Erin, the founder of Fat girls+short hair=yes came to me for a haircut yesterday. We chatted about our lives and our blogs. She started her Tumblr site to give some love to big ladies who rock short hair.
At one point, she mentioned her own “F*** flattering stance”. I love this statement and I completely agree with her. There are beauty “Rules” that are ancient and baseless and they limit our imaginations and our views of ourselves. In honor of all the fat girls with hot short haircuts, here is an inspiring guest post from Erin herself.
Fat girls+short hair=YESSSSSS!
Last year, I was feeling a bit bored with my hairstyle and decided to go for the ubiquitous asymmetrical under cut. (Well, it was ubiquitous in my community of badass queer femmes for a while there.) My hair is wavy but for some reason, the left side of my head is basically straight, so I thought I might as well just shave it off anyway. It was fun for about three weeks and then I was over it.
Left, my grown-out under cut. Right, my new short ‘do, with fellow short-hair-don’t-care babe Mads. (photo credit: Leila Hofstein for Sugar Town)Growing out an under cut is a giant pain in the butt, so I decided to just go short all over. I hopped on the internet to search for some short and feminine hairstyles and was immediately cranky and disappointed. Literally none of the sites I found with short hair galleries featured any women who were fat, chubby, or even just fuller in the face. And all the advice for larger women basically said “OMG DON’T HAVE SHORT HAIR. IT’LL JUST MAKE YOU LOOK FATTER! QUICK, HIDE BEHIND LONG HAIR SO NO ONE CAN SEE YOUR CHUB!!!”
Which is ridiculous, not to mention f****ed up. I embrace the school of thought that says wear what you want and look how you want, regardless of what the magazines tell you—cuz they’re just trying to sell stuff to you by making you feel crappy about yourself.
Photo of Beth Ditto
I decided to put my rage to use and created a Tumblr. I put out a call on my Facebook for friends to submit photos of themselves, I posted some pictures of a few celebrities (like the always amazing Beth Ditto), and I persisted in my Google-ing (even though most of the search results were often offensive, demeaning, and/or racist). I wanted to create a resource for folks like myself who just wanted to see how various short styles would look like on someone who was similar to them.
Fast forward a few months and my little blog has over 400 followers on Tumblr, and over 300 posts featuring lovely and fierce ladies of all kinds. I try to represent folks from lots of different ethnicities, hair types, styles, and sizes (though I can always use help in the form of submissions and suggestions!). I comb Tumblr and the internet for photos, and I’m slowly but surely getting more submissions from followers.
I sometimes get comments from folks who say that seeing the images on my blog gave them the confidence to do what they’d always wanted to do, and how much they love their new style. I also hear about the awful things family members, friends, and hairstylists say to big girls who want to go short – it breaks my heart, makes me mama-bear furious, and strengthens my resolve to keep the blog going. We all deserve to be in control of our own appearance and we all deserve to be treated with respect. Find someone who will work with you—in most cities you can find someone just by asking around. And if you can’t find someone—get DIY with it! Play with your hair, figure out what works best for your hair type and your lifestyle, and screw the haters.
Posts from FatGirlsShortHair: photo sources from left to right: http://cherry-blossomgirl.tumblr.com/post/27373971086, http://fatgirlsshorthair.tumblr.com/post/40783984988/i-know-i-need-more-accessories-some-tats, http://blackgirllonghair.com/2012/05/ty-natural-hair-style-icon/
