Oops, I did it again!

Hello humans!

Thank you for your visit to my blog.

I have a big revelation this week, I have shaved my head… again…

The 1st time I did it was early 2015 and I really liked the experience, but I didn’t repeat it. The reason for this was mainly because at that point in time I was thinking about looking for a new job soon and unfortunately your appearance matters.

I never want my appearance to interfere with my skills and knowledge and distract the interviewer. I want the interviewer to focus on my CV, on my answers, but we all know other soft details are taken into consideration, how you enter a room, how you shake a hand, your tone of voice. This is how humans are built and we have to learn how to work with this, but because of the job search I decided to grow back my hair.

Now I am in a much more comfortable job situation and I am not planning to hunt for a new job soon. I work in a place where my colleagues know me, they know my work ethics, respect me for my input and quality of my work. My appearance now is a side variable, if I have long hair or a buzz cut, they don’t care.

I had been thinking about doing it for some time now, but I hesitated. The reason I hesitated, which I don’t like to admit, but the honest truth is that I don’t want to deal with other people’s reactions to my shaved head.

I had a few experiences in my life where I changed my hair length dramatically and every time I did it people had very expansive reactions. Unintentionally you kind of become the center of attention, because other people around are making such a fuss, but you are just trying to move on with your life. Majority of the people do it without thinking, this thing that a woman’s appearance and especially a woman’s hair is for public appreciation is a patriarchal lens that is very pervasive, so they think it is Ok to publicly comment on your hair change.

Women’s hair length has been studied and affects men’s attraction, we are biologically built to try to determine a woman’s age and fertility, by her hair length. To this, add thousands of years where women’s hair length was kept solely for men’s pleasure. There is science behind it and there is a patriarchy in place that still pushes all to think women’s appearance belongs to the public eye. To this I say “bollocks!”, it’s my head, my hair, I own it.

To make this clear, it is OK if someone says “wow, you’ve cut your hair, interesting choice” and then moves on. Another thing was, which was what I’ve experienced myself, is to have a work manager shouting across the office “OMG WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”. This obviously made other colleagues look up to see what was happening and chiming in on my new haircut. Even though the majority made positive comments, I felt I was a science project, where everyone was looking from the outside and making a remark, almost as if I was not there. That made me feel uncomfortable.

So yes, I took a few weeks to prepare myself for society’s comments on my buzz cut, but I’ve done it and that is what it matters.

I am happy, I really like it, it is obviously super easy in the morning to get ready. This look allows me to play with the gender binary. As expressed before, I like to navigate the female and male world, I like to look ambiguous sometimes. Sometimes I want to look more masculine, sometimes I like to explore my femininity and this haircut allows me to explore both ends.

Also to be very honest, I look F***** good!

I am Franca and this is personal.