A Woman's Head

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

While the editorial paces of the CRIMSON should be--and are--far more than the last resort of a desperate undergraduate, I am turning to you in a troubled state of mind.

I am disturbed by the current head-shearing fad in most women's colleges hereabouts--and I suspect throughout this fashion-mad country.

This hair-cut is a cousin-German to the French post-war "collaboration bob," which as late as 1946 all women considered a disgrace, but which for some reason in 1950 they consider a destination. She who yesterday was held a traitor to her country and her sex, today is proclaimed a leader (or perhaps a follower?) of high fashion.

Many of us ask "why?" This fad is part of a trend. In fact, the chief thing I've noticed about women since I became old enough to take notice of them is that they are getting to look more and more like men. First it was slacks, then the square shoulder, then the man's shirt with dungarees and socks, and now the crew cut. This makes one wonder whether it was worth while acquiring an appreciation of the opposite sex after all.

Countermeasure

The obvious counter-measure would be for men to affect the dress and characteristics of women. And yet, I think for all the love a man had for a particular woman or women in general he would never undertake this method of pointing out to her, her foolishness. Men understand that what women most approve in them is their masculinity is there anything that we as men have said or done that has led women to doubt that it is their femininity which we chiefly admire in them? . . .

In a rational society there is only one forgivable reason for a woman cutting her hair. This is, if it will improve her looks. That every day some women war their looks deliberately, by cutting off their hair shows two things: Either they don't understand the relation between their own natural good looks and artificial aids to beauty, or more serious, they are violating the natural desire of both sexes to appear attractive to each other. Women no longer dress to please their men.

Civilized Problem

What, then, is their aim? To satisfy fashion, Sit. This is their aim. And fashionable is another word for immature To achieve a balance between the desire to attract and the need to be in fashion has been a problem for civilized women in all ages. We are living in an age when the balance is preponderantly unfavorable to the male! . . .

Will the social historian of the mid twentieth century be forced to conclude this ideal was driven to its last retest: the tragic haunts of desperate man? Will he be forced to write that here alone, as it guided by some higher institution, the harlot and the burlesque queen knew perhaps instinctively the ultimate nature of all beauty? The Ideal is permanent; the Fashionable only passing.

Ladies, for our should as well as yours, do ponder this truth. H. A. Creeby Ferbes '60