To me, my hair also spoke volumes politically (pun intended.) My long, dark locks seemed to draw men in, as this seems to be part of some kind of male fantasy. When strangers would walk up to me and say, “You’re so damned pretty,” I was fairly certain that they wouldn’t say it if I lacked the long mane so many men seem to enjoy tugging at. I also ran the constant risk of being confused with most other Asian women donning hair that reached past their shoulders. “Ms. Hsu,” some of the more insolent students would call from down the hall, fully knowing that I wasn’t her. All of these things about my long hair bothered me, and made me feel as though I could be easily replaced.

Of course, if you know me at all, it also had something to do with my own romantic past. After all, as my stylist snipped off the weight of a year and a half, I thought of how he would never grab fistfuls of my hair again. In that instant, I felt like a new person.

I suppose I’m just tired of the way that a majority of women are expected to wear their hair long in order to be considered sexy. I want for me, just me, to be enough attractiveness. I want to turn heads because of the witty things I say, or bitchy things I do, with no curtain to hide behind.

Truly, the action has changed me for the better. “It’s just hair,” they say, and I know. But in my mind, I want to pretend that it means more. I want to believe that this part of me will be a gift for someone else, to help her build her self-confidence to the level in which she, too, won’t need it anymore.