 
If you're a white woman in the USA, your hair is a precious symbol of beauty. Males constantly tell me I ought to grow my hair out again because I was so beautiful before. My reply usually is that I am still beautiful and I will always be beautiful whether I have hair or not. One year and 10 days ago I shaved my head. Everyone stared at me, as though I was a freak, or a goddess (it depends on your perspective I suppose). Shaving my head was a protest of the White American beauty standards that seep into the fragile minds of all who live in this country, regardless of age, race, class, sexual orientation, etc. I didn't want to keep reaching for the "all American dream" of beauty and agelessness. I wanted to shout "I am beautiful with a naked head!" and that the mold women are expected to fit can be disrupted, altered, chipped away at -- one hair at a time maybe. I am a woman and I am beautiful always.
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