The Agrarian Dream

How coming to work with your hair in a braid exposes the cultural rot of girlboss feminism.

I came to work a few days ago with my hair in a slept-in braid and multiple male coworkers complimented me on it.

“Did you do something different with your hair,” one asked, “is it a different color?”

“I like the hairdo” said another, sporting a long low pony himself. I wondered if he knew how to braid it.

And I wondered too what it was about my braid that struck them, that moved them to comment. It was just one single braid down my back. It was frayed like an old rope, spouting the shorter ends from its binding and my whole head was slightly fuzzy and sleep-mussed. I’ve been resisting shelling out the $150 for a haircut for the last 6 months, so my hair has grown very long. It occurred to me the night before braid-gate (a bold name for the day that two people at work simply said something towards me about my appearance) that it had grown long enough to braid and that this hairstyle would be comfortable and even nostalgic to sleep in. I already had my shoes on and was about to walk out the door in the morning before I considered that I might change it for work. Good-enough-itis won out and I went in as I was. I’d never worn my hair this way to work before, and my workplace has the kind of culture where people comment on these sorts of things (changes in accessories, shoes, demeanors). But it was multiple men who said something, and each interaction led to a longer discussion about my hair, about the nature of braids and the question of whether or not a braid “pulled on my head while I slept”. As someone whose father was the one to put my hair in pigtails when I was a little girl, I didn’t realize that most men had such a fundamental gap in their long hair knowledge.

I speculated about my coworkers’ interest in my braid with my roommate when I got home.

I told her that I took their fascination as as a manifestation of American folklore at work. These men looked at me and connected to the tale of the heartland—the oft-imagined good woman, strong yet feminine, she rears the children with the same steady-handed tenderness she applies to the fields. A prairie woman. An agrarian princess.

“I took it differently,” my roommate said.

She took it as a sign of men’s obsession with so-called “effortless” beauty. How they like women who “aren’t wearing too much makeup” but who are actually wearing boybrow, barely-there rouge and pouty, smudged eyeliner. The natural beauty. The fresh faced fantasy girl. It’s the phenomena where girls on the internet show the camera a picture of a Kardashian wearing a full face of makeup that their boyfriends thought were naked-faced.

But the third option, which no one was considering, was that it was noteworthy simply because it was different. An inconsistency in my appearance that usually flatlines with the same recycled styles.

I’m not sure whose take was closer to the truth behind the intrigue. But this whole concept reminds me of something though that I’ve tried to discuss with men before, but they never seem to exactly grasp what I’m saying. (I would make the obvious punch line here, but the fruit is so low hanging I’d have to stoop to pick it).

All these little particularities of our appearances as women have been, I’m sure intentionally or at the very least strategically, hyper-fixated on by the mainstream culture under the guise of “feminist debate”. These were at least the kinds of conversations that dominated popular “feminist” spaces and platforms when I was growing up (I’m thinking of the original #Girlboss content, the unladylike podcast, Lacy Green youtube videos about if one should shave one’s pussy, and if one should choose to, then how to do it.) I feel that it was frequently impressed upon me that these were choices I, as a relatively promising young woman, needed to make for myself. (Insert link to the definition of choice-feminism here.) It seemed to me that I would one day have to make a capital D Decision about whether or not I was the kind of woman to shave my pits, wear makeup etc. If I wanted to be formally confirmed into the feminist community—and, crucially, to know my place within it, it seemed that I would need to choose. But I wouldn’t just have to choose once. I would have to choose over and over again, every time I booked a wax or peeked under a pit in the shower, I would have to choose. Was I a girlboss Barbie type of feminist who feels “empowered” by a pair of heels that matches my dress? Or was I a fun-hating, jungle-pit know-it-all feminist who raged and ranted and was ultimately smarter and “braver” than the other kinds? One of the many problems with choice feminism is that you have to make a million fucking choices.

But really, I’ve never felt particularly strongly one way or another. When it comes to my body hair, I’ve grown it out, trimmed it down, waxed it, hidden it, forgotten it. My head hair I’ve grown to near out to near Amish proportions, I’ve chopped it, locks of loved it, side banged, straightened, Velcro curled, air dried, bobbed, face framing layered, and modern shagged it. I think maybe I’ve alit upon something by leaning into my auburn undertones. I’ve also tried blonde. When it comes to makeup I’m mostly just unskilled, but I’ve tried my hand at a dramatic wing, dabbled in liquid blush, fluffed plucked and all but fucked my eyebrows, worn lipstick too plum colored for my pallid complexion, and ultimately I’ve always returned to my mother’s ancient and arbitrary advice that I should use brown eye makeup instead of black because it looks better with my bluegreen eye color. The only thing I’ve consistently done with my hair, makeup and body hair is be inconsistent.

When I’m talking to men about this I try to explain by saying something like, “I think people think I’m making some big statement, ‘I do shave my legs, I don’t shave my legs. I do have long hair, I don’t have long hair. I wear makeup, I never wear makeup.’ But really I’m just winging it. It’s not that consequential to me. I’m usually just forgetting to do any personal upkeep and occasionally getting my dopamine fix by doing something a little different to my appearance. It’s just not that deep.” The men usually nod along. But I don’t think they really get what I’m saying. And it’s not that they really have to, as it’s all a grand rouse anyways. But I’ve detected that men often think that I am making a statement no matter what I choose to do or not do. Like, they’ll say, “I think it’s rad that you have a bush” or, the opposite, I once had a boyfriend suggest that we both “get nice and smooth down there” before a romp. It’s not just that it can be offensive or annoying when men make little comments like this, it’s not just the assumption that our bodies are for their consumption and commentary. I feel that the biggest point that they’re missing is that I truly don’t mean to be saying anything. I pretty much just do whatever in that moment feels like a good cost benefit analysis given my time, tools, and self esteem status that day.

I of course don’t think that I am immune to the ultimate project of capitalist feminism, which is to make us waste time, money, and energy on our appearances. I’m not for a moment suggesting that I am simply too smart or too, I don’t know, Parisian and blasé, to even care about the stuff “other girls” care about. I do care, and believe you me, I waste a lot of time money and energy on the project of the self. But I’m just saying, I think the best weapon I’ve found against the capitalist beauty machine and the ever-steady male gaze is inconsistency. I just don’t want to be, and frankly don’t think I am, a certain way.

I think my inconsistency is honestly more dispositional than it is an act of political defiance. But regardless of its origin, I enjoy splashing about in the chaotic waters of my own unpredictability. The one way this inconsistency does feel genuinely transformative though is that if They can’t categorize me, They can’t commodify me. (The operative “They” being the omniscient, omnipotent algorithm in the sky of course.) Or at least, it makes the task more difficult. If I don’t fit into a market/niche/prime delivery box of what things I might buy, perhaps I dodge the full impact of the blow to my humanity that capitalist/choice feminism otherwise dishes out. To be a good little worker I need to be predictable and tidy, and if I am unpredictable and messy, perhaps that counts for something. Perhaps that disrupts this machine. I’m suggesting, as strange as it may sound, that shaving my pits every other day for a month and then letting it grow out for three might make me less profitable to the They. And maybe that’s a far cry. But it alleviates my suffering to think this might be so— albeit in a similar way that trying to eat less meat does eases my environmental angst. That is to say marginally, and never enough of course, but sometimes enough that I might get some sleep tonight knowing that I tried.

I’m sure that the boys at work just thought that my hair looked pretty. Maybe they’ve just been looking at the same dish pit, the same croissants tucked behind the same glass, the same regulars wearing their same cool vintage tees for so many days that when I arrived with braided hair, the sight of it just welcomed in some freshness. Something to talk about.

For me, the braid was just so comfortable, so gentle on my tender head, and I also just thought it looked pretty. I liked the fact that I slept in it because it gave off a whiff of unprofessional nonchalance that almost felt like rebellion as I scooped 9-dollar donuts into bags for people spending twice my hourly wage on that and a coffee. This was my fantasy: that a braid—my braid—could cause a stir, could puzzle someone. And I hope that when I come in another day with my hair in a ponytail, or a high bun or space bun pigtails, that my coworkers will feel me slipping, ever so slightly, from their grasp.