new thread
I have had a site on long hair styles for men (see link below) for almost a year now and the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Does anyone know if a study has recently been done on peoples attitude towards this subject?
The comments and e-mail that I have received suggests to me that it is time for society to take the blinders off and recognize the fact that both men and women prefer men to wear long hair. Overall comments at my site were 3 to 1 in favor of it. Women prefered long haired men by a 2 to 1 margin. Men on the other hand supported the idea by a 5 to 1 ratio.
While this is not a scientific study, I do think that it represents a major change in the way that people view men with long hair and it is about time that society recognizes this fact.
Bill
i doubt the respondants to your page represent a cross-section of society... those bothering to respond at all are likely to look upon long hair on men with at least an open mind. disapproval is often expressed with silence.
it has long been time for society to take off its blinders, but people in general tend to look at things outside the 'norm' with disfavor. there was a time that i too yearned for the world to remove its blinders, but now i'm not so sure...
first, i enjoy being in the minority. a society that accepts long-haired men will count more of them (us) among its numbers. that being the case, i (we) wouldn't stand out as much. let the masses shear their heads and scorn us because we're better-looking.
it would be better that people deal with their hang-ups with race and gender... people don't generally choose their skin color or sex. us guys DID choose not to cut our hair. my decision to grow mine took into account the fact that i'd stand out from the crowd and draw comments & stares.
when i see a guy with long hair i see someone who has the strength of character to be different in the face of disapproval; someone who doesn't let the pathetic herd dictate how he looks. remove the taboos on long-haired men and our brotherhood will be dissolved.
I did not choose my longhair identity any more than I chose my sexual orientation. I have always wanted to be longhaired from my earliest memory, and I've read that from some others here. I never achieved internal peace until I let my hair grow out. For me and others like me, it mattered not in the least how much others around us were longhairs or not.
Besides, choice is not the issue here. If so, discrimination against religion would be just fine. The issue is that something so dear to one's identity that internal peace cannot be achieved without it should be accorded respect.
Bill
correct bill... and those who choose to express disrespect are showing what bigoted losers they are. they are doing me the favor of showing their true colors up front... so i need not get to know them personally. any lowlife willing to make disparaging comments about my hair insults himself, not me. so what if i'm in the minority; i rather enjoy that status.
make no mistake about it, discrimination based on anything is WRONG. i certainly don't condone gay-bashing, religious persecution, OR discrimination in the name of religion. i highly doubt that God would condone it.
i guess my point was (and still is)- you can't force society to become enlightened; there are always going to be people on the other side of the long hair issue. if someone is willing to open his mouth and remove all doubt as to the content of his character, then more power to him.
I disagree with this. There are all kinds of legitimate descrimination. When I get on a plane, I want the pilot to be someone who knows how to land it properly. I want my lawyer to be someone who passed the bar examination. Sure these are obvious examples, but I think there is a gray line there somewhere.
ahhhh,yes... and we've introduced the grays into the palette of this discussion. indeed being discriminating about which surgeon performs your next major surgery has merit. it's called being selective. the basic denial of someone his or her fair measure of equitability because you don't like the way he or she looks is the connotation of 'discrimination' i'm after. my apologies that you found my use of the term to be ambiguous.
Discrimination is something we do every day, all of us, and it's very valid. We constantly discriminate for and against people on any number of criteria, the most important of which should be character. How else can one choose friends, business contacts, even our idols?
It is only when one uses some irrelevant factor, such as long hair or gender, to judge character that discrimination becomes wrong. It is meant to improve the quality of the way we live, and that process is circumvented when we don't invest the time and effort to actually use those filters which were created to give us good judgement.
Yes, some physical attributes are indicitive of certain ways of thinking and of certain aspects of character, but it is not good form to judge universally based on what is usually such a limited sample.
precisely my point.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that dislike of long hair on men is becoming a class thing. There are plenty of blue collar workers with long hair, and also people in the arts, etc., but relatively few doctors , lawyers, accountants, etc. This is rather different than the attitude back in the 60's and 70's, when many blue collar workers hated long hair and the whole political agenda that they thought went with it. Nowdays, long hair doesn't carry so much political bagage, but being a conformist still helps you make your way to the top of our society. A sufficiently brillant person can still break out of this box, but it is not easy.
I know Austin is a bit unique in this way, but there is no shortage of longhaired professionals here. In fact, the last time I went to the clinic, the doctor on staff was a grey-haired man with a pony tail over a foot long.
Bill, I am not aware of any scientific study--although one may exist. As a scientist, however, I must tell you not to draw any conclusions from the comments on your page except that of the people who access it and send you comments the preponderance like long hair. The sample is so biased that no other conclusions can be drawn from it.
I love long hair--that's why I am on this page and that's why I visited your page. The buzzcut lovers probably would not be visiting you. Comprende?
I agree that the site attracts people that like long hair but what I find remarkable about the comments is the lack of negative remarks. That is the reason that I think that a professional poll should be done on the subject. While a small negative result is not reason enough to presume that people like the idea it does show a major change of attitude in the past twenty-five years.
Bill