Hair analysis revisited

My recent column about hair apparently confused a few people. I wrote about something painful and personal. I didn't want my hair to get any more attention than it already does, but I wanted people to understand how superficial beauty standards are in our society.

A lot of what I wrote was sarcasm about society and criticism of myself. I do not like the fact that something as little as hair means so much to me, but a lot of women must have the same problem because the hair care industry is a multibillion-dollar business.

Some people, many people for that matter, are infatuated with hair. Besides signifying what passes for beauty in some circles, hair also has various cultural significances.

Most of us, particularly the women, remember the girl in high school with the perfect hair. A head full of shiny, perfect blonde hair that bounced when she walked and was soft when she curled it around her little finger. She was what thousands of television ads and magazines covers told us women should want to be. She was Loni Anderson, Marsha Brady, Melanie Griffith, Marilyn Monroe and Meg Ryan. Madonna even named a tour after her bleached tress.

Of course, that perfect hair did not just happen. You had to have money to buy the best shampoos and money to get it styled and cut by professionals. Some of it may be natural, but a lot of it was maintenance. Even Marsha Brady was shown brushing her hair a hundred times before she went to bed at night.

Why, why, why?

Why do women wear hats when they have bad hair days? Why do commercials say foolish things like, "To get control of your life, you have to get control of your hair"? (For the more dreaded version of that, replace "life" with "man.") Women live in a "Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Maybelline" world where beauty can be bought at Walgreens for $4.95 and surgically enhanced for a few thousand more.

Trying to fit in can be a dehumanizing and tedious experience. If I want my hair to bounce in the breeze like the American hair archetype, I have to spend $55 and seven hours at the hair dresser. With all the hair supplies I own including curling irons and blow dryers, my head of hair is worth more than $100. There are days when I would just rather be bald. But then I'd risk being treated like a freak. Did you ever notice how people react to bald women? People are frightened of them. They think such women have cancer or some contagious disease. They never think maybe that woman got tired of spending more than $1,000 or more a year on her hair.

Men sometimes can't hide from the hair fetish. Men do go bald: black men just shave it all off and white men comb it over till they can't comb it over any more. Some bald men accept their baldness and could care less what others think; other men hold on to their hair, or what's left of it, for dear life.

The difference is, bald or not, men are still accepted. Baldness is seen as just a part of aging with men. With women, it is seen as abnormal along with having frizzy hair, overly curly hair or limp, thin hair.

A current television commercial (and I'm pretty sure it's trying to sell shampoo) features a tall, very pretty blonde woman strutting down the street and swinging her hair to the Isley Brothers' hit, "Who's That Lady." Everyone from firemen to dogs stare at her, singing the chorus as she goes past.

I find the ad disturbing, and not because a toy dog is singing an Isley Brothers classic. Here is a woman and all she is a head of hair. All anyone cares about is the hair in that commercial. And what does that say?

It starts with your hair, then your weight and then every part of a woman's anatomy is up for sale.

Beauty for sale - you too can have a piece of the American dream, and it's just a good cream rinse and a hair relaxer away.