Opinion: I shaved my head to start anew

By Jolene Banning

I grab the hair clippers and buzz off a small test patch of hair at my left ear, to see if I can actually go through with this or not. If I don’t like it, I can still get away with this hairstyle. What am I scared of? Not this. So I go for it.

The clippers make a humming noise as I run them over my head, starting at the base of my neck. I’m hit with a rush of adrenaline as I hold the clippers in my hand, moving them across my head. I watch the pile of grey and black hair get larger and larger around my feet. I save the top of my head for last. It’s almost a cool style. I close my eyes as I run the clippers over the front of my head to my neck and then I clean up all of the loose ends. Most of it is on the floor at my feet but some is on neck. It’s itchy. I feel so free—like this huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Well, free and a little itchy.

The younger, quiet, survivor Jolene would never have done this. My hair was my mane, my crown, a part of my identity. But it’s like this fog is lifting as I learn more about our history, our reality, and when you see the truth, you can’t go back to how it was before. You can only hope to not cause more harm and be someone that our younger girls can look up to. Shaving my head is probably one of the bravest things I can do at this moment, as a woman, an Indigenous woman.

Indigenous women have experienced violence at unusually high rates for so long that it’s now become a normalized part of life. Often we internalize and inflict it on ourselves. My first example of self-violence is my love-hate-love relationship with my hair.

I remember being a young child and my aunt would braid my hair. It would look so pretty when she was done and I loved it but I hated the steps it took to get there. She would comb my long, thick, jet-black, shiny hair. She would part it, pull it, and make the braids tight. It hurt and I hated getting my hair done.

Later, I tried just about everything with my hair so I wouldn’t hate it: perms, cutting it myself, bleaching it, shaving it. From a young age, I remember I had asked my mom to cut my hair short so it wouldn’t get knotty. My aunt would always tell me not to cut it. My face wasn’t suited for short hair, she’d say.

For a while, I loved my hair. I found an incredible hairdresser that was fun to go see and he made my hair look amazing! I loved my hair dos and I did anything and everything with it. My hair was always stylish, cute, daring, and always on trend, sometimes before a specific style became ‘a thing’. Other times, I‘ve hated my hair and would talk about it with my friends. I would tell them that it was too thin, or it looked ugly. Some friends agreed that it looked thin or would add that their hair is also thin. Others say it’s all in my head or say nothing at all. One thing is for sure, I notice what I’m saying about my hair is all negative, self-inflicted violence.

I was talking about relationships one day with an Anishinaabe kwe. She was open with how she was being treated in a relationship. It made me sad to hear that she was being treated with disrespect—without care for her feelings, thoughts or values. There was violence within that relationship. I can’t help but think to myself, ‘Is this guy nuts? Doesn’t he see what an awesome woman she is?’ Automatically, I blurted out “But you’re so pretty.” She really is—inside and out. She has long, rich, brown hair with loose curls that frame her face, big round hazel eyes, long lashes, flawless sun-kissed bronze skin, perfect, white teeth, and plump lips, all without a drop of makeup.

Her response both shocked and awakened me.

“What does that matter? I’m a good person,” she said.

Of course, she’s right.

“So how did I develop this knee-jerk response to your value being tied to your looks?” I asked.

Society has trained me to equate a woman’s value with her beauty above anything else.

Only the prettiest of pretty women are in the movies, magazine covers, and they are almost always white, blonde with blue eyes. I’ve been programmed to think that how you look is important. Reflecting now, this is why I thought that my friend needed to hear about her beauty to feel better, because looks are the standard of which we’re judged.

But why are we so quick to judge someone based on their looks? Why are Indigenous women and girls able to go missing at alarming rates and no one care? Why are we always blamed for our demise simply based on the colour of our hair? Why is the first compliment a girl ever hears is based on her looks? Why not her intelligence or humour or ability to create things or simply anything else?

Because of patriarchy.

2018 is my summer of freedom. It’s me time. A time to heal. This past year alone I’ve experienced loss, birth, change, trauma, hope and an awakening. I see things in a new light. Like all of the violence Indigenous women have faced, endured, survived or even inflicted upon ourselves. I’m awakened to a value system based on looks in which I no longer want to participate. I want to stop the violent messaging that I send to myself and the women in my life. I want the compliment, “You’re pretty” to be the last words to come out of my mouth when I talk to my nieces, my grandbaby, my sisters. Instead, I want to raise up women for our skills, for our accomplishments, for our bravery, for sharing our skills, for our resiliency, for our teachings, for being gentle with me as I learn.

For me, I shaved my head to break free of this appearance-based value system. I’m starting anew.