But probably not the animals you’re thinking of.
When I say “men are like animals,” maybe you think I mean that men are like dogs. But after I bleached my hair, I quickly came to the conclusion that men are like birds. Specifically female birds. Before bleaching my hair around this time last year, I had been a natural brunette my entire life. I never had a desire to change my hair color—not even temporarily. But eventually I found myself pining after different white-haired celebrities and characters onscreen, and I thought it might be kind of a bold move to bleach my entire head of hair without really telling anyone, so I decided to do it. Immediately, I noticed a dramatic difference in the amount of attention I received from men.
This puzzled me. The only thing that I had changed was the color of my hair. My face looked the exact same, my body looked the exact same, my gait was the exact same—yet suddenly I noticed I was being catcalled far more often than before. I rarely got catcalled before—I had probably experienced one catcall in the two years before I bleached my hair. In the weeks after, multiple strangers commented on my appearance on the sidewalk. I thought, “That’s kind of funny. Men are drawn to my bright plumage. Men are like birds.”
Of course, I later realized that the men were not actually more attracted to my “bright plumage.” It’s just that their eyes were drawn to it. In fact, everyone’s eyes were drawn to my bright blonde head. I had suddenly gone from someone who never had the brightest plumage on the sidewalk to someone who always had the brightest plumage on the sidewalk. It’s not that blonde hair is more attractive, I thought, but that more men are looking at me because more people are looking at me in general. From this, a sort of lesson emerged: the more eyes on me, the more often someone will try to hit on me. In order to be seen, eyes must point in my direction. And in order to be known, I have to allow myself to be seen.
I have employed a number of different tactics in trying to prevent people from seeing me, for example:
I seem to have expended a lot of effort in managing my appearance and demeanor simply to avoid being seen. I don’t blame myself—it’s scary to be seen, and, famously, even scarier to be known. But I mourn the connections I might have missed by trying so hard to blend in. I think I can stand to lower my guard a bit. Perhaps going forward, I will try to pause every once in a while to evaluate my behavior when I’m in public. I’ll ask myself, “am I avoiding being seen right now? Why?”
Maybe I’ll come to the conclusion that I’m better off avoiding being seen after all. That would be okay. But bleaching my hair made me realize that it’s safe to be seen. It’s a new way of thinking, a new way of being, for me. I think it’s worth exploring.