While Gibson tells me that she has noticed a less binary approach to hair being considered masculine or feminine (such as a rise in non-gendered haircuts being offered at salons) she caveats that media representation still has a lot of catching up to do. The reaction when women with short hair are voted, quite literally, as the epitome of female beauty, shows that male entitlement toward our appearances is still pervasive. Just last year, Eve Gilles, the winner of Miss France 2024, received intense sexist abuse in the form of misogynistic comments upon receiving her title. The “reason” for their outrage: her pixie cut, deemed as a symbol of “woke-ness” on social media platforms such as X. Gilles was the first winner to be crowned with short hair in France’s 103-year run, and it seems that attitudes surrounding how women “should” present themselves to be perceived as beautiful remain worryingly entrenched in the views prevalent a century ago.
