WHAT'S HAIR GOT TO DO WITH IT?--because you asked for it, Felipe

Girls, they cut their hair; they curl it, braid it, tease it, dye it, iron it flat, blow it out and tuck it under. They perm it, pin it, tweeze it, shave it, and aim at its roots with a laser gun. Girls know how to do anything that can be done to their hair. It’s not hard to do. You learn when you’re very young, from mother to daughter: “Come, let me comb your hair, dear.” … Girls comb their hair every day, noon and night; they shave and tweeze too. They do it without complaining to themselves or their husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends. Hair, it’s a girls’ problem . . . Girls’ domain is that of the mirror, the salon, and the hair. It’s a basic maintenance of a girls’ crowning glory, the least troublesome: it’s the one about which you say little but that you comb and brush and style in a thousand ways. How am I going to wear my hair tonight? That’s what you call a girls’ problem. Length. How much importance should we give length…? “How do I look?” asks the girl. “Do you love my hair?” “You look great, honey,” says the man. “Should I wear it up or leave it down?” the girl asks again. And the girl wears it up. Weather he really knows the difference between up and down is a matter of, well, splitting hairs. The stakes are high, higher than the discussion itself: if he notices my hair, he notices me. How should I wear my hair so that he will love me? And the next day, she combs her hair again, strand after strand; she separates and brushes her hair into thin, patient, meticulous, and identical strands. She does this so that her hair will be healthy and also pretty, well presented. She brushes it fifty times, one hundred times, a thousand and one times. Something that is well presented is desirable. Then you’ll want me, to let down my hair. “I love your hair,” says the man. “You’re as pretty as a picture.” Will you still love me if I lose my hair? If I cut it off?” asks the girl. “You won’t,” says the man. “May be one day,” says the woman. “Maybe one day . . . a guillotine.”

NOTE: My very loose adaptation of “Les pommes de terre,” Les Temps modernes, issue titled “Les femmes s’entêtent” (April-May 1974): 1732-34).