new thread
I can't imagine what it might have been like to go to school during the 1960s and being suspended and told to visit the barber shop before returning to school.
I think the 1960s are vastly OVERRATED while the 1970s, a more freedom oriented decade are vastly UNDERRATED.
would you not agree?
It was great fun. I started growing my hair long in 1964, kept at it even with lots of complaints from school. The more the school complained the more I was absolutely determined to not only keep my long hair long but to continue letting it grow.
I loved bucking the system and going against the wishes of the establishment.
There wasn't much difference from the 60s to the 70s.
I graduated high school in 1973. Still got complaints from school up until graduation. Then went to college and got no
complaints at all from school. But then there were complaints from a number of employers. But then those complaints were great because I got some better jobs at the school the work/study program.
It wasn't until the age of 45 that the complaints really stopped.
I would also mention that in the 1970s we had Nixon as president and he ran on a law and order platform, we had the anti war protests, and there was still lots of intolerance for long hair on guys.
Sadly much of that intolerance still exists today although it has improved to a certain extent.
Not really. This is coming from a guy who had long hair in the '70s. That decade was an interesting one for hair fashion. A lot more women wore very long hair back then. But in spite of the old photos you may run across, the social stigma associated with long haired males was much greater then. I had a client for a service job I had then cancel his account because they sent out a hippy longhair. The cooler people were OK with it, but most people seemed very disdainful of it.
I found the general acceptance of long hair much better from about the '90s on. You have more people who've grown up around long haired males, I think. While not the norm, long hair guys are a social niche these days and seem to have a place in the world. We really didn't in the '70s.
By contrast the 1970s were probably better for long haired guys especially in school then the 1960s. they weren't still kicking kids out for long hair like they did during the previous decade.
you didn't have to get a 1950s haircut anymore. many kids were wearing it much longer on average.
also, as I already pointed out News anchors/reporters such as Tom Brokaw and Gelraldo Rievera were wearing it much longer than would have been allowed in that business during the previous decade.
in regards to women, I strongly disagree. based on photos from the 1970s in comparison to now more women probably have longer hair today than they did during the 1970s or even 1980s.
Take a look:
http://www.salisburypa.com/class1967.html
http://www.salisburypa.com/class1977.html
like night and day!
Ah, 1977, the year I graduated high school. Most guys had hair my length, that is, as long as my Mom would allow. A few had very long hair. I'm shooting for "very long" now.
I still remember my Mom's firm parameters: in front, not in the eyes. at the sides, not below my earlobes. In the back, not longer than just touching my collar. Those parameters plus my thick hair resulted in the amorphous mop you see on a lot of guys in the 1977 picture. It seems a lot of moms were colluding together on this.
At age 56 I made a new years resolution to break free of that. And yes, my Mom is still alive, and yes, I have far exceeded all of her parameters, and yes, she hates it!
Too bad, Mom.
I suppose it depends where you were. As a child of the 60s in England I probably had a fringe before the Beatles did, and yet people called that style long. It wasn't of course. Mind you, crew cuts were either an American thing or something a Victorian prisoner had.
Moving on, the standard men's hair style in the 70s was shoulder length. We thought that was long too, but it wasn't. I grew mine to shoulder length circa 1972.
I only really decided to grow my hair really long circa 1980-something. This was in response to a comment from a female co-tenant that it was only 'long for a guy'. She was right of course, and I took it as a challenge.
However, I still got mild flak for having long hair for a very long time after that. Still do, though ironically it all comes from either my wife or my mother! Their reasons differ. My mum just doesn't like long hair past shoulders on anyone of either gender. My wife, OTOH, thinks my hair is past it's prime, and I shouldn't have it this long any more.
IME the 70s was an easy time to have shoulder length hair, because, for example, if someone wanted to hire for a job they would have had a really hard time finding any candidates with hair shorter than that. And yet, some still wished to share their opinion that they didn't like male hair even that long. There is always someone, isn't there?
There was this bald guy I worked with in the 80s who was constantly carping about my hair. Mind you, (a) he was bald; and (b) he was on the exact same pay grade as me, although quite a bit older, so in no position to affect my employment.
Later on I had a boss who said I ought to get a haircut, but when I declined he said it was 'just a suggestion', and it never came up again. I think that falls along the lines of not looking trendy enough, although why employers think that is something they can make suggestions on, I'm not sure.
