warren@ihnss.UUCP (09/19/83)
(I think I have seen this subject in both groups) I asked my wife for thoughts on why women with long hair tend to cut it short after marriage. (Her hair is only somewhat shorter than 10 years ago.) She thought that the primary influence was not marriage, but professional pressure. In many jobs, short "styled" hair is part of the uniform, like the monkey suit for men. She felt that the same phenomon is a basis for the use of makeup (another topic that got beat to death here). People in jobs where it's no handicap to be different can avoid the pressure to conform, but for others, the chances that you will wear the uniform increase as your position and your need for money increase. This makes good sense to me when I think of the number of men I knew in college with long hair, and note that about the only place I see it anymore is in academic circles. In short, it sounds like the generation of us that fought for (among a lot of other things) the right to be different in the 60's and early 70's may have won the battle, but lost the war. -- Warren Montgomery ihnss!warren IH x2494