Hairless in the City

My ultimate experiment is going to deal with hair and hair loss, so I figured that my field experiment would work best if it involved hair as well. Hair is an essential part of how we view ourselves and how we interact with society and view and perceive others. Without it, we stick out and I knew that this would be one of the major issues I would have to face in my experiment.

The Experiment:

I decided to appear as though I had no hair. I wanted to see what it was like to be out in public with no hair visible. When I was changing in the morning, I decided to put on sweatpants and a jacket so that my clothes weren’t too tight, because I wanted to look like I was sick in some way. I had just returned from the gym and hadn’t showered because I figured this would give me the appearance of being tired and maybe more sickly. First, I put on a swim cap to try and mat down my hair. Then I took one of my roommate’s dark blue scarves and I wrapped it around my head and tied it at the back.

I can honestly say that instantly I felt different. When I looked at myself in the mirror I was kind of horrified. I looked unfeminine and I wanted to take the scarf off immediately. I was trying to think of ways that I could exit the building without being seen by my neighbors. As I exited my room, I was nervous about people seeing me and judging me. Fortunately I was the only one in the elevator and my anxiety lessened a little bit. As I stepped out of the elevator, I could feel people staring, although I’m not really even sure that they were, because I was staring at the ground in front of me. I walked out of the building feeling nervous and lacking confidence.

What I decided to do was just to walk around the city. I didn’t have any specific goal or place that I wanted to go, I just wanted to walk and observe people observing me. I struggled with keeping my eyes up and walking confidently down the street because I didn’t feel beautiful or confident at all. I had to keep telling myself to just walk and observe my place in society with no hair.

I got many stares and glances. People tried not to look, but they couldn’t help it. I stuck out and they knew it. Business men glanced and then glanced away. People on the street stared but I figured they probably felt bad about staring so they were careful about it. I was suspicious that people were staring and so I glanced at people, without a smile on my face, and stared back at them. My self confidence was pretty low and my heart was definitely beating faster than normal. No one outright approached me or said anything out loud to me about my non-existent hair. I just had an uneasy feeling about being stared at. I walked for as long as I could handle the staring and uncomfortableness.

In the end, as I walked back to my apartment, I was walking quicker and I was eager to get back into the comfort of my own room. I wanted to take my scarf off as quickly as possible and go back to having hair and being feminine. The guard at the front desk of my dorm looked at me, probably because he was curious and he said hello. No one approached me about my lack of hair which I had expected, but I got enough stares to make up for it. Overall, the experience definitely shook me up and took me way outside of my comfort zone. I have a lot of respect for people who lose their hair and have to deal with it on a daily basis especially because of how it is viewed in society.

Analysis:

Hair is mentioned briefly in the Hollander book. She agrees that hair is a vital part of our appearance and she says, “hair has provoked stronger feeling than anything else in the history of clothing, since it’s always part of both clothes and body, both intimate and highly visible if the head is left bare” (Hollander 183). As Hollander points out, we want to conform and feel socially comfortable and therefore most people wear clothes and their hair in a typical fashion that is acceptable for their gender. Although there are many different styles and many subcultures people can be involved in, no one takes a second glance at a person in jeans and a t-shirt. It is the person that is outside of the norm that is stared at and judged more critically. I felt this judgment and staring as I walked down the street. Instead of altering my dress, I altered my appearance with my hair, something that has become essential to have in our society. Hollander claims, “hair’s visual qualities can obviously cause keen anguish and pleasure” (183). By this she means that hair has become a symbol of beauty, identification, and showcases gender. Seeing beautiful hair or no hair at all causes great emotion. Through my experiment I don’t think that any one was pleased with seeing me, they probably mostly felt bad for me or were curious as to my situation. They likely judged me as sick or strange, and Hollander showed us how important our visual presentation is, especially with our desire to fit in to the world.

Dress is essential in presenting ourselves to others and Lurie claims that this dates back far by saying, “For thousands of years human beings have communicated with one another first in the language of dress” (Lurie 3). It is not a new story that when we choose an outfit we are making some sort of statement. By not showing my hair and wearing a scarf, I was making the statement that either I thought head scarves were cool or that I was sick and had lost my hair, and I’m sure that most people thought one of these two things about me. I wasn’t particularly comfortable without hair, and I felt like I was betraying people who are actually sick by pretending to have no hair. In Lurie’s book she says, “To put on someone else’s clothes is symbolically to take on their personality” (Lurie 24). I put on my roommates scarf, which is not so relevant because it was very plain, but the relevant piece is taking on an identity of a different group who doesn’t have hair. I am not in this group yet I was pretending to be. Lurie says, “You can lie in the language of dress” (Lurie 24). I felt like I was in fact lying and that I was wrong in pretending to be someone who I wasn’t. In Lurie’s article, she delves into the different ways that we can dress and the fact that, “Fashion is free speech, and one of the privileges, if not always one of the pleasures, of a free world” (Lurie 36). I do agree that it should be free speech, but free speech unfortunately doesn’t come free of judgment. I will admit that I judge people based on what they are wearing sometimes. If I see someone wearing a scarf like I had, I would likely assume that they had cancer or alopecia and I would feel badly for them immediately. Or if I saw a person dressed in gothic attire, I would probably stare or take more than one glance wondering why they felt compelled to dress so strangely. We can make many choices in fashion and with our hair, and we are free to make these choices, but people will stare if you are different, there is no way around it.

Wearing a scarf reminded me of people having to wear veils for their religion. Although my scarf was not a veil, it did look a little bit like a doo-rag or a veilo, but I don’t think I was dressed appropriately or have the appropriate appearance for people to think that that is what I was going for. Feeling people staring at me left me feeling uneasy and I couldn’t imagine wearing a veil and being stared at constantly. After reading Ali’s article and how she said, “Most people in the parking lot stopped to stare. If the sisters were aware that all eyes were on them, they gave no signs” (Ali). These women had obviously gotten used to the hundreds of people who stared and judged them each day. The difference is that their veils were for religion and people judge that much more harshly then if they assume you are just sick. So much judgment surrounds dress and hair, and it seems unnecessary. People are fundamentally different and choose to dress themselves up differently and that is ok. Through the experiment I learned about my own fears about dress and hair, and that next time I see someone different from me walking down the street I should treat them no differently then I would someone in jeans and a t-shirt.

Works Cited

Ali, Lorraine. “Behind the Veil.” New York Times. July 11, 2010.

Hollander, Anne. Sex and Suits. New York: Kodansha International, 1994.

Lurie, Alison. The Language of Clothes. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2000.