The war of short-haired women against dudes and their pants feelings continues. Indeed, it’s gotten so bad that pickup artist/rape legalization proponent Roosh V is calling for state intervention.
In a blog post today, Mr. V cites a passage in an Evo Psych textbook suggesting that men tend to prefer long hair on women because healthy hair is an indication of good health and diet, and therefore of “higher reproductive value” in women.
And if cutting off this hair is displeasing to the boners of dudes like Roosh, well, it must mean that women who wear their hair short are, quite literally, mentally ill. No, really; that’s what he thinks. (Emphasis mine.)
If a woman cuts her hair to a short length, or shaves it outright in a Skrillex haircut, we can now confidently say that she is making herself appear less fertile, less beautiful, and less healthy. A woman cutting off healthy hair is one step away from literal cutting of her skin with a sharp object, because both behaviors denote a likely mental illness where the woman presents herself to society as more damaged than her genetic condition would indicate, suggesting that she has suffered environmental damage that has reduced her overall fitness.
Or maybe she prefers short hair because it’s easier to manage? Or because she thinks short hair looks cute? Nah, couldn’t be. She’s clearly a danger , not only to Roosh’s boner but to herself!
She must be monitored by state authorities so she doesn’t continue to hurt herself.
Roosh posts pictures of women he thinks have committed “self-harm” by cutting their hair short, thus transforming themselves from sexy ladies to hideous short-haired monsters.
Really? I’m pretty sure that all this proves is that Roosh has such a hard-on for long hair that he’s unable to see straight. To my eyes, and I suspect a lot of others, these two women — actresses Ginnifer Goodwin and Keira Knightly — look fine with long hair, and fine with short hair. (I actually prefer their short-haired looks, but, you know what? It’s really none of my business.)
But Roosh not only sees short-haired women as an affront to his manhood; he also sees them as a threat to Western Civilization itself.
What should we think when deluded women are actively encouraged by society to harm themselves by cutting their hair instead of growing it out and looking beautiful? One that doesn’t care about the fertility of its women and, in turn, the needs of men who want to mate with fertile women. Unless there is something within a society that promotes beauty in the form of long hair, we have little choice but to conclude that it is sick, grotesque, and sterile.
Roosh goes on to argue that art should reject such cultural sickness and celebrate the fertility of young women.
Oh, wait, that was Hitler.
Setting aside Roosh’s creepy, quasi-fascist obsession with female fertility, I do have a couple of questions for Roosh and the Evo Psych crowd in general:
What about infertile women with long hair? There are lots of women, cis and trans, who can’t do that whole pregnancy thing; many of them have long hair. Would Roosh lock them up for false advertising? (Actually, never mind; I’m sure he would, though probably not without hitting on them first.)
And what about short-haired men? Like Roosh and his pals, many evolutionary psychologists find it difficult to think beyond conventional gender stereotypes. All the studies listed in the Evo Psych textbook Roosh sites revolve around women and their hair, never men and their hair, even though the same reproductive logic would apply to them as well. Poor diet can reduce sperm count and cause infertility.
So why isn’t long hair on men “preferred across cultures” the way that long hair on women tends to be? Why isn’t Roosh calling for short-haired men (like himself) to be confined to the psych ward?
Could it be — possibly, maybe, sort of? — that there’s more to love and lust than what’s in our genes, or in Roosh’s jeans?
Maybe men who feel women shouldn’t be permitted to do what they want with their own hair should be the ones monitored by state authorities. They clearly have massive entitlement issues they need to work through.
As a woman who actually self-harms and happens to keep her hair long (that’s just the way I like it best), I wanna say a huge FU to Roosh.
Also seconding the idea that if you think long head hair is attractive because it’s a sign of health, surely you must also think ample body hair is attractive and that it makes no sense to shave it any of it off, because than you’ll look unhealthy! /sarcasm And I’m pretty sure more people accidentally hurt themselves shaving body hair than hurt themselves cutting head hair short.
Hell, there’s more in our genes than what’s IN OUR FUCKING GENES.
Emergent patterns and epigenetics, anyone?
I have thick wavy hair down to my arse, but I’m infertile, schizoaffective, prone to migraines and might as well have no immune system for how often I get sick. WHERE IS YOUR EVO PSYCH NOW?
So I actually took a LOT of evopsych in college. It was even my senior seminar and the subject of my thesis. My professor wrote the damn textbook for the class.
And in his opinion, a huge amount of it was (quote) “Kiplingesque just-so-stories”.
Without a) a direct biological mechanism for mediating the behavior, and b) a very clear and unambiguous way of ensuring the behavior results directly in either the death of the individual or the birth of their offspring, any evopsych explanation falls apart.
My favorite one (that might hold up) says that the reason male homosexuality is found in all cultures throughout history and never gets selected out of the gene pool is because there seems to be some correlation between the genes that make a woman more attractive and the genes that make their male relatives gay. We haven’t found the genes, but the statistical analysis of family trees seems to indicate that extremely beautiful women tend to have more gay men relatives than they should.
So burn to all those hard-right evopsych homophobic PUA dipshits- chasing a “hb10” just increases the odds your son will end up gay.
That makes me want to cut off all my hair. Unfortunately my hair is not only unmanageable when short, if puffs up into a wedge when it doesn’t have length to weigh it down. Well whatever I’m sure my being fat and a feminist is enough to put Doosh and his ilk anyways.
Also imo, Keira does look better with short hair. It really flatters her face shape. Tho her hair looks good at any length really, and obviously the only thing that matters when it comes to a person’s hair is what they want (okay, unless their choicr of hairstyle or hair accessory is appropriative).
“My favorite one (that might hold up) says that the reason male homosexuality is found in all cultures throughout history and never gets selected out of the gene pool is because there seems to be some correlation between the genes that make a woman more attractive and the genes that make their male relatives gay.”
I like the “sneaky fucker” theory (honestly; that’s what it’s called)
Basically goes along the lines of:
[Guys out mammoth hunting]
“Where Ugg?”
“Ugg back home”
“You leave Ugg alone with woman?”
“It ok, Ugg like musical theatre”
[Meanwhile, back at the cave]
“Ooh ooh, UGG!”
“Oh, it seems perhaps that sexuality is more of a spectrum than a fixed position”
“Where you learn talk like that?”
Etc.
*put Doosh and his ilk off.
My rather strange thought on all this is, why does he care? He’s PAU, I’d think fertility would be a bad thing in his mind. After all he might get “trapped” because a woman he slept with got pregnant.
I think it may be safer to just smile and nod, at least for me, while we wait for the men in white coats.
Honestly about two years ago I had a conversation with a guy (who I had had a crush on in middle school) who insisted women shouldn’t have short hair because men don’t like it (it started because a mutual friend who was a woman wanted to shave her hair and i encouraged her to “do what you want” with her hair). I tried explaining that 1) there are men who actually prefer short hair, and b) women ultimately do what they want with their hair not what men want. It’s not about making your boner happy.
He told me I was crazy and unreasonable and that I didn’t care about our mutual friend and saw her as an experiment (i didn’t understand the experiment accusation either???). Then he blocked and deleted me from Facebook. Boy am I glad he wasn’t interested in me back when I was interested in him (he did try to get in my pants about a year before this argument happened; I didn’t even know he what he was doing until i showed my friends the baffling conversation, so it went no where).
I seriously am shocked every time I encounter people who think that women should and do make their appearance about mens preferences.
@Binjabreel LOL
My contribution to evo-psych today is that women cut their hair short because that helps filter out assholes like Roosh from their lives increasing the likelihood of getting a decent person for a partner.
Also, Audrey.
Sick, deranged and sterile? Strong words from Roosh. He hasn’t exercised his Darwinian imperative that I know of.
I remember reading that the women of some Hasid sects, after cutting their hair short for marriage, afterwards wear styled wigs in public. But the wigs are all styled identically, no doubt for some recondite reason. I’ve become convinced that every religion, no matter how socially normative, has some curious bits here and there that no outsiders are alerted to.
So… When I had an eating disorder and my hair was falling out due to malnutrition, I was totally “dateable” and what I was doing to my body was A-okay. But when a perfectly healthy woman decides to cut her hair, it is ‘self harm’ and a sign of ‘mental illness?’
How do people like the guys at ROK even exist? Their level of sheer stupidity shouldn’t be feesibly possible. Like, we all know the site is made up of rapists and wanna-be rapists, but seriously…
@Alan Robertshaw
LOL
I kind of hope the adventures of Ugg and the mammoth hunters become a continuing feature in the comments here.
I want to see the hunters return to a production of Annie Get Your Gun.
I don’t agree with evopsyche but I’m sure there’s more to it and is more nuanced than that. Unfortunately dunces like Roosh keep mutilating it.
@ Karleena Marx
Evo-psych sounds fascinating in theory. I would love to find a really solid book on evo-psych, maybe something that’s not really hard science, but something more meditative like the work of Loren Eisley.
I will admit that most of what I read about evo-psych is on blogs like this one and Pharyngula, where they are making fun of somebody’s most recent stupid study.
I wish I could remember the title of the book I read four or five years ago. It sounded good as an Amazon recommendation (after I bought Beasts of Eden, I think), but it was so bad!
Another theory for the origin of homosexuality: Gay relatives can spend more time helping to raise their nieces, nephews and neighbours’ kids since they (usually) don’t have biological children of their own. “It takes a village” taken to its evolutionary conclusion.
I wonder if everyone on RoK agrees with this or if he’s banned men who like short hair on woman from the comments? I mean, there’s no way everyone who reads his sites agrees that long hair on women is super awesome amazing sexy.
Roosh is BEYOND moronic! The guy makes the dumbest generalizations. Funny too because I just left the gym and thought this girl who was working out who had short hair was really cute. I still have no idea how he has so many followers. What guys see in him is beyond me!
Emmm… Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Gina Lollobrigida, Ava Gardner…
Hmmm, curious. I had short hair when i was pregnant and when nursing. My boy was a solid 8.5 lbs and my body produced enough milk to feed two babies.
@ Hoosier X “I heard that there’s a possibility that not all evo-psych is bull poop. But I’ve never seen any evidence for that statement.”
I have, but easily 99% of it is assfax. of course, at least 95% of it is done by people who aren’t evolutionary biologists, so there’s a clue.
OMG! I have got short hair! I guess I need to be institutionlised then? What about you, Roosh? Haven’t you got short hair, too? Roosh is such a moron.
This is… basically Roosh thinks all women should be monitored at all times, like small children, it seems like. He’s always saying shit like this.
Are we sure he’s not trolling? This seems insane.