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In your opinion, who has it worse in society: men with long hair or men with short hair? By "worse", I mean who faces the most social ostracism, humiliation, or "peer pressure"? On average, are people with buzzcuts or shaved heads looked down on more than people with long hair?
Twenty-five years ago, in, say, 1978, would you have answered these questions the same way? If not, what changed? Just curious.
I think you'd need to go back a couple of hundred years to see a significant difference in attitudes. Short hair has been the convention since Victorian times and longhairs are seen as odd or rebellious at best.
Where I live, mostly I am left to it, but like most longhairs I have been on the receiving end of unwelcome discrimination. I think you'd have your work cut out finding a shorthair who can say the same...
"Your hair is too short! Are you ever going to let it grow!?" Good luck hearing that anytime soon...
Dream on.... :¬)
Unless you join a rockband maybe?
I think it's much worse for long haired men, in fact, much MUCH worse! I think men with shaved heads/buzzcuts are becoming more and more accepted, due mostly to societal laziness and trends (Vin Diesel anybody?) as well as the gradual decline of the Neo-Nazi movement (most people no longer associate shaved heads with Nazism, unless it's obvious). I'm constantly harassed by co-workers, family members and strangers, and I don't even consider my hair long yet! If you can find any "baldie" or short hair who faces the same discrimination based only on hair length, I'd call you a liar!
I come from the UK, and I think things are changing over here. The only predudice I ever got was mainly from my Mum while I was in the awkward stage, but since I reached a nice ponytail, people either compliment it or pass no comment. Over here we seem to be able to go about our own business without too much external influence. I think a shaved head is probably thought of as worse here - certainly where I come from (near Birmingham). Over the last year or so I have also been seeing a much greater number of guys with long hair, and male models in shop windows with longer hairstyles. I think things are changing for the better here.
Nowadays, definitely men with long hair.
B
That's obvious: short hairs. You don't even have to think about that one. In '78, yes, there was a larger ratio of longhairs to shorthairs than now, but short hair has always been socially accepted, at least in America in the 20th century.