One need only read its scriptures to know: “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive. — 1 Corinthians 10:23
In my house, the men and women have long hair. 
Not if it is tied up in a bun, or a braid.
And then He, summoning His disciples, did travel unto the city of Capernaum, and therein did find a tonsorial salon. Entering, He spake unto the keeper, saying, “Render unto us all a High and Tight.”
Has short hair ever been the fashion for women? It kinda was during the fifties but long hair would’ve looked merely unfashionable, not freakish as it would’ve on a male.
Maybe, but cutting it all the time takes time away, too. I think it’s more accurate to say styled hair was found in the upper class more. Working people probably just tended to let it grow all one length and not do much more with it than that.
but the man He created already had cropped hair 
That section never made sense to me. What exactly in nature teaches us that?
Sure.
Would have to agree with silenus about long hair = luxury, assuming it’s kept shiny, blow dried and is free of split ends. Even if it’s put up in braids or in a bun ‘on the farm,’ it still requires more shampoo and brushing. A bit like high heels can indicate that a woman won’t be walking anywhere. There’s no practical reason for either long hair or high heels- in fact, both can be used against a woman in a fight.
Well, yeah, it was trendy in the 20’s and the 50’s but it wasn’t the only hair style to have; long hair on women was acceptable as well. As opposed to long hair on men which would have identified you as a freak. (even today, you won’t find many men in traditional jobs with long hair, it’s still somewhat of a counterculture hairstyle)
What I’m asking is has there ever been a time when short hair on women was the cultural norm? I don’t think there has been one. But we can find examples for men with both long hair and short hair.
For purposes of the discussion, I would define “flashy” as something that is relatively less practical but is perceived to enhance one’s appearance.
For example, a hypothetical animal that is brightly colored and is therefore more visible to predators but is also more attractive when mating season rolls around.
I would say that high heels, skirts, makeup, and long hair are all “flashy” under this definition. Arguably, large breasts are flashy too.
Short hair for women has been fashionable on and off since around 1800. From about 1790 to 1820 (I think; I’m not certain about the later date) a style popular for women was the Titus cut, inspired by the Classical period. It featured short, tousled curls, and usually some sort of ribbon or scarf wrapped around the head. Men wore a similar hairstyle, also called the Titus, but left off the ribbon. 
Throughout the 19th century, you see portraits and photographs of women with short hair pop up, but they usually try to conceal it some way – with combs or a hair net or a bandeau. Some people theorize that these women had just recovered from a very long illness, and their hair was cut off because it was too much of a hassle to care for. Some of them look pretty damned healthy, though. I think in the 1870s (Natural Form), there was a trend for very short hair for women – not Johnny Unitas short, but a little bit like a modern pixie cut – as I have a couple fashion plates that show hair like that, but I’ve never seen a photograph of an actual flesh-and-blood woman wearing it. At any rate, only the very, very fashionable would have worn their hair that short; it would have been considered very fast by most of society.
Then there’s the 1920s, of course, with scandalous bobbed hair. After that, short hair with some sort of permanent wave was fairly common until the late 1960s, and now pretty much anything goes for hair length for women.
As for men, long hair was common from, gosh, medieval times until the 19th century. There were periods when it got shorter – the Burgundian bowl cut, the 16th century – but shoulder-length hair wasn’t unusual for most of that time. With the beginning of the 19th century came the Directoire/Regency period of fashion, which pretty much threw the previous century of fashion out the window. For men, hair became very short for a while (Caesar cut), and then Byron came along, and it was fashionable to have “carelessly” tumbled curls and look like you were dying of consumption/heartbreak. This held true until about the 1850s/early 1860s, with hair hovering somewhere between the top of the ears and the middle of the neck. The more artistic your temperament, the more likely you were to have longer hair. (Cases in point: Dante Gabriel Rosetti and George Armstrong Custer.) From the 1860s on, you increasingly see men with their hair long on the top and short on the bottom, so the top can be combed over. Variations on this remain the norm until the 1950s, when the crew cut and buzz cut become popular because of men returning from WWII.
Throughout history for both sexes, wigs fell in and out fashion, and hair was sometimes cropped very short when this was the case. Obvious wigs aren’t seen on the fashionable following the French Revolution (1780s), though.
It should be noted for men that there are endless permutations on hair length, depending on occupation, social class, and personal cantankerousness. For example, sailors kept their pigtails well into the 19th century, and the very poor would be more likely to sport a shaved head because of hygiene issues. For women though, long hair was the norm until the 1920s.
And everything above is very northern/western European-centric. People in the Americas took their cues from Europe, for the most part. You don’t see much American influence on fashion until the 20th century.
I always figured it was because the Roundheads eventually won, and managed to portray long-haired men as decadent, immoral layabouts. So for the past 300+ years, long hair on men has been something of a declaration on the side of Bohemianism. Now we’re starting to leave it behind (maybe).
This sounds sensible and logical and everything, but it’s wrong. Long hair isn’t any more of an obstacle than short hair on a farm, as long as you keep it confined. Braids, a bun, a ponytail, a bandana, anything. Until my senior year of high school, I had practically waist-length hair, and when I was doing chores, I wore it in braids wrapped around my head with a bandana over it or in a single braid down my back.
As for not having someone to take care of it, women helped each other dress and bathe if they couldn’t afford servants. There are numerous mentions in personal accounts of sisters and mothers helping each other dress, or even their husbands assisting them – a well-known one would be the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In the 16th century, there are several headdresses worn by common women that really can’t be worn with short hair – they slip and slide without some braids to anchor the fabric to.
On top of that, there are many more periods in history where both men and women had long hair, and they somehow managed to still farm, sail ships, and do a bunch of other crap where long hair could be seen as dangerous.
If anything, an elaborate hairstyle indicates social status, not the length of the hair. Most women don’t have enough of their own natural hair to achieve the elabrate hairstyles of the Roman period, Imperial China, Elizabethan England, 18th-century Europe, or the late 19th century. False hair is common in all those periods, usually collected from poor country girls who were desperate for cash, and who, incidentally, had long hair until it was cut off.
The Roundheads and the Cavaliers are really an exception, especially since most of those Cavaliers probably had shaved heads under their wigs. And the wig as a political entity has a surprisingly long history.
Both males and females display in our species. Men have height, musculature and testosterone-soaked jaw lines to lure the babes. Women have hour-glass figures and so on.
Hair is a different matter. For most of human history hair on both sexes must have been a long mess. Men have not evolved to have short hair. It seems just to be a fashion thing that caught hold in the west and with westernization has spanned much of the globe.
Once again on this subject, I’ll plug the chapter that Charles Mackay wrote in Extraordinary Delusions about hair, beard, and mustache fads over time.
I would have thought that height, muscles, and jaws serve practical purposes too. As opposed to large breasts.
But anyway, putting aside aspects of the human body that are genetically determined and looking at peoples’ day to day behavior, it definitely seems like women are the “flashy” sex.
I wonder if this has been scientifically studied or not. Certainly there is genetic variation in peoples’ ability to grow long hair. Does this variation correlate with sex at all? I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility.
Yes, but on other parts of the body, such as legs and armpits. There’s no practical reason men can’t shave their legs and armpits along with their manscaping, but society tells us this is feminine. Personally, I tend to ignore a lot of what society tells me.
Roman men cut their hair so that it couldn’t be grabbed during battle. It stands to reason that short hair became associated with warriorhood and masculinity.
Not to the vikings and other barbarians, who grew their hair long (and they won in the end).