Here’s a question for everyone – What’s with the long hair?  Watching television, almost every woman has long, long hair.  I mean hair that is halfway down her back.  That goes for Susan Lucci, who is old enough to know better, and most of the women playing lawyers, detectives, action heroines, business women on TV.

When was the last time long hair was in style?  Victorian, Edwardian and beyond?  Since the 1920’s when the bob came into style, women were freed from the servitude of taking care of their long pelt.  Last night on the TV in the course of two hours of channel surfing, most the actresses’ hair looked ratty, greasy, and hanging limp in unkempt straggly hanks. Female detectives swing tresses large enough for the bad guys to grab, wrap around their throats, give a quick jerk and break their necks.  Forensic doctors perform autopsies with extensive locks swinging over corpses, ignoring the possibility of one single hair contaminating the evidence, while CIA agents chase terrorists over fences with hair lashing behind their backs as they toss if out of their face.  I mean, really?  Give me a break!

I don’t have anything against clean, well groomed, long hair on the right women.  But not all women, not all ages, not all professions.  I don’t want my waitress swishing long hair over my pancakes, my nurse tossing her locks over her shoulder as she plunges a needle into my arm, or staring into an old face framed with hair trailing down over her shoulders…usually just not pretty or flattering unless you are a Native American or in ethnic dress.
When I was a kid, the women in my family had a rule, the older you got the shorter your hair, except for grandmother who wore her long locks in a tight bun at the back of her head.  I used to think mother was being silly until the day I got off an elevator in LA,  the door opened framing the back of a trim figure in mini skirt and boots, long hair down her back.  My first thought was “What a pretty young woman.”  Then she turned around, ye gads –  what a shocker!  Must have been at least in her late sixties and both rode hard and put away wet.  Guess mom was right.
But now, click through the channels and you can’t miss the Rapunzel effect.  So much for the woman’s movement, the right to live life without the effort of uncomfortable styles just to attract men or keep up with the fashion.  I’ve noticed the waist cincher, or ‘trainer’ as it’s now called, is back, spike platform ankle breaking shoes are all the rage.  I guess next will be the chastity belt.  The only good fashion change in my mind is the Kardashian butt, at least we ladies have one less thing to worry about as we grow our hair and hobble about in a cast on our broken legs.