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58 LIVING RESISTANCE From Rapunzel to G.I. Jane Samantha Binford Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair . . . Remember that fairy tale of a young maiden with long, beautiful hair who, when caught talking to a prince, is punished by a witch who holds her captive? The witch cuts off Rapunzel’s silken locks and banishes her into the wilderness. One could say that the plot of this tale has been the story of my life over the past year. It all began when I went bald. By choice. The story behind this action started when I was in the sixth grade. I decided then that one day I would shave off my hair and prove that I didn’t care what people thought. I just wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary, something . . . different, but impermanent. So hair was ideal. It grows back. In the eighth grade, I met my best friend, Shaelynn Enquist. Neither of us was very popular. We both danced to our own tune—bookworms who would rather make straight A’s than work our way up the junior high food chain. After I told her about my plan, she wanted in. So we made a pact. Five years later, during my first year in college, I called Shaelynn and told her that I wanted to do the deed after the holidays. When I told Shaelynn that January 18 was the date, there was a long pause on the phone followed by, “Sammy—I don’t think I’m going to do it.” She explained that she liked the length of her hair and she didn’t think her boyfriend or her family would be very happy about her shaving it off. I understood, but I was going ahead anyway. If I didn’t, I would be disappointed in myself for not doing something truly different . I had vowed that I would and I would! As the date drew closer, I began to get nervous. What if my head was lumpy and oddly shaped? Did I have the right type of facial structure to support a shaved head? Would I be able to pull it off the way Demi Moore does in the film G.I. Jane, or would I just look like the little brother I never had? I was nervous, but my boyfriend was freaked out. When we first met, I told him about my plan (which he didn’t really believe). After we’d been together for several months, however, he realized that I wasn’t joking and that his girlfriend would soon look like a boyfriend. Finally, after years of thinking, months of planning, and days of worrying, the eighteenth was here. I went to a barbershop, sat in the chair, and asked the hairdresser to shave everything off. After about ten minutes of cutting, buzzing, and huge locks of hair dropping to the floor, it was done. From Rapunzel to G.I. Jane 59 I looked like a twelve-year-old boy. My first move was to apply makeup; before I had always been too lazy to bother. Wearing makeup was just the beginning of many changes I began to notice. I also started to dress more femininely, as though I felt a need to prove that I was a woman. People’s reactions were even more surprising than my own. Strangers would gawk when I kissed my boyfriend or when we held hands. It was evident that people perceived two guys publicly displaying their affection (which triggered the usual homophobic responses)—not a guy with a girl with no hair. Once my roommate and I went to the campus recreation center to rock climb and a gym worker asked my roommate whether she had brought her little brother. I laughed off these incidences. I knew that there was a chance people would mistake me for a boy and I had accepted that before I cut my hair. Many people would also ask me—in accusatory and judgmental tones—why I cut my hair. To this, I would reply, “Because I wanted to.” This reaction rarely satisfied , I found. People seemed to believe that I must have been motivated by something beyond sheer will. Rebellion? Cancer? Queer identity? The truth was that I simply wanted to show that I didn’t care what people thought and that I was secure enough with my appearance to do the (feminine) unthinkable. I have always thought that it The author on January...

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