Big Hair Will Not Save the World (or, why I stopped getting perms)

Age 14, in my band uniform, with bleached, permed hair

Around age 11 my maternal grandmother started giving me perms. I’d stand on a wooden stool in front of her kitchen sink with my head under the tap while she washed my hair. Then she’d sit me on a vinyl kitchen chair and roll my hair in tiny rollers, which she squirted with an ammonia solution that made my eyes water. When she rinsed out the solution, my fine, delicate hair contracted into tiny curls.

This gave my hair just enough texture so I could curl, feather and spray it. I’d spend up to an hour every morning getting it ‘just right’ – not a hair out of place. Although I had the heart of a rebel, I also wanted to be accepted and liked, so I carefully curated my helmet of hair to fit in.

I guess I was reasonably well liked. I got good grades, and played clarinet in the marching band. I even became a cheerleader. For four years I jumped around in a flouncy skirt and scratchy sweater, cheering on our boys. My hair wasn’t big like the senior cheerleaders – theirs defied gravity – but my Grandma’s perms and plenty of spray made my fine, flat hair robust enough to withstand hours of sweaty cheering on the basketball court and fierce winter winds during football season.

Age 15, sprayed, feathered hair flying in the breeze on the football field

The Year of Living Dangerously (with straight hair)

In 10th grade, something shifted. I got tired of committing so much time to cheerleading and band. First I quit the clarinet, then I quit cheerleading. Being chosen to be a cheerleader was a coveted position, and few girls gave it up willingly. But I was starting to feel like cheering for the boys wasn’t what I was put on Earth to do.

At the same time, I started binge-watching movies about foreign correspondents in war zones. I watched ‘The Killing Fields’ – all 2 hours and 20 minutes of it – at least 10 times. I sobbed every time Dith Pran and Sidney Schanberg reunited in the refugee camp on the Thai border, to the tune of ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon.

In ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’, I watched, over and over, as a journalist played by a young Mel Gibson snogged British Diplomat Sigourney Weaver in a tropical downpour, to the rousing sound of Vangelis, as the coup against the Indonesian leader unfolded around them.

It was then I decided to stop getting perms. I wanted to be a journalist, and I wanted to look the part. I coveted a straight, chin-length bob, like I saw in Glamour magazine. Clearly, the male foreign correspondents I admired didn’t have chin-length bobs. And there were no women journalists in any of the films I watched. But I was sure that permed, sprayed hair would not be practical while embedded with US troops in the Persian Gulf.

Plus, it felt daring to let my hair be straight. All around me, girls had the biggest hair – teased, curled and sprayed stiff. They stuffed their giant handbags with huge aerosol bottles of Aqua Net and Ogilvie Styling Spritz.

Going straight felt like a huge leap away from small-town Ohio into the life I really wanted.

Senior year, age 18, with my chin-length bob

Eventually, with my straight, chin-length bob, I got accepted to study journalism at Ohio University. Denise did, too, and we met on the very first day of freshman year.

While we both eventually switched majors, I never lost my fascination with journalists and world news. I’ve also discovered some amazing women foreign correspondents who I admire from afar, including the BBC’s unflappable Kate Adie who – to my utter delight – sports a chic, straight, chin-length bob.