The concept of liberty has been present throughout the human history. While the specific notion of liberty has evolved over time, the yearning for autonomy and the pursuit of freedom has persisted across culture and eras. Liberty is the state of being free from constraints, restrictions or oppression.
The idea of liberty differs from person to person and culture to culture, but the essence remains same – freedom to live their life the way they see fit, without undue outside interference. For many of us, it is all about the small things in life but for others it might be to take some big decision. Although the idea of Democracy entails the aspects of liberty, it is often overlooked in our day to day life. It is much more severe for women than men, as the whole societal rules and guidelines are on females of the society. So much so that the smallest act of self-love is a biggest accomplishment for them.
From the clothes she has to wear to the heel of her footwear, everything is regulated, so that the tag of ‘good girl’ remains. Even the smallest act of choosing the colour of lipstick and nail paint is given undue attention, because ‘daughters of good household don’t go around attention grabbing’.
In our society, cultured women are the submissive ones. They don’t follow anything remotely modern and dress to please the patriarchy. In these circumstances, the very act of cutting hair or colouring them is very liberating for many. It may be trivial for many, but on the other hand, it’s all about autonomy and having agency over themselves for many women across cultures. Often times having long hair is co-related to the woman being ‘cultured’, and women with short hair are called with all sorts of derogatory names and presented as examples of how not to be if women want to be accepted by and in the society.
When we talk about liberty, we often think and talk about political and economic aspects, but for majority of women in our society, those are an easily attainable than personal liberty. Many women fight this battle of being able to do small acts of personal liberty on everyday basis.
Having short hair and colouring it is their way of defying the societal standard of ‘good girl’.
In the social media generation, the concept of hair having memory is very popular. In professional term it is all about styling, but in emotional aspect it means entirely different. That is why many go for a complete change of hairstyle post traumatic experience. It is all about reinventing self-image and reclaiming agency and control over themselves.
Our society places expectations and stereotypes on how women should look and present themselves, almost as if the sole reason of a woman’s life is to please the man’s gaze. But in recent times we can see a very slow and gradual shift in the mindset of people with regards to this. But the war is far from over. There’s still a long time before women achieve their personal liberty and have to satisfy themselves by winning these small everyday battles.