Breakdown or breakout?
The media coverage of Britney Spears' decision to shave her head has focused on whether the pop princess finally snapped under the pressure of tabloid life. Local sources, however, offer a different bent on what the action says about Spears and others who suddenly adopt a radical change in hairstyle.
"I don't know if for her it's the 'I hit rock bottom' statement," said San Joaquin Delta College instructor Lynn Hawley, who teaches a Women in History course. "But to shave off your hair is making a drastic statement."
"When someone is going to cut their hair from long to short, I always ask why," said Lorraine Kayl, a stylist with more than 40 years' experience currently at Lodi's Visible Changes Salon.
"There is usually something going on in their lives, and they want to change what they have been feeling."
High-profile women will alter their appearance as a way of resisting public scrutiny, said Cynthia Dobbs, a University of the Pacific professor of English and Gender Studies.
"Women have been forced traditionally into an ornamental, rather than a functional, role," Dobbs said.
"Shaving one's head resists such pressure."
Spears grabbed an electric shaver Feb. 16 at a San Fernando Valley salon.
Video showed a newly shorn Spears with tiny tattoos on the back of her neck as she sat for a new tattoo - a pair of red-and-pink lips on her wrist. The weeks since have seen her check in and out of rehab.
Women in recent years have made headlines by shaving their hair, but it's been largely actresses such as Demi Moore and Sigourney Weaver, and they lost their locks for film roles.
Spears' decision is more akin to Sinead O'Connor, who shaved her head in the late 1980s as a direct renunciation of her Irish upbringing and what she saw as the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church.
Given the emphasis our society places upon women and beauty - of which hair is an integral part - a woman shaving her head makes a bold statement of rejection. Historically, hair has long been used as a nonverbal billboard, Hawley said.
During World War I, some women caught fraternizing with the enemy were punished by having their heads shaved. In some religions, a woman will shave her head when an important male leader in her life died as a way to symbolize grief. Some women who enter covenants shave their hair as a way of renouncing the world they are leaving behind.
As for Spears, while the past few weeks haven't shone any light on why she did what she did, perhaps a line from her 2004 track "My Prerogative" does.
"Everybody's talking all this stuff about me/why don't they just let me live?/I don't need permission.
Make my own decisions/That's my prerogative."
Contact reporter Cindy Arora at (209) 546-8257 or carora@recordnet.com.
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