Pondering haircuts and prejudices
Sing along if you know the tune:
r ,
Almost cut my hair. Happenedjust
the other day.
-tt’s getting kind* long. I Cbuld
have said it Was in my way.
But I didn’t, and I wonder why.
I decided to let my freak flag fly.
I feel like I owe it.
Actually, I did trim it myself in the
sink with a pair of paper scissors
because the back was
starting to wing out. But
I’ve been torn lately
between trimming it all
or letting it grow.
Despite what Crosby,
Stills, Nash and Young
say, my longest hairs are
probably only six
inches, max, and that’s
the longest they’ve been since I first
had them whacked. Far from freaky.
You see, I left for Chicago in mid
May with permed hair past my shoul
ders. After three weeks of pony tails,
hats and heal, I paid $80 to have
someone practically shave my head.
My friends and relatives were
amazed. The last time I had short hair,
I mean really short hair, was when I
was bom.
I felt freer, lighter, happier, in con
trol.
Then someone called me a dyke.
Out of the blue, as I was walking
down a Chicago street, I heard the
word behind my back. I looked, but
the dyke-caller was gone.
I felt unnerved and a little violated
by the sudden attack, apparently ini
tiated by the shortness of my coiffure.
For those of you not hip in your
lingo, “dyke” is a term used to de
scribe a lesbian, or someone of the
female persuasion who is sexually
attracted to another someone of the
female persuasion.
I'm not.
Granted, I was clad in a T-shirt and
jeans, men’s shoes and no earrings.
But I’d dressed like that when I sported
longer hair, and no one called me a
dyke.
As a matter of fact, most lesbians I
know have much longer “do”s than I
do. . ____
So where did that dyke-caller get
off anyway, calling me a dyke, just
because my hair bears somewhat of a
passing resemblance to k.d. lang’s?
Maybe the dyke-caller was still
holding on to the age-old command
ment that men shalt not have hair past
their chins, nor shall women cut their
hair shorter than their ears, or they
shalt be cast into a pit of Satan’s
hairdressers.
As Ross Perot once said, y’all know
this is bunk.
As a friend of mine once said: “It
used to be that you could tell the really
cool guys ‘cause they had long hair,
but now the gross guys have long hair
loo, so the cool guys are cutting their
hair short, except for European guys,
who are cool just ‘cause they’re Euro
pean.”
Fact is, nowadays you can take a
lot of hairstyles and slap them on
either a male or female head and no
one would know the difference.
Having short hair is great in some
ways, like shorter blow-drying time,
using less shampoo and not having to
run around the house trying to find
one of those little pony-tail holders.
But it’s also a pain. When I wake
up, 1 have cowlicks in the back of my
head. If I don’t have time to shower,
I have to wear a hat. When I wear a
baseball cap, I look rather butch. At
times I feel like the polar opposite of
Lyle, the effeminate male hetero
sexual. I’m Michelle, the butch fe
male heterosexual.
Many people automatically asso
ciate such un-femininity with dykes,
which is abthurd, as Lyle once said.
Herein lies the whole root of preju
dice.
Being human beings, we can’t help
but make automatic judgments based
on our first impressions of the people
we see before we meet them.
For instance. If you saw me walk
ing across campus after I had over
slept and thrown a baseball cap on my "
head, you might think I was a dyke. If .
you bumped into me and I then pushed |
you to the ground and hissed, ‘‘You J
bastardl^ you might think I Was a 1
really bitchy dyke. 1
Perceptions are sometimes fun, like
when you laugh at some dyke’s cow
licks, but they Tealso untrue or unfair.
Think how you would feel, you
snivelling twit, if someone judged
you on how you look and how you act.
Then from these prejudices we
make generalizations, another evil in
our wanna-be-P.C. society.
To say “All UNL students are ce
ment-brained twits” would be incor
rect, because I am not a twit; I’m a <
trollop, thank you.
To say “Andy, a UNL student, is a {
cement-brained twit,” for example, .
would be OK if Andy, who may be a *
twit, does indeed have cement for
brains.
However, people must beclumped
together for convenience, for govern
ment, laws and surveys. Weare lumped
into cohorts upon cohorts upon co
horts until we form huddled masses
yearning to breathe free.
I don’t like being clumped into
whatever cohort I belong to: single,
white, female, kinda freaky, bitchy,
dykey-looking college student.
Some days I just want to scream
from the top of Oldfathcr Hall, “I’m
not a cohort, I’m ME! Michelle, the
butch heterosexual! I’m the one with
short hair that’s growing out! I sit in
the back of your lecture class and do
the crossword puzzle!”
Knowing my luck, everyone else
would be up there, screaming at the
tops of their lungs that they’re all
individuals, loo. Different dreams,
same decibel level.
Generalizations suck.
Oops.
Paulman is a senior news-editorial major
and a columnist and photographer for the
Daily Nebraskan.
Conservatives, come out of closet
Conservatives have had their
plight bemoaned throughout
the year. They’ve whined
about elections, homosexuals and
presidents’ wives. But I suppose you
could call me the idiot who is foolish
enough to show com
passion for people who
weren’t bom into the
same financial situation
I was.
Liberals and conser
vatives can probably
agree on one thing, how
ever. A substantive de
bate is always an education, espe
cially when the person you’re arguing
with is brightand well read enough to
make valid points.
With that spirit in mind, I’d like to
briefly tell you my views on various
issues. I hope the conservative stu
dent body will take the time to re
spond. I’m disappointed in the con
servative population so far, which
seems scared to speak out.
Where are the conservatives who
disagree with the liberal views? Surely
at least one of Doug Bercutcr’s sup
porters could have objected to Gerry
Finnegan’s campaign. How about
Hillary Clinton? I said last week she
was an ama/ing woman. Evidently
everyone agrees because I haven’t
heard differently. 1 know you’re out
there because Bush won Nebraska
overwhelmingly. Either you’re scared
to stand up for what you believe in or
loo lazy to write a five-minute letter to
the editor.
Let me give you some cannon fod
der. I think a woman should have a
right to choose. I’m not saying I per
sonally believe in abortion, but I think
a woman has a right to decide what to
do with her own body. Personally, I
think life begins in the tenth week of
gestation upon the inception of brain
waves in the fetus. Regardless, I don’t
want the government making this
decision for women. How can conser
vatives say they arc against the gov
ernment meddling in everything, yet
many want the very same government
to declare abortion illegal?
1 believe in gun control. I think the
National Rifle Association is wrong
in supporting hoi low-pointed bullets
and every other device created purely
for killing humans that has ever been
invented. Their premise that a ban on
any type of gun or ammunition will
eventually limit those of us who want
to hunt wild game is ridiculous. I love
to hunt and I plan to do so throughout
my lifetime. There is no need, how
ever, for a porcelain handgun or ar
mor-piercing bullet when I’m trying
to bring down a pheasant or a goose.
If the government wanted to ban shot
guns, I’d be the first one in line to
protest. Many types of handguns and
ammunition, however, need to be
regulated.
I believe in helping those who are
less fortunate than I am. While con
servatives may believe that the poor
must be born poor because they want
to be, otherwise they’d be rich, I think
we need to help out our fellow citi
zens. If a person who is bom into
poverty can become a more useful
contributor to society through a gov
ernment-sponsored education pro
gram, I’m thrilled to sec my tax dol
lars spent in such a manner. If a single
mother needs assistance to raise her
child, I think the government should
help her get on her feet. If elderly
people need health care, the govern
ment ought to make sure they’re get
ting it.
I believe homosexuals should have
the same rights as everyone else. They
ought to be able to be Boy Scout
leaders, soldiers and anything else
they want to be. Just because a person
is gay doesn’t mean they’re a
pedoph ile or a bad soldier. Wh i le I’ve '
only known two people in my life who
were admittedly gay, I’d be happy to
fight side-by-side with either of them
if the United States went to war.
I believe in affirmative action. If a
woman or a black person takes the
place of a white male in a law school
entering class, we’re all belter off.
Women and people of color have
perspectives that white men could
never have, and the learning environ
ment is better if the class is diverse. If
law schools consisted solely of white
males they’d look like the Republican
Party.
Conservatives say they are fed up
with the liberal slant of the Daily
Nebraskan. You’re out there. Well,
I’d like to change your minds. I would
love to persuade you that trickle-down
economics was a farce or that Ronald
Reagan was incapable of understand
ing complex policy arguments.
I’d like to invite all conservatives
at this university to engage in some
substantive debate. Come out of the
closet. In the eloquent words of the
conservative President Bush, “Let’s
get it on.”
Bruning is a second-year law student and
a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
. . ■ 1 1 i
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