Models have known for a long time that short hair and small boobs are sexy ;)

I read that quote in a magazine years ago and I often remember it. It may not come as a surprise to you that I have short hair and small boobs ;)

But are these really sexy in our society?

They were in the 1920s!

My first focus in this post shall mostly be on the short hair aspect since I recently got my hair cut.

Before I describe this recent haircut, let me fill you in on my first "short" haircut...

It was a Monday in 9th grade and yearbook pictures were to be taken the next day. Since my usual hair salon was not open on Mondays and my mother informed me I needed a haircut, I tried a new salon. That afternoon I went in with shoulder-length hair and requested a trim and some much needed bangs to cover my high forehead... as suggested by my mom.

When I left, my new bangs were the longest part of my hair!?!

I was almost in tears.

The next day I entered school, wearing our androgynous uniforms of baggy khaki pants and a shapeless maroon polo shirt. Mind you, I am not a particularly voluptuous woman (back to the small boobs thing) and so more than once that day I was mistaken from behind as my twin brother.

Being confused for a boy = NOT good.

Documenting this day and this hair for all of posterity since it was picture day = even worse!

Since others confused me for my brother, I began to associate short haircuts as "boy" haircuts.

I now have another "boy" haircut after entering a new salon with shoulder-length hair. It seems this is a bad pattern that I should guard against in the future. Unfortunately, I am too trusting of hair stylists in that they are the professionals and I assume their preference trumps mine.

Having said that, the hair stylist did do a great job and I know that it is a good haircut, it just gives me flashbacks to that tragic 9th grade "boy" haircut and causes me to feel unfeminine.

This is almost ridiculous since I am about the girliest girl I know... currently wearing bright pink nail polish and a purple polka-dot top as I type this.

But I cannot escape the sense that in our society the length of a woman's hair seems a direct correlation to her femininity.

Yes, we have the rare exceptions such as Rihanna, Sienna Miller, and Halle Berry BUT for the most part, our ideal "sexy" women have the long, luxurious hair.

Feedback that I have gotten on my recent haircut has been that it looks "grown up," "sophisticated," and "stylish" but never once was it said to be "pretty" or "sexy."

Fortunately, I am taking my History of Fashion and Manners class and ever so conveniently, the era we were focusing on right after my haircut was the 1920s when short hair was
VERY sexy.

First there was the classic bob of the flappers.

Then came the shingled look... think Roxie Hart from the movie Chicago.

And lastly, and most extreme, was the "boy" haircut known as the eton crop.

Those were the divas, the sexy ideal, from back then... all with "boy" haircuts.

As I sit here with my new short do, I am getting used to it and appreciating the following:
1) As summer is approaching, it will be quick to style and cool in the heat
2) Hair always grows back

However, I am not sure yet that I shall grow my hair out.

Until then, I realize it is cut and I cannot put it back on or grow it back to the length it was overnight. Thus I plan to be positive, hold my short-haired head high and embrace this look.

My second focus of this post shall be small boobs.

It turns out that this was also a popular look for women in the 1920s. So much so, in fact, that they had something called flatteners rather than bras. They literally smushed the boobs against a woman's body to give her a more boyish and straight-lined look.

Here is a video of some of the women and their fashions from the 1920s. About 2:40 into the video, you can see a woman get her hair cut into the bob and then styled into the shingled look.

So whether you are a model or an everyday woman, take confidence in how you look, even if it does not fit the beauty ideals of the present moment.

That is the key that models and these daring women of the 1920s seemed to have in common: confidence.

If you are confident, you are beautiful... short hair, long hair, big boobs, small boobs and everything in between.

So I plan to be confident as I am bringin sexy back all the way from the 1920s with my bob "boy" haircut and small boobs!

Wondering About WGS... where do I fit in?

Recently, I have given a great deal of thought to pursuing grad school and possibly becoming a professor within the field of WGS.

I had a huge fear that I would not find a place in the WGS community as a Christian, feminine, very heterosexual, relatively traditional woman. Basically, I didn't know if they would see me, a Southern Belle Feminist, as legit.

The SEWSA conference was a big deciding factor.

I was unsure if my Southern Belle could possibly be accepted and lacked confidence that my Feminist could hold her own in that community. Plus, days of people simply reading papers had a high possibility of being plain old boring.

Fortunately, I am happy to report that I enjoyed SEWSA, was not ostracized for my Southern Belle appearance and was pleasantly surprised in how much my Feminist knowledge and references has accumulated in recent years, particularly in college.

The other thing I realized is that the Feminist community is more accepting of individuals and personal voices even if they come in a more traditional looking package (aka: me with my painted nails, high heels and flowered cardigans!). Still, though, I believe I may always have to prove my intelligence in this community because at first glance I may be perceived as out of place or simply vapid and buying into mainstream media ideals that they (and sometimes I) disagree with.

All in all though, I take confidence in my perhaps less common approach to feminism. I desire and believe, hopefully without too much arrogance, that I could be a bridge between the more traditional, mainstream community (which would not disregard me since I "fit" in there) and the feminist community so that I could share its more progressive ideals.

I also take confidence in the fact that my areas of interest, often more associated with the traditional, mainstream community, are under-explored from a feminist lens. This, I believe, might allow me to develop a niche in the feminist community if I pursue WGS academia. For example, I like Christianity, fashion, beauty, menstruation/reproduction, and heterosexual romance - areas that it seems to me are ignored or misunderstood by many feminists.

Hopefully I can delve into them to enlighten the feminists and also empower the more traditional community...

But now that I have outed myself in the Christian community as a Feminist and now that I have exposed my girly and traditional self in the Feminist community, without significant backlash, I am relieved to know that I can exist in both worlds and be me, a Southern Belle Feminist :)