A hairstory can be anything related to your hair, they can be as long or as short or as funny or sad or whatever you want them to be. It could be a poem or a paragraph or a rant or a journal entry, whatever. I am also going to participate and submit a story, we all have stories about hair (whether we have hair or not). So i am basically exploring the significance of hair to womyn, acknowleging the uniqueness of one's experience.

If you wanted to submit a photo for either the zine or blog (or both) along with a hairstory, that would be amazing, too.

*******I need to collect stories this week********

Anyway, if you are interested or if you have any friends that might be, please let me know. I am pretty excited about this project and feel it will be a really fun zine.

Also, because it is a class project, I need your informed and free consent. This project is approved by MSVU ethics. You must give permission if you are submitting a photo, or a story or whatever. I am sure I am making this sound way more complicated than it actually is! Basically I would either need your signature, or your permission through an email or something. I also need to send any participant the written details about the project and informed consent. If you want to participate but don't know what to say, I could ask you some questions via email or whatever.

On my own, I would mainly talk about how deathly boring I find sitting in a hairdresser's chair to be, which is why my hair is so often growing out into a mullet shape that I really detest.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
lovely people (like molly-tov) have sent so many lovely things that I really don't want to lose

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*raises white flag*

you seem to be pretty awesome, skdadl!

should i post the informed consent and information form in a pm, or would you prefer to have it emailed?

molly-tov I think your project sounds interesting. Do you need any more stories? God knows I've had some, er, hair raising experiences!

edited to add: As ever, fern hill is more diplomatic than I am.

[ 25 March 2006: Message edited by: Nikita ]

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Originally posted by otter:
Perhaps some research into how many senior women today have to wear wigs because of their long term use of hairdressing products. Or all the women who have contracted lomg term health effects from long term exposure form applying the hairdressing chemicals as hairdressers themselves.

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You know what? I would like you to stop with the patronizing way you've been telling women on this forum what they should and shouldn't do with their bodies/hair/make-up/clothes. This is the last time I'm going to tell you.

This seems a good way to come out of my self-imposed internet ban; I think I took Lent a little too far.

I once set my own hair on fire, as well as my winter hood, in a pub. It was extremely long then. I had no idea it was on fire whatsoever, until my brother's eyes began to big and round and scary. A waitress poured an entire jug of beer on top of me. We stayed anyway as the night was young.

i am still taking stories and would love to hear from anyone.

for this particular school project, i am getting clarification tomorrow if i may include stories of people outside the narrow age bracket i had initially proposed to ethics. my interest in hearing from young women in particular is because the class i am taking is about girl culture. one of the concepts we have discussed in this class is how many womyn refer to themselves as girls and how it has the potential to be a fluid term, one that transgresses age. hairstories are memories and i think my initial proposed age group is far too limiting. anyway, i will know tomorrow if i am able to include stories from people who are not within the age bracket for this project.

The hippie era when our long hair could to its own thing and Afro styles came into vogue for curly and kinky hair was a great liberation for my hair and me!

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Originally posted by lagatta:
My main memory as a young teen in the early to mid-1960s was the need to have stick-straight hair, preferably long.

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Originally posted by ephemeral:
Maybe the womyn who are older than your age bracket could tell you their tales of their hair when they were younger. Or do the stories have to be written by younger women? What is the age bracket anyway?

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quote:

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Originally posted by ephemeral:
Maybe the womyn who are older than your age bracket could tell you their tales of their hair when they were younger. Or do the stories have to be written by younger women? What is the age bracket anyway?

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Another man, my 1st husband, kept a beard because he felt he had a 'weak' chin. On a holiday in Mexico he went to a barber and had the thing removed. I didn't recognize him when he walked towards me, having never seeing him without one. Completely missed him. He approached to kiss me and I jumped back ready to strike. When he spoke and then tried to kiss me, I squirmed because it felt incestuous, he so looked exactly like his older brother.

Oh, btw, I just chopped all my hair off. Molly-tov, I was gonna send you another picture, but my do is almost identical to the pictures you already have of me with short hair. Everybody's gonna be sooo surprised. Nobody has seen me yet, except thwap's mum. Ooh la la, I look tres chic, tres moderne. I luvvve it! My hair is standing up a bit higher than in the pictures, molly-tov. I look somewhat like a mannequin, but I can lower the height easily. And I will remember to sleep on my face tonight.

[ 29 March 2006: Message edited by: ephemeral ]

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Originally posted by writer:
Just cut my own hair for the first time in years. What fun!

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