Buzz Cut!
Women are catching up! I’ve been shaving my head for ten years so when I came across an article in Glamour Magazine regarding a new trend of young women deciding to sport buzz cuts, I wanted to share their thoughts—nine women who took the clippers to task and found just what I did the first time—liberation!
I wanted to shave my head ever since I saw Irish singer-songwriter, Sinéad O'Connor for the first time in 1986. She radiated confidence. Her beautiful facial expressions shone as she sang. Her eyes sparkled and everything about her from her voice to her overall image was stunning and different. Her simplicity appealed to me, accentuated by her buzz cut—a hair trend popularized mostly only by men. However, for O’Connor, her trademark hair didn’t fade with the next fad. Neither did my desire to cut off my long dark hair. However, an unhealthy need to please the people in my life made me keep to my traditional look and all things feminine when all I desired was to expose my soft butch personality. Not until many years later and a lot of baby steps in manifesting my true self-identity did I take the final step with the clippers.
When I wrote my novel, Paradise, which is inspired by my life the journey towards the freedom to shave my head was key to understanding my ultimate survival. Below is a brief excerpt in which the main character, Claire (me) explains to her granddaughter (Sophie) what it was like going to the barber for the first time.
I can still remember the clipper moving across my scalp, cutting a path down my head. I was mesmerized by the wads of hair sliding down the barber cape onto the floor. They created a halo of gray around the chair, and I experienced a lightness of being so pure.” I pulled up the distant memory of Sister Angeline’s shaved head and not for the first time contemplated the impact on my hair choice.
“You went to a regular barber?”
“Sure, why?”
“Weren’t there all guys? You weren’t embarrassed they’d think you were…strange or something?”
“Are you kidding? I loved the idea of knocking on the door of their world. I wanted to shout out, look who’s coming in! Up until when I started shaving my own head whenever I went, I’d get the same high of being a woman in a space traditionally reserved for men, especially when the barber used the straightedge to clean my neck. I totally morphed psychologically into a guy and I felt my insides settle into a kind of rightness like this is who I was meant to be.”
“Mamo,” she said, her tone judgmental. “You want to be like…a guy?”
I tried to hide my frown so as not to embarrass her. She was figuring things out and I’d rather she vocalize any negative bias with me so I could attempt an explanation. “It would be fine if I did.” I paused to arrange my thoughts. Writing my book had me examining all sorts of preconceived ideas about my nature. “Truth is, buttercup, I’m still working on a lot of stuff in my head—”
“Still? You’re…”
I chuckled. “Old?”
“No offense.”
“None taken.” I’d been asking myself the same thing: why hadn’t I been more tuned in to my needs, and a whole lot braver to express them? “Sexuality is fluid and complicated, and sometimes just downright messy in the very best way.” I leaned in and gently bumped her shoulder. “Remember, Sophie, you can be whatever you want not only in your future profession, but inside where it counts.”
