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Does anybody know if there has been any research on the history of long hair from a gender perspective?
Why is it socially accepted that women have long hair, while in men long hair is normally rejected?
What's the history of that strage situation? Has it always been like that? What theories exist about this issue?
I think the reason for that is cultural rather than biological, but I don't know why in so many cultures men are "ought" to have short hair.
I think that during midle-ages many men had long hair. When was the moment in which long hair in men stopped to be acceptable?
Indeed, and before, too... and it continued to be a normal thing for many years after the middle ages as well.
Now that´s a good question...
Hell, if you think about it, it´s ridiculous. Hair grows naturally, ergo it´s not an UNNATURAL behavior! I can´t believe such a simple fact is so hard to understand for some people...
Got that right, Wishmaster!!
--Rick
of course NOT - look to the stone age & to the middle age ...
especially the middle age was a 'age of honour and respect' to each other and nearly every man had long hair in this age ...
also the kings (generally the rulers) had long hair - it seems that shorthaired guys were rarely in this age and men with a long mane gained more respect than others (that is my op :)
relating to this topics (honour, respect & hair) this was a great age and i like watching middle-age shows or middle-age films ...
how interesting would it be if we would have a longhaired president - but due to too much conservative ppl i think this will never be the case and here we come to the next point ...
only a speculation but i think most people think that men with long hair are tramps/junkies/criminals etc., so alot of ppl don't like guys with long hair ...
maybe 'cos people saw a lot of longhaired men around the 60's and alot of them smoked weed (imho i don't think thats bad at all) ... but this is only a SPECULATION ...
after that a longhaired guy was rarely seen and if seen he was assented to be a criminal or junkie ...
fortunately i see more and more guys with long hair here and i think this is a great evolution :)
people who categorize other people by their clothes, hairstyle don't have any respect from me ...
they live in their little, conservative worlds and it doesn't disturb me if such creatures are ill, suffer or die ...
let it grow and flow,
ALH
Hi Marc
I've found a few links on google. Just tip 4 words : history long hair men
A few results:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair
http://www.ukhairdressers.com/history%20of%20hair.asp
http://www.dismalworld.com/world_tour/north_korea_and_long_hair.php
http://www.crystalinks.com/hair2.html
http://www.hairarchives.com/private/1920s.htm
http://www.hairfinder.com/articles2005/longhairmen.htm
http://www.costumes.org/history/100pages/18THHAIR.HTM
This one seems interesting
http://www.spiritualabuse.org/hair/history.html
Lupulus
Early picture of an older man from Britanny taken in 1900
Hello everyone,
Even in the middle ages and renaissance there has been periods of longer hair and short hair for males: Ex, in the 1500"s hair was shorter, often round the ears like today's styles, with beards and ruffled "clown" collars.
In the 1600's to 1660's was a gradual return to longer hair, at one point one "extreme hairstyle" was "in", it was the lovelock, which is one lock of hair on the left, allowed to grow longer than the rest, usually tied with a bow. That was to the period what the mullit is to today.
As we approach the 1660's wig-makers were making money over men's male pattern baldness, and somehow everybody, bald, or not had to wear a wig, especially in the king's court. In Versailles, like some restaurants with dress codes lent a cheap jacket to jeans and sneaker travellers with money, they rented a cheap wig to those who had an appointment.
It seems long hair went out of style, gradually throughout the Industrial age, and especially after the French Revolution. In the 1800's hair gradually went from shoulder-length to round the ears in the Victorian times. By the time photography was invented, few photographs of long-haired men went around.
In the 1800's to the early 20th century, before world war one, in Brittany France, men wore their hair quite long and I found some photographs in a book about Brittany Costumes. I often go to that region of France, because I have lots of friends there. It is also a milieu for celtic music, and like Quebec, there are a lot of men with long hair, even today.
In periods of the Middle ages, there were times when the Church cared more about male hair length, and at times predicators made fire and brimstone sermons to keep men in check. I do feel that Male Pattern baldness is behind influences towards short hair, and when less fortunate men are in power, they can impose their style on others out of jealousy. There was one king, who accidentally burnt his hair with a torch used for lighting, and imposed that all the men in his court cut their hair short. I do not have the reference, but it was in a book called "Fashions in Hair" easily found in a public or college library.
In that same book, is a copy of a long textual diatribe by pastor "Thomas Hall" called "The Lothesomeness of Long Haire", in which this puritan knocks down longhairs of his time as vain, and ungodly.
Have a nice day,
Georges in Montreal.
What Georges said about the history of long hair and how MPB might have been a contributing factor to the decline of male long hair is very interesting info. I learnt a few things there.
Another thing i believe that led to the decline, particulary in the 20th century, was WW1 and WW2. Soldiers were forced to have mandatory 'crew cuts' to ensure cleanliness, sanity, low maintainence on the battlefield. It would be a bit problematic having long hair and being inside rat infested trenches with disease, thick mud, rain, and all the other crap. Short hair is just easier to maintain and in these instances was required.
These men would have went many months without showering and imagine what your long hair would look like after it has been through hell and back! The typical short cut military look has been the hairstyle of choice for millions of guys now, not for me, sorry.
Long hair made a comeback during the hippie era of the late 60s through the better part of the 70s. Trends come and go.
I heard that short hair became the accepted norm during mass migration to the Americas and elsewhere. Often there were far more men than women. Headlice became very common and men cut their hair in the mistaken belief that headlice don't like short hair.
I'm guessing the military had a part too.
Maybe pirates liked long hair so seamen cut their hair to be different? Pure guesswork.
What Georges said about the history of long hair and how MPB might have been a contributing factor to the decline of male long hair is very interesting info. I learnt a few things there.
Another thing i believe that led to the decline, particulary in the 20th century, was WW1 and WW2. Soldiers were forced to have mandatory 'crew cuts' to ensure cleanliness, sanity, low maintainence on the battlefield. It would be a bit problematic having long hair and being inside rat infested trenches with disease, thick mud, rain, and all the other crap. Short hair is just easier to maintain and in these instances was required.
These men would have went many months without showering and imagine what your long hair would look like after it has been through hell and back! The typical short cut military look has been the hairstyle of choice for millions of guys now, not for me, sorry.
Long hair made a comeback during the hippie era of the late 60s through the better part of the 70s. Trends come and go.
It seems it is hard to have a definitive answer on this.
In as much as the recorded history of spans around 5000 years, we can find examples of both long and short hair for men in different cultures. The Chinese men for the longest time wore the queue of hair usually braided hanging down the back. Pictures of samurai warriors in Japan are shown with top-knot type bun styles, suggesting at least length of hair enough to do this. We see in the Persian bas-relief carvings at Persepolis men with curly beards and shoulder length curls. Some Greek statues and art show men with longer hair. The Minoan boxers fresco found at Knossos (not sure) shows two boys boxing with mid back locks.
There is even a line in Roman writings (can't remember who?)that talks of a bottle of Falernian (wine) 'bottled in the days when the consuls wore thier hair long.'
Medieval paintings show longer haired men, Prince Kasimir of Poland and several royals shown in paintings and murals in Neuschwanstein Castle in Bayern, Germany are illustrative of this.
Now in as much as 5000 years of history we know, man's time on earth, from the time he evolved, was created, or whatever it is you believe, is much longer than this, any way you look at it.
We do not know the styles and ways of 10,000, 20,000 or more years ago. It is thought that humans were very much in the form they are today, even that far back. I imagine there wasn't any body telling those guys who walked across the Bering Straight into North America during the Ice Age that they could not come explore the new continent if their hair was touching their collar.
I imagine a lot of the styles and customs, for anything, hair or otherwise, come from inertia, unwillingness to rock the boat, power structures (fear of unknown), and a myriad of things get us up to where we are today. I read somewhere that all red hair came from a single genetic mutation thousands of years ago in only one person. If we could know the real way a thing got started, we would no doubt look upon it in a whole different way, and let it go, let it change, and know that nothing's going to happen to you if a black cat walks in front of you. Who put up the first Christmas tree? Who got the first buzz cut? Who decided to get married and be yoked to one mate for the rest of their life?
Things we know about over 5000 years old history (or pre-history as history starts being dated as such with writings we found, which seem to be not much older than 5000 years old) are scarce. I tend to go with the myths of Atlantis and the Mu continent being extremely technological places that mysteriously vanished (or are not yet discovered, as much as you could think that it's hard to hide a futuristic metropolis into the sea, we certainly lack the technology to even go near it or to do extensive exploration around it. What we did with ocean exploration is to barely scratch the surface and put it on a world map.
And now for the tinfoil hat crowd here is another of my views when I am feeling blue.
I feel that the extinction of long hair in the end of the seventies was brought about by a media campaign: In the early eighties, on TV all the bad guys or a lot of them had long hair on cop shows. Lots of silly shows had titles like "Hair today, gone tomorrow", and you saw some guy having his lovely locks sheared in public.
I feel that television and movies in the eighties did a lot to make long hair look bad, until the late 80's.
The economy's demands may also have something to do with making long hair acceptable, or demonizing it.
In the seventies, and during the dot-com boom, one saw a lot of longhairs on television seen in a positive light, like bright computer engeneers. In the early eighties, longhairs were seen as mugshots going to jail. A lot of this exposure led to the public being wary of longhairs and people who are just different.
In the age of internet, DVD's, it is harder to play 'simon says' with fashions, since one can choose what he watches if he only watches DVD's, and is less exposed to crappy comercials laden with stereotypes.
I used to believe, in the past that subliminal messages were sent through radio or TV to tell men to cut their hair in the seventies. As I grew up, I found out that it was more complex than that. People are simply sheepish and follow trends blindly.
Now that cats are seen as vectors of bird flu, all it takes is a charismatic guy, with short hair, and a fashionable suit and a convincing enough voice to tell people to burn their cats alive. People will do it because the guy is credible with his looks and speech.
Have a nice day,
Georges in Montreal
Great links in the other replies.
Short hair on men is a relatively recent phenomenon. Trends come and go. I view longhairs like us as simply being ahead of our time.
Back to the Future
Ed
in men long hair is normally rejected?
Long hair obviously takes MORE TIME to care for; society has
always 'allowed' women more time to spend on 'beautifying'
themselves: make up, hair, nails, etc., etc.
But 'society' expects a man to look 'natural' and NOT to spend
lots of time in front of mirrors.
Now, although guys, nowadays, spend more time on their looks (earrings, piercings, facial hair of all shapes) things like nails and make-up
are still a bit off limits (even though they make take place 'behind the scenes').
I've seen long hair interpreted in two very basic ways:
1. That the guy is spending way too much time on his hair and looks.
2. Or, that perhaps the long-haired man has dirty hair and is lazy. (That's why
a longhair must be very careful to have clean and trimmed nails, no dandruff, must smell 'clean' and should wear clothes that is clean-looking. etc. Okay, you may get a 'pass' on one of those things but that's it.)
Why just the other day I heard this radio talk show host
describing some protesters as "long-haired, lice-infested hippy types."
Well, basically that's what my interpretation of the things I have seen.
Thanks a lot for all your comments and those great links.
I agree with all of you. The “acceptability” of men’s long hair has varied along time as society changes as well as its standards and paradigms.
I would add another thought. I think that Internet, blogs, Web 2, forums like this one, are changing those silly paradigms since people are stopping to solely rely on television and mass media. It’s like what Georges said about DVDs. Now we have greater chances to choose what to see, what to read, what to think.
If you have ideas that are different to many other people’s, but you realize that there are other people in the world who don’t follow the all-accepted stereotypes, you become aware of the so many different possibilities to live with diversity.
I think that Internet can contribute not only to the revalorization of long hair in men, but also to the revalorization of many different attributes of social life that had been gradually disappearing.
Wishing you all the best,
Marc
Throughout most of the history of the Chinese, all men had long hair, especially the higher officials. Only monks have no hair. In fact in the ching dynasty it is considered a dishonor to have his locks cut. So much that cutting locks is used as a form of punishment for out of line official (usually when they are being kicked out)
