Snip Snip

Snip snip went my femininity. Snip snip went my locks. Snip snip went the beauty, chains and all. It seemed ridiculous. $70 for a haircut? Maybe I should have paid better attention during economics. Learned a few more things so that I could have conjured a salty and sassy retort about the American free market economy, but I had nothing, so I payed the woman $70. She rubbed my scalp with shampoo that smelled so nice it almost, almost, made me think the price wasn’t a complete rip off. I thought about what had brought me to this moment, iPhone in hand—loaded with pages of screenshotted photos of gorgeous models with haircuts that could only be described as blunt. It looked nothing like the silken blonde or brunette, butt-length flow everyone seemed to be striving for at school. Or even what I had just a year ago, with my artificial ginger-brown hair tumbling down well past my shoulders.

My thoughts whisked me back into a movie theater from a few days before, where I was sitting next to a boy, a nice boy, one with a good taste in music, one who was currently making a move on me and sweet lordy jesus I am so uncomfortable and why doesn’t he get the message and why can’t I be more aggressive about my no and why am I wired that my priority right now is not my well being but his ego? Why? Why? Why?

I needed strength, and in that moment my femininity was my enemy. My bred docility had put me in danger. The societal lessons of what came with being female had bound me mute, had told me time and time again that I came second, until I felt uncomfortable being comfortable. I said no and nothing happened, but not before I questioned everything about myself. So I went and destroyed my second most outwardly display of my femininity, my hair. You see, I wasn’t quite ready to have a double mastectomy just to find inner peace.

I felt the buzzer on my neck. It felt highly inappropriate there, completely out of place and yet liberating. With every new fuzzy patch on my head, I felt like a changed woman. Strong, confident, unbound to societal norms. Looking back it’s almost comical how simple I thought the solution was, but in that moment nothing could stop me, well except the fact that I was super hungry. So, $70 dollars poorer, but filled with more hope than ever, I stepped back out into the world in search of lunch.

I sat in the back table in a sandwich store. With Toni Morrison as my preacher and a bowl of clam chowder and a Cuban sub as my daily bread, I sat reading, living my life, scratching my neck occasionally from the bits of hair that hadn’t been dusted off. I wasn’t sitting provocatively, I wasn’t wearing thigh highs and pasties, I was bulky in a sweater and my new liberator haircut, but that doesn’t matter, no, not one bit, because to blame what happened on the victim on the basis of their attire would be slut shaming, and it makes no difference whether I was naked or dressed like a nun. What matters was the stare that pierced through even the words of the Pulitzer-enlightened. The clicks of the tongue that made me feel worth no more than a prized cow at an auction. I looked up just as the busboy entered the back of the restaurant, looked up just in time to not miss his wink and a smoochy-smoochy lip. My head reeled; I felt confused, scared. Was I in danger? Was this catcalling? Am I supposed to be offended or flattered? Why do I feel something that cannot be named? A melting sickness, a fear and disgust, of shame that I’m worth nothing more than clicks by a passing figure but wait I’m supposed to feel flattered, why was I not able to brush this off as a compliment as I had been taught. Didn’t I just chop off all my hair so this would end? My head whirled so I tried to remain calm and returned to Morrison’s words. “Catfish was popping grease in the pan and they saw themselves scoop German potato salad onto the plate. Cobbler oozing purple syrup colored their te-“ THERE! IT HAPPENED AGAIN. Winker entered the back double doors of the restaurant performing his signature move and my efforts to find liberation felt as worthless as my hair that would be sitting at the bottom of the trashcan by this time.

Snip snip went my femininity and with it my objectification, or so I had hoped.

I thought back to the words the woman had said as she skillfully pruned my head. “Now, you still want to look feminine.” She said as she winked at me though to say “you don’t have to tell me dear, I know exactly what you want.”

“No.” I said shaking my head. She looked back surprised. “I want it off.” And so, snip snip went my hair, but to my complete and utter disappointment, not much else.