Justin Bieber with a tiny head.
Until fairly recently my opinion began and ended at, “Huh, bald chick.” I’ve been married for a long time and apart from my wife I simply don’t think of women in the varying terms of attractiveness (unless they are at extreme ends of the spectrum, and then it’s more of a curiosity). That is why I chose the, “My opinion doesn’t matter” option.
My daughter has colored her hair for so long I don’t even know what she looks like naturally. She did it “because YOLO,” and she’s always had the devil-may-care attitude to rock the color. I’ve gotten used to coming home from work and seeing bright red, bubblegum, blue, purple, green, black… But I got home a couple weeks ago and thought, “Huh, bald chick. Wait, what?” She’s reasonably attractive and gets told so fairly often. She doesn’t care for the attention and finally had enough, so she scooped up my clippers after school and just buzzed it all off to the scalp. It took some getting used to, but I’ve noticed it IS harder to focus on her looks. When you interact with her now, it’s just her. Not who her hair says she is. And frankly, it’s awesome. Brave, maybe, but only because she has nothing to hide behind now.
I think it’s easy to take for granted how much of your identity is wrapped up in your locks, and thus how easy it can be to manipulate what others see when they look at you. Shorn head says, “This is me. Deal.”
As a person who is currently bald courtesy of chemo, I think it’s odd how emotionally vested people are in re to what strangers do with their hair. Even before I became bald, I just didn’t pay attention to strangers that much to care. Maybe it’s my age because the older I get, the less opinionated I am.
Since losing my hair, I’ve opted to wear chemo caps, which are basically cotton skull coverings. I did try on a few wigs because I have some formal events coming up, but felt ridiculous in them. Plus they are hotter than hell to wear and I’m menopausal already. No thanks.
In the 2 months that I’ve been bald, only a few people (all older women) have commented on it. One woman, a cancer survivor herself, told me repeatedly how “courageous” she thought I was for not wearing a wig, because she couldn’t even look at HERSELF in the mirror bald. I think she thought that she was paying me a compliment, but it felt pretty offensive because she was basically saying that a woman without hair is UGLY.
I can’t wait to see how courageous she’s going to think I am this summer when I ditch the chemo caps altogether. Because as soon as my hair grows over an inch (long enough to color), I’m ditching the hats. If some people have a problem with it, or think that I’m not attractive, well, I seriously don’t care. Ditto if I choose to get a double mastectomy and forego implants…even though I’m sure that some people will be completely mystified how a woman who still considers herself attractive would ever choose to NOT have boobs, even if they were fake.
The way I see it, I’ll do what I want to do with my body. And you can do what you want with yours. If you feel the need to judge me, well that’s a personality flaw that you really should work on correcting.
Sorry to hear about the cancer & chemo, Lisa. Good luck to you.
As for the lady in your story, she may have been saying bald=ugly. She might also have just assumed her own horror was normal and universal, and that you too had a problem with the hair loss. Commiseration.
My assumption is she either has medical issues or psychological issues. Or wants to avoid being seen as a woman who would be a target for harassment (I believe this was sineads motivation, to avoid sexual harassment). Or wants to avoid a drug test (Britney spears).
If there are women who have been physically and mentally healthy who shaved their heads, I haven’t met them.