About the project
Greetings! I’ve created this site to be a discussion forum, free-form documentary project, and home for the many stories we can tell about our cultural, social, and personal experiences with hair.
As a woman, I’ve had a complex relationship with my hair, both the hair on my head and the hair on my body. As I grew up, I learned that, for women, body hair is fraught with meaning; normally, we shave it off (or pluck, or wax, or whatever we can do to get rid of it). Some of us have more of it, others less. Women can encounter criticism or questions when they choose to shave their heads, or wear close-cropped styles. Certain professions have attempted to require hairstyles of various lengths or styles. Women who lose their hair as a result of illness sometimes face the loss of their hair with sadness or shame. And some of the bearded ladies among us historically found carnival audiences mesmerized by their gender-bending, though sporting facial hair in public is still stigmatized (and often treated medically or with techniques such as laser hair removal).
I was in my teens when I demanded my mom allow me to start shaving my legs. I don’t recall why, exactly, I felt so compelled to rid myself of body hair, but I remember feeling slightly ashamed when one of my doctors commented on the dark, thick hair on my arms. I’ve often struggled with being slightly hirsute, all the while resenting the weekly, or sometimes even daily, ritual of shaving.
To get this collaborative project started, I’ve posted clips from two interviews I conducted as part of my Hair Stories documentary project. The first is a short profile of an artist named Brenna Murphy, whom I met in Chapel Hill as she was preparing to move out of state. She is a hair artist; that is, she creates prints and art installations using her own, real hair. The second interview is with Pam Spaulding, a blogger whose site, pamshouseblend.com, has garnered praise and awards for its focus on lgbt issues. She has blogged about her experiences growing up as an African-American woman during a time when she was expected to straighten her hair with hot irons. Hair as political statement is an issue that is relatively overlooked in our media, but I’d wager a guess that it’s one of the first characteristics we notice about people (and use to categorize them).
As the site evolves, I hope to elicit discussion about the cultural and social significance of our hair stories, and to generate a broad analysis of how our hair shapes our identities, including gender, ethnicity, class, or sexual orientation.
Tell me your story!
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ABOUT THE “BLOGUMENTARY” ARTIST
My name is Heather Barnes, and I am a documentary art-maker living in North Carolina. This site is an extension of a documentary project I began in 2005. I started with the idea that I would interview women about their hair stories; that is, their recollections, thoughts, and experiences with hair. The stories might relate to shaving, first haircuts, having long or short hair, losing their hair, hair and ethnicity, stigma about body hair (either too much or too little), and the cultural and social significance of hair in all its manifestations. After interviewing three women with three distinct stories, I decided to create a web-based project that would solicit stories from women about their experiences with their hair, provide a discussion forum to discuss those stories, and offer a means of connection for people to talk about hair as a cultural object.
Please feel free to contact me if you’d like more information.
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1.
Carol | August 21, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Hi. I am a child of the 60s. Amend that, I am a Jewish child of the 60s and like many of Middle Eastern descent, have dark, thick and curly hair.
Most of my young life, a girl/woman was supposed to have ruler straight hair. Oh, I was ugly because my hair was curly. I tried every product known, home and beauty parlor, including ironing. Nothing would make my hair ruler straight like the girls in Seventeen magazine. I tried getting it cut very short, hoping to cut off the curl. That made it curl more.
My sister went further; she tried to bleach her hair with peroxide. It turned orange.
Then I became a hippie at around 14 and decided to just let my hair grow long and wild.
When I was in about my junior year in high school, the style changed. Now, all the girls who for years had said I was ugly because my hair was curly were getting perms so their hair would look like mind.
Years later, I saw a film of a Malcolm X speech, where he talked about white racists lying in the broiling sun so their skin would turn dark. I am white, but I totally identified with what he said.
2.
popin-in | August 21, 2007 at 3:42 pm
oh my goodness ~ i have so many hair stories it would take years to compile them all. think frazzled, frizzy, jew hair and you get the picture. i’m almost 50 and it hasn’t gotten any better ~ only worse.
3.
Elayne Riggs | August 21, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Just a thought – can you post your email address somewhere on this for people who may wish to share hair stories but would rather remain anonymous or not have their stories in a blog’s comment section?
4.
kayare | August 21, 2007 at 5:58 pm
I have the good fortune to be multi-racial. In my case, it means that besides having awesome brown skin, I’m also stuck with a curly mop that isn’t white curly hair, nor black kinky hair, nor anything like anyone else I’ve ever seen. If you’re still looking for hair stories, I’ve definitely got plenty about how I’ve been negotiating my hair in a society that doesn’t know what to do with hair like mine.
5.
bailey_comus | August 21, 2007 at 7:00 pm
wow, hairstyles & attitudes.
i had really dreadful hair as a teenager. i was trying really hard to make my wavy hair bone straight with feathered bangs. the bangs usually became curly ‘horns’ in the humidity of new orleans.
in college i discovered what a good hairdresser could do with thick wavy hair! i had short hair, but so well cut that i became a walking advertisement for my hairdresser. I never had to DO much – i stopped using a hairdryer and never did more than wash it. People used to come up to me and compliment my hair. I’m not pretty. I only have a few vanities, and my hair was definitely one of the physical things about me that i really really liked as an adult.
then i got breast cancer for the first time, and due to chemo, my fiance shaved my head and i went bald for almost a year. Being hairless broke my heart. i could do without the boob, but the hair loss was devestating. Funny.
when it came back it was SO CURLY that it was embarrassing. it looked like a BAD 80s perm. After a year or so it went back to normal and once i found a good hairdresser in my new town, i became a major source of business for my stylist. i once went to a competing salon to buy a particular type of shampoo – and they tried to charge me for a haircut – my hair looked so good that they were sure it had just been style.
then i got breast cancer for the second time. this time when my now husband shaved my head we left it in a mohawk for a while. Once again, the loss of my boob wasn’t as upsetting as my hair loss.
now it’s been a couple of years and i’m still bald on top. my hair is thin thin thin. i can deal with the surgeries and chemo and oophrectomy and all of the stress of cancer. i don’t dream about what might have been. But i dream nightly about having my old hair.
6.
hairstories | August 21, 2007 at 8:00 pm
I’ve made it so that you don’t have to leave an email address when you post, and I’ll try to add a contact form here for anyone who wants to submit their story anonymously. I’ll also start a few new threads under specific topics. Thanks for your patience!
7.
michelle | August 29, 2007 at 3:09 am
My hair just keeps changing. It was thick and wavy as a child. I couldn’t get it to stay in any kind of style, partly because I didn’t like to spend time on my hair. Once I got to high school it was a bit better but still I hated spending time on my hair. Then when I was about 16 I figured out that my wavy hair would turn very curly if I used a diffuser. I loved my hair. It looked great and didn’t take too long. At least for the first few months, then I started hating the time it took. I chopped it all off a few years ago, I wanted to try super short. It didn’t look great, but at least it was straight. Now that it’s been 2 years and it’s grown back out, it’s fairly waving, very frizzy and I can’t get it to curl like it used to. To top it all off I still don’t like spending time on my hair more than once a month. I keep it longer so I can pull it back in a clip or ponytail so it doesn’t frizz.
After high school my body started changing big time. I started getting hair under my chin, dark hair. I have to keep it trimmed. It’s part of my PCOS – Poly Cycstic Ovarian Syndrome. I’m wondering if that is part of why my hair changed. But it’s still thick, wavy, and frizzy no matter what hair cut or conditioners I use.
8.
Loretta | October 10, 2007 at 12:45 am
I am wondering if others have changes in their hair and if they also have PCOS?
9. losing the hair on my leg&hellip | May 8, 2008 at 9:09 am
[...] shaving my legs. … I only have a few vanities, and my hair was definitely one of the physical …http://hairstories.wordpress.com/about/staugustine.com: HealthWatch: Dr. Donohue: What’s the cause of …DR. DONOHUE: You recently wrote [...]
10.
giggglygirl | May 17, 2008 at 5:00 pm
i want to get a haircut but dont know if i can pull it off. also im nervous about it