Remember when Miley Cyrus cut all her hair off and the whole Internet blew up?

Yeah, that was a fun week. You couldn’t log onto Tumblr or Facebook without coming across a joke about how she looked like Draco Malfoy.

Because when a woman cuts all her hair off, she becomes less of a
woman, of course.

Now I can’t speak for all women, but when I get my hair cut, the only person I’m thinking about is myself. I’m not worried about what people will think when they look at me.

And I’d like to think that’s why Miley and any other celebrity would decide to make a change with their hair.

I mean, sure, sometimes celebs chop off their hair for movie roles. Most recently, Charlize Theron has been rocking super short locks after shaving her head for her role in the upcoming film “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

Emma Watson cut her hair quite short for “Perks of Being a Wallflower,” much to the dismay of teenage boys around the world.

One online commenter on Watson’s Glamour photoshoot said: (sic throughout) “Not crazy about short hair on girls, but the Glamour look is ok IMHO (in my honest opinion). She is so darn perty, it really don’t matter :B.”

A commenter named Rob felt the need to share this opinion: “She looks a lot better with the potter classic look from the films. Though she does look good with relatively short hair too with certain dresses and shirts.”

But really, who asked them?

What it comes down to is when guys say things like this, what they’re really saying is a woman needs their approval to cut her hair and is not allowed to make such decisions on her own, reducing her to a child-like status. And to say ‘I still think she looks hot, so it’s OK that she cut her hair off,’ implies not only that she needs permission to make changes in her appearance, but that her only goal should be to look sexually appealing to men.

But to reduce a woman down to just what she looks like, to tell her she can’t make such a personal choice without negative repercussions, belittles her worth as a human being.

In an interview with Glamour magazine Watson admits that her decision to grow her hair back out was affected by negative male response.

“If I had it my way, I would have just kept it short forever,” Watson said. “Of course, men like long hair. There’s no two ways about it. The majority of the boys around me were like, ‘Why did you do that? That’s such an error.’ And I was like, ‘Well, honestly, I don’t really care what you think!’ I’ve never felt so confident as I did with short hair — I felt really good in my own skin.”

But God forbid she be comfortable with herself if her appearance is not up to men’s standards.

And this isn’t just something that affects celebrities.

Personally, I want my hair relatively short almost all the time. And sometimes I let it grow out, mostly due to laziness and a typically busy schedule. Right now, my hair is way too long for me to be comfortable with it and I’m probably going to schedule an appointment at a salon as soon as I finish writing this.

Because I’m more comfortable with myself and with my appearance when my hair is short.

So when past boyfriends have practically begged me to not cut my hair, I can’t understand why my comfort is somehow less important than what they find most attractive. I’ve gotten responses from ex-boyfriends like “but I really like your long hair,” and my favorite, “but I hate short hair on girls.” (Meaning you’ll hate me for cutting my hair, or … ?)

Guys who say things like that are clearly looking to date a hairstyle, a specific appearance; not a person. And I’m not willing to reduce myself to that.

Like Watson said:

“The saddest thing for a girl to do is to dumb herself down for a guy.”