Saturday, November 20, 2010

Why Can’t Middle-Aged Women Have Long Hair?

Why Can’t Middle-Aged Women Have Long Hair?, NYT article.

There's a woman in this town who is at least fiftyish, and has very long grey hair, and she's just damn attractive. Beautiful.

17 comments:

Monsieur Beep! said...

I also saw a woman like the one you described, she was awfully beautiful.

There´s no boundary for beauty, I´d say.

Anonymous said...

I keep wondering why there should be any norms on the length of one's hair, be it man or woman! F***, who are we to judge this??!! It's anyone's freedom to have their hair short or long, dyed or natural, curly or straight...

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Good point. You can even extend this to clothing and most behaviour. If you look at it straight, it just shows that human *judge*. We judge everybody and everything, 24/7.

ganesha games said...

My aunt had waist length hair until cancer therapy forced her to cut it. Most women tend to have worse (stringy, split ends etc) hair as they age so they just cut it because it's not practical or beautiful anymore. But there are exceptions.


Eo, sorry to type this here, but are you receiving my mails? I think your spam filetrs may be blocking mine.

Anna said...

Why can't middle-aged men have long hair?

RonC said...

Hello Eolake,

May we see your 'street-pic' of the older lady from Bolton, please - or did the combination of bearded photographer, pink camera and canary yellow sweater scare her off............?

Remember the Domai pix of Amanda M-H: very attractive older model?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Sadly I never had a camera with me when I met her, and this was before I found a carry-always camera. It's been a while since I saw her last.

She would also be one I would ask for permission first, since she is one of those people who just seem aware and intelligent, inviting respect.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Anna, they can, but some look ridiculous. Not all. But by funny coincidence I was just watching an older pop singer here, and I thought: "when your hair starts thinning, better reconsider if long hair is still for you."

Anonymous said...

No one's denying a person's freedom to have their hair any way they want. You have to be able to judge whether you can pull it off or not. I wonder how many people here would support the middle aged man keeping his pony tail?

Anna said...

> She would also be one I would ask for permission first, since she is one of those people who just seem aware and intelligent, inviting respect.

Hum... Don't tell me that for other people, you are just taking pics and putting them on internet without permission? I mean... I would suppose you do ask permission, being a well-behaved man...

Anna said...

For the hair, I wanted to point out that it is not a question of choice: women, like men, tend to lose their hair, have it breaking and thinning after a certain age. So they just have to cut it. So I find there is a mild cruelty in telling them them that they should keep their hair long... as if it was a choice.

And I do understand that the answer women give won't be to acknowledge that they cannot have long hair. That would be recognizing a defeat, and who likes to do that. They will say it is a choice, give arguments.

The problems stated in the article that long-haired elderly women may encounter (thought I doubt there is really such a problem) is probably the jealousy of the elderly women who had to wave their long hair good-bye.

So I do think that telling the women to wear their hair long is quite the same as telling men to wear their hair long.

I am saying all this also because as I had long and voluminous hair, and I had to cut it. And I am not even 40. When friends who saw me last with long hair ask me why I did this, I say I wanted to change, which is also true... But, well, I would love to have long hair again.

I think if men want to see elderly women with long hair, they should buy them wigs.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Good points.

In my mid forties, even though I still have full hair, it seems it does not look good long anymore. It's lost the "flow".

What happened to yours?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"Don't tell me that for other people, you are just taking pics and putting them on internet without permission?"

Well, what worked for Henri Cartier-Bresson works for me.

TC [Girl] said...

Dave Nielsen said...
"I wonder how many people here would support the middle aged man keeping his pony tail?"

I surely would! And...I would even ask him to take his hair out of the pony tail in order to see it flow on his back or...touch it! :-) I happen to LOVE long hair on men and many middle-aged men can still look good with it long as long as they are able to wash and brush it on a regular basis. In fact, I wish there were MORE long-haired middle-aged men around; I'd have something sexier to look at! :-D

Anna said...

> Well, what worked for Henri Cartier-Bresson works for me.

I don't think it's the same. Internet now is not what was happening to the pics in those times. Then the pics were for limited exhibition. Now anybody can see them.

Anyway, saying this, I don't really see people on the pics you post, mostly photo gear, leaves and landscapes. So the discussion is theoretical.

But I do state that I would find it indecent to take pics of grown-ups where they are recognizable, and post it on the net. I don't do it... My taking pics of people is basically the fruit of a cooperation. And, actually, i think it is the same in your case.

TC [Girl] said...

Just watched this. Long and naturally "silver." Very encouraging. :-D

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

She is not unlike the woman I mentioned.