new thread
I'm currently working on an essay about men and long hair and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for what I should write about?
Give us some context:
1) what are you writing the essay for?
2) who is the audience?
3) what are your ideas so far?
Robert
It's going to be for a new section on my website that has stuff on leftwing issues. The article's about our rights and other stuff. I started going on about how I suffer abuse because of my hair, but need more stuff to comment on
How about start off with the little known qualities and attributes of a long hair. Talk about how it takes patience to grow your hair (maybe offer an analogy). Also how about the general attitudes that people with long hair display. Talk about how politically/culturaly/socialy varying long hairs are (right wingers/left wingers, christians, buddhists, etc) - just like the 'other' people. A human face in your essay would definately be the right way to go. IMO
A topic you might consider important is the cultural significance of long hair - countries where most men would have long hair, religions where it is forbidden to cut hair, places where how long hair is worn has a significant status... stuff like that.
Also historical longhairs. Maybe not even individuals, as I know it was significant to Native Americans and also in ancient Chinese civilisation... I think the Queen's guards were not allowed to cut their hair, and to do so was shameful.
wolfeyes
Long hair isn't just a leftwing issue. Long hair can be libertarian in not allowing others to tell you how to have your hair. It can be conservative in religious traditions. It can be authoritarian in some historic cases where kings and emperors had or required long hair.
I think wolfeyes has a good idea about writing about cases in history where long hair was important.
I think maybe you should figure out what you want to write about before you start.
Rule 1 of writting on topical, political or personal issues have a plan... get your ideas clear in your head before you begin, otherwise you end up with a rant.
I agree with Sorted. Your response to my question already sounds like a rant in the making! Now, I tend to be left of center in most of my ideas and views, so I tend like things liberal. However, you can present leftward ideas in the positive, otherwise you might take on the "victim" role. Not helpful to anyone's cause, whatever it is.
An interesting query: who has a right to damage or alter my body? And, who gets to decide how my body is altered? Most Americans, right or left, would be quick to say: no one gets to damage or alter your body, and only you get to decide how your body is altered.
And yet, isn't hair a part of our bodies? And aren't we told all the time how we should alter that part of our body for x reason?
There's an essay. Provoke people into deeper reflection.
Robert
Maybe you could compare the politics of various countries with their laws re male long hair.
For example, there are only a very few countries where it is illegal for men to have long hair (Singapore, Albania, Kazakhstan). Obviously, you would characterise those states as the worst sort of fascists (ROTFL!).
At the other extreme, the EU has protection of self expression, which arguably should guarantee the right to long hair, although it hasn't really been tested. Europe, with a capital E, is obviously liberal.
The US is an interesting case. The EOC have said that they regard the statute as drafted as protecting male long hair on a basis of sexual equality, but they also state that the courts have not upheld this, and that the issue should be regarded as dead. You could get lots of mileage discussing how a bourgeois judicial system interprets liberal laws.
So what would happen if you or I or half the people on this board turned up in Singapore? Would we be subject to a summary head shaving?
I could believe this might be the case in Kazakhstan, but I'd wonder how a relatively civilised place like Singapore would enforce such a law especially with so many Western Tourists passing through there on the way to Australia.
I don't know. You might have to stay on the plane? I do know that it used to be the case that some people wore short-haired wigs to visit Singapore. Obviously that wouldn't fool immigration, so they must have accepted that. I haven't heard anything about it recently.
