In last week’s Scene section of the Emerald, reporter Andrew Hitz took on “alt cuts” (Heinous hairstyle takes alt too far,” ODE, May 19). His primary criticism of these hairstyles is that they make the wearer unattractive.
“I could see some ugo middle schooler, confused about the meaning of life, doing something like this, but this woman looked like a respectable young hottie,” he writes, referencing one of the women sporting such a style. He goes on to flippantly reference feminism as a possible reason for these trends.
What’s at issue here goes deeper than Hitz’s shallow analysis, though. Men with androgynous haircuts and women who, as he describes, look like little boys, aren’t confused. They’re making a point. They’re subverting normative ideas about gender. Men don’t need crew cuts to be masculine, just as women don’t need to look like Barbie dolls to be considered female. His presentation of gender as a male-female binary is, in itself, troubling. Look outside. People-watch for 10 minutes and it becomes clear that gender expression operates on a spectrum that runs the gambit from stereotypical fraternity man through androgyny to the preened and powdered lady. Many folks register at a different place on this continuum each day.
Empowerment isn’t about looking attractive to men. Empowerment is about reclaiming the power to make decisions, including the decision to express your gender however you want to. There’s nothing powerful, or cool, about pandering to an antiquated vision of sexual attractiveness.
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