It’s the 21st century, but the world still hasn’t adjusted to the sight of a woman with a shaved head. It’s true that more and more women these days are challenging traditional constructs of femininity by cutting their hair short. However, strong stigmas attached to female baldness still exist in most societies. According to popular opinion, the only reasons a woman would shave her head are that she’s joined a cult, she’s on drugs, she’s a militant lesbian non-conformist or she’s endured some kind of Britney Spears–style mental breakdown.
Even female cancer patients are expected by the general public to cover their heads with a scarf or a hat. Can you imagine having cancer, losing your hair, and then on top of that, having to deal with a bunch of self-important assholes insisting that you have to cover yourself? Or if you choose not to, judging you as if they think they have that right?
In June 2014, my mother (may she rest in peace) and I shaved our heads together after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her hair had started falling out a few weeks after her first round of chemo, and being the strongly independent woman she was, she wanted to shave it all off on her own terms. We did it together, an hour apart.
Here are the lessons I took away from the experience:
1. Judgmental people will judge you no matter what you do. So fuck them.
Some people judge everyone and everything in their path. Let them. Because unless you care more about validation from others than actualizing your own principles, hopes and dreams, you should be focusing on making yourself proud and being true to your own ideals.
Judgmental behavior is rooted in personal insecurity. If a person judges you, it’s often because that they haven’t lived up to their own self-expectations. Why would you listen to a poor example?
Don’t waste you life trying to please people, because you’ll literally never get anywhere. You might as well spend your life trying to win at “whack a mole”.
2. People respect boldness
It’s scary swimming against the current. But when you do, you usually end up feeling that it was worth it at the end. It’s sort of like jumping into cold water. The anticipation is scary, but then once you’ve adjusted, it feels amazing and you’re glad you did it.
There’s something immensely empowering about being your own person. You will gain respect for yourself, and people will ultimately respect you more as well.
Fear of rejection isn’t a good excuse. The more “you” you are, the happier you will be. True love can only be found in authenticity.
3. Life is about more than just ‘looking hot’
Occasionally, I would get comments like, “Laura, why would you shave your head? I loved your hair before.”
This comment would always catch me off-guard. I get where it’s coming from, but I didn’t do it because I’ve always fantasized about looking like Sinead O’Connor. It wasn’t about fashion or appearance.
“Am I going to pull off this look?” is a fun question, but totally meaningless in the grand scheme of things. For example, if you have cancer, you’re probably not going to give two shits whether you look sexy bald. What matters are the vital questions, and of course, survival. If you’re doing it out of solidarity, what matters is the act of love, and that you’re showing a loved one that you will be fully present during the most vital time.
4. The best home is the one you make for yourself inside your head
People stare. And then you get over it. Eventually, you realize that more often than not, people’s gaze was rooted in genuine curiosity rather than judgment.
Once you’ve tested the waters, you begin to understand that people are more open-minded than you’d think. Sometimes it isn’t obvious. But realize that just like you, when a person encounters something unfamiliar to their constructed reality, they might need time to “jump into the cold water” – and once they do, and they adjust, that’s when the world progresses.
Tad Williams got it right: “Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it – memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.”
5. You deserve to know everything about yourself and your body
Most women will go their entire life without knowing what their scalp looks like, or what it feels like to have the breeze blow or cold water droplets tingle against their naked head. Who’d want to miss that? And why? Because man-made cultural traditions say that as a woman, you must have hair to be sexy, feminine, attractive? Serves only men.
Find out how your scalp looks, how scalps can get sunburned, how beautiful your face looks without hair
6. “Phantom hair syndrome” exists
They say that when you lose a body part, for a long time after the loss you feel as though it’s still there – something known as “phantom limb syndrome”. The same is true for hair.
7. You are truly free only when you stop fearing others’ opinions
A monk once came up to me at the farmers market and said, “There are a lot of girls with your hair cut where I hang out”. His hangout, of course, was the local Buddhist temple.
The reason why Buddhists shave their heads is to cleanse themselves of their ego-driven “self”. They might be on to something. If you rid yourself of worldly possessions and superficial attachments, then you are a much better position to give love and seek truth with a higher level of purity.
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