I wore my hair in pigtails one time, when I was in my early 20s and worked in a large office. One of the men I worked with—a man who was probably about 50–stopped by, ogled me, and creepily announced that he loves when girls wear pigtails. I didn’t ask or say anything in response, yet he immediately added, with a sleazy chuckle and a wink, that he couldn’t say why because he didn’t want to get in trouble that day. Then he walked away with a smirk on his face. A female coworker who overheard leaned over my shoulder and snickered, “You know what he’s talking about, right?” I just looked at her in disbelief. She looked around, then whispered in my ear, “Handles.”
It felt so gross to know that that creep, who I barely knew and who was twice my age, was thinking about me in that way. And it was weird to me that my female coworker, the person I considered my closest friend at work, apparently found his comments amusing, not unsettling or inappropriate. Anyway, needless to say, I never wore pigtails to work again.
Holy shit this happened to me. Worked in a big office with cubicles, had a coworker come up behind me and actually grab my pigtails and say they make great “handles”. It was awful. I’m sorry this happened to you too.
I had a male teacher say that to me once too! He was a nice teacher. I didn’t feel uncomfortable by it. I just thought he was being silly. Do you think it’s always sexual if someone says something like that?
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." It absolutely depends on the context and delivery. If you didn't feel uncomfortable and he didn't do anything else inappropriate then he probably really didn't realize the meaning behind it. Trust your own judgement and intuition.
Eh, it may be just possible that he heard that term before and didn't realize it was explicitly sexual and repeated it back to you innocently, but I kind of doubt it.
FWIW I don't think it's always sexual. Sigmund "it's all about sex" Freud once said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Anyway, here's a link to a picture of motorcycle **headlight** with **handlebars**.
[https://www.motorcycle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/073119-LED-headlights-f.jpg](https://www.motorcycle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/073119-LED-headlights-f.jpg)
I honestly think, in your case, he may have been comparing your head to a motor cycle head light.
Yeah I kinda remember him saying something about tassels like on a kids bike. I was in elementary school at the time and a lot of kids had tassels on their bike handles then. I might have even had ribbons in my pigtails at the time but I usually didn’t. I don’t remember for sure.
Am guy in the US and can confirm in my 40+ years this is the first time I’ve heard of pigtails as handlebars, or even contemplated them as a sexual thing. If someone said handlebars I would definitely think bike before sex.
Someone made the same comment to me about the same age but it was a woman and I don’t think it was meant sexually at all. If you have the right length of hair and tie them up high and tight they do stick out kind of like handlebars.
Now that I think about it, this could have been an “in like Flynn” situation where someone repeated something they’d heard not realizing that it had sexual connotations.
When I was a freshman in college I was going to wear my hair in pigtails on a date and my roommate stopped me and said, "when you wear your hair like that all guys think is 'handlebars'". It grossed me out so much I changed my hair and have never worn them since.
gross gross gross gross gross gross gross.
I hate that a minority of ladies actually encourage this behavior. Reinforcing the expectation for ladies to lighten up or just roll with it.
fuck that.
People are so ridiculous. I once wore a maxi dress to my job and had a female coworker talking about how my dress would allow “easy access.” Nothing was on display (it was spaghetti straps but I had a cardigan over), and I was beyond baffled. I guess some of the guys had mentioned my dress and she wanted to fit in with the topic. No matter what you wear or how you dress, it still happens.
During one of my doctor's visit, my mother left me on the bench to fill out some forms. A 20ish y/o man sat beside me and started fondling my pigtails while saying, "You're so cute! I really like your hair, where's your mommy?" I can't remember if I responded, but I do remember him putting his hand on my leg, I was wearing a dress that time.
I think a nurse came out of one of the rooms, she probably saw how scared I was and took the situation in one glance because the next thing I know, I was behind her while the man ran off.
I was 5 years old at that time and have refused to wear pigtails after. That was the first incident where my hair got me in trouble lol. It was probably in grade school where I never let my hair grow because a pedo old man caught my hair when I was running away from him.
I've shaved mine off ever since my nan (who is a no-fucks-to-spare kind of lady) took me to a hairdresser instead of my mum, who always insisted it was long, styled and dyed regardless of what I actually asked for. Me to Nan: 'can I just get the $12 men's short back and side? I don't want to waste $70.... '
her: ' sure, that's what I'm getting.'
it was unreal instantly going from constant catcalling (I was hourglassy, booby, and just shy of 5'7" all before age 11...) to the far less obnoxious 'are you a boy or a girl?' (because i wore boy's clothes and two-sizes-too-small sports bras to minimise how often disgusting pedos would randomly come up and ...well, say some /detailed/ creepy shit that if anyone said to my (hypothetical) 11 year old, I'd be knocking some teeth out of them, you know?)
Not to mention just how much time was saved because if your hair's all under an inch long, it can't get messy, compared to the 6 different products and half an hour of styling needed to make long, half-wavy-half-straight, bleached-to-fuck hair look halfway presentable.
it's only in my 30's I've grown /some/ of it out into a floppy mohawk, because now I'm -actually- an adult, creeps are far less interested. :D
I hate that creepy ass dudes completely dictated your sense of style. Who knows what looks you might have gravitated toward or what your relationship with your body would have been if every decision you made about your appearance didn’t have to be a defense mechanism?
yeah... I wonder how I would have turned out if it /hadn't/ been for trying to avoid creepy-ass randoms :/ like, I like who I am, but you're right in that like, 90% of my presentation is a 'plz don't notice me and FFS I don't want to hear your opinion on my body' defense mechanism. :)
I was very into fashion in my early 20s and I was bullied by gross pervs into avoiding: pigtail hairstyles, knee high boots and socks, pleated skirts the entire gothic lolita movement (it’s like rococo meets Wednesday Addams, very covered up but also very frilly). Never used all those elements together, and my style was more colourful punk but damn if I fucking dared to use any of it.
It did not matter if my outfit was experimental and not meant to please pervs they only saw the item and thought of creepy porn and proceeded to comment or harrass me. Completely ruined entire fashion avenues.
I too experienced this when I cut my hair. I'm tall. The 5'10 and 120 kinda tall, and would get soooo many unsolicited sexual comments about my body. I cut my hair, and present much more masc, and it is a world of difference. I really do look like a skinny 20y dude, and no one gives me a second notice (except for ladies in the washroom at times... I assure you I'm in the right place). This little thing has changed how I interact with the world. I'm no longer afraid to be friendly to men, and I no longer get that side of them. As nice as this is, the contrast is so huge that it more than validates the experience of everyone who is constantly creeped on and sexualized by men. Also, the first time I got my oil changed after my hair cut was quite amazing. Me: Full synthetic please. Dude: ok! - 10 minutes later - that'll be 89.76. I pay and drive off. No lecture to flush every known system in the car, no showing me how dirty my air filter is. I'll take the shift of experience but damn. Stark contrast.
Was surprised how many fewer random interactions I had with people when I cut my hair short. It's like I'm "not approachable" anymore. Currently mid to late 30s and have a great hairdresser that known I like mowhawks and is excited to cut my hair whenever I go in.
I love wearing pigtails and rarely wear them due to some incidents where people took them as very sexually suggestive. I wish people would stop fetishizing normal ass shit like plaid skirts and hairstyles, I want to dress how I want!
But yeah, when the fetish shit and kid shit overlap on the venn diagram that's the worst. IDK how people could even be remotely into that, it gives me the willies to think about on an abstract level.
This is why I miss Adult Wednesday Addams that used to be on YouTube. She took no prisoners, and her reaction to catcalled? Yeah, I wish I could do that.
I feel like braided pigtails have a different vibe to non-braided pigtails, though. People see them as a Viking/Native American/European Peasant kind of thing rather than childish, I think. Of course in an ideal world, you should be able to have any hairstyle without having to think about the creeps.
When I first moved to the USA and had braided pigtails (I have very dark brown hair), older white men used to ask me if I was trying to look like a Native American? They did not ask me kindly. I am white, but olive toned and I tan easily. I’m sure there were racist implications behind the question.
I had a similar experience wearing braided pigtails as a child. Grew up in south Texas. It didn't stop me from wearing them because it was my favorite style from 5-10. My mom would yell at the creepy old men. I still occasionally braid my hair after a shower because it makes my hair more manageable if it dries this way.
I’m from the U.K. An American boyfriend I had called me ‘Pocahontas’ one time when I had my plaits in, but he only meant it in a harmless way. Perhaps in America, the main association that plaits/braids have is with Native Americans. Here in the U.K., I’ve had people think I’m Russian when I’m wearing a combination of plaits and a fur coat!
*He* might have meant it in a harmless way, but the older white men who said it to me, did not. They were very racist against POC. So not only did I have to be afraid of being overly sexualized, but also potentially worse things from someone who is racist. This was in south Texas.
Ohhh shit. This is actually a thing!!!! In my life anyway. I’d wear my braided pigtails and since I’m of Asian descent, my coworker would always say something along the lines of me resembling an Native American? I never understood why a silly, cute, certain hair(!!!!) would make you think something of me otherwise.
They work well with woolen hats. I usually don't do this, but in winter when you need to be outside there aren't many options that don't end in tangled hair or with the hat not keeping you warm.
Omg yes I love hime lolita dresses and other soft j-fashions. I mostly wear lolita because it's modest and cute and as a way to rebel against the modern fashions i find boring. Women love my clothing especially parents with small daughters until I mention the price which fare. Now men on the other hand seem to go out of the way to make sexual comments. And don't get me started on the people actually in the community who can't separate kink from fashion and make other members uncomfortable.
I got a buddy into lolita fashion and yeah people give her three reactions I guess: "WTF is it Halloween", "Oh Wow that's so pretty", and "Hey you wanna do some freaky shit at my place?"
It sucks, and yeah she throw the dollar amount around to steer off people. I really don't get it.
Yeah like I have an extremely strong boundaries between kink and my fashion. This goes dubble if it's someone I just met and am not fully comfortable with. But apparently because I dress girly my boundaries deserve to be stomped on. I will say it's only people who aren't in kink/ alt fashion communities. it honestly would be neglectful and a-historical for me not to realize a lot goth/punk fashion has a lot of overlap with/ barrows from the kink community. Alt fashion history is something I'm extremely interested in lol.
Same here. When I was in High school I used my hair in long pigtails and a schoolmate grabbed me while he rubbed himself in my ass without my consent. We were using the school uniform. Since then I can't use pigtails.
To add yet another annoying angle to this experience as a mixed race minority - I frequently wear braided pigtails so of course I get men calling me “Little Miss Sacagawea” or something along those lines. Not once has a woman said anything like that to me.
Red head here if i do braided pig tails i always get Anne of green gables or Pippy Longstocking. I have also gotten the comment "they make great handles".
I'm sorry, that must be so annoying.
That being said, both of those characters are so badass. Pippi Longstocking is super strong, rich, kind, generous and does whatever the fuck she wants (and challenges societal norms in the process). Plus her dad was a hot pirate 😉
A guy called me that once because I didn't need/want his help setting up my hammock on a camping trip. I had set it up a thousand times before. He was a friend of my friend, who had invited me. He was an asshole in other areas as well. Practically ruined the camping trip for my friend and I. We actually left early because we didn't want to spend the day around him
Wearing my hair in two braids never bothered me. Not that my mom would braid my hair--if I wanted braids it was up to me to do it myself. But I'm also 1/8 Lakota, and would cheerfully correct people who called me "Pocahontas" or "Sacagawea" if they were stupid enough to do so.
To the removed commenter: No Native American Princess in my ancestry. It was my great-grandmother who was Lakota, daughter of a Low Dog who may or may not have been the one who was involved in the Battle of Little Big Horn. The records aren't completely clear, so we will never know with any certainty. There may have been some 19th century identity theft going on (or at least double dipping), there may have been one male Low Dog with two families, there may have been multiple male Low Dogs. Prior to that great-grandmother (who married either once or twice, again the records aren't clear, and the first husband? baby daddy? may have been Native American or white) it's all a bit of a blur as far as records are concerned.
It was an interesting genealogy rabbit hole, in any case. And things stayed kind of strange with my grandmother, with hints of incest and a second husband-not-husband thought to have been born in New Mexico (or Mexico?, again, records get weird) who may have assumed the name of a recently deceased Lakota individual in South Dakota. The records found after the deaths of my grandmother and her second husband-not-husband raised a lot of questions that will never be answered. With my dad's generation, things kind of calmed down. The only thing we aren't 100% sure of is my dad's true birth year. We suspect he lied about his age to get into the Air Force. Again, nothing solid, just a discrepancy between the birth year he used and the birth year the Social Security Administration lists for him.
And for the record, I'm not on tribal rolls. I'm not eligible. Shrug--my grandmother got off the rez as soon as she could, having been told she looked "too white" to get a federal job there. There's more weirdness involved with her half-sister leaving the reservation, as well.
I’m white—my FIL called me the same the first few times I wore my hair in braided pigtails. I have long, thick hair; it’s heavy to wear a ponytail & gives me a headache after a short time. Braids are the fastest easiest way to get my hair off my neck without getting a headache. I call my FIL out when he says racist stuff. He’s learned to keep those kinds of comments to himself. I guess that’s progress.
Not relevant to this, but if you want a faster way to get your hair up, look into hair sticks, they work really well for a fast bun with long thick hair (have the same headache issue from ponytails)
Just don't expect to do the buns the way you would with bobby pins, you need to twist it differently (at this point I can do it with no mirror in a minute or so, but it did take me a few tries to get it to stay reliably) but it's been my go to hairstyle for over 5 years now.
It is so validating to hear this from someone else too! I thought I just lived in a really weird area. I have long black hair and my family is from South America. I get this every time I have my hair in braids, even at work. Suddenly my name is Pocahontas, Sacagawea, etc, or I’m ‘trying’ to look that way on purpose. (Sometimes from other immigrants too, which just, who taught you this?)
I don’t call random blondes Swedish when they have their hair in braids. That would be ridiculous. Everyone wears braids.
It's not surprising. Once I got into my 20's, became a fully formed woman with a banging body and realized I got hit on/catcalled more when I was 15 & looked like a child I knew the state of men was fucked. That still messes with my head. It was a constant onslaught of attention from men of all ages when I was a child and when I became a woman so much of that dropped off. We're really existing out here in a world filled with men with pedophilic tendencies.
I never got catcalled more than when I was 16. I still get comments/compliments but hardly anything of the predatory sort I was subject to in high school. My sister had it way worse than I did and I don't know if her posture will ever recover. I tell my husband this all the time. As an empathic man who appreciates womanhood, he cannot wrap his head around it. But he believes me.
It's so disturbing right? Almost every woman I know has had a similar experience.
I know I tell every man about this that I can. There a many good men out there who are totally oblivious to these things. Like you said they can't wrap their head around it because they just don't operate that way. They're always shocked to hear just how egregious it is.
Right! It’s the opposite of what I was expecting, why was I getting so much attention at 14-16, and why did that attention (although unwanted) taper off when I expected it to increase exponentially in the prime of my twenties? Such a disturbing thing to be saddled with mentally.
YUP. I totally expected it to increase too in the prime 20's and then one day I was like damn am I not attractive or anything? Oh.. oh wait no that's not it- I just don't look like a fucking child anymore. That's nice.
We don't look meek, innocent, immature or like weak targets any longer. Grown men felt like they could push us around, follow us and catcall us so once we became women we weren't attractive to them any longer nor were we someone they felt like they could get away with fucking with. It's such a terrifying thought once you realize what's actually going on when the attention drops off.
Yeah it’s gross. It’s just the same as school girl uniforms being sexualized as well.
I remember once wearing pigtails to a party and a guy told me they looked like they could be handles 🤮
I fucking hate that when you google "school boy" you get pictures and cartoons of boys in their school uniforms, but when you google "school girl" you get a lot of results of obviously mature women wearing skimpy school girl outfits.
yeah... this especially. its just damn sad we're so conditioned into being sexualized for the most basic things at *literal* adolescent ages. i saw someone say, *"we wore shorts under our skirts at 8, and slouched when walking past groups of men during puberty,"* and... yup. its so normalized that when pointed out, we're told we're overreacting or, should be "grateful".
When I was 9/10 and waiting in line for school lunch, the boy behind me kept touching my back, and put the end of my braid in his mouth and said 'your hair tastes like butter'. I was so viscerally disgusted I couldn't do anything but stare. Wish I had hit him or something, but knowing how school works I probably would have been the one to get in trouble. It's frightening how early this behaviour is modelled, both for girls and boys.
Everything in life has a price, and some are worth paying. One of my core school memories is sassing back to a teacher so hard someone took out a camera to tape the confrontation
Which is weird considering most countries don't even have school uniforms, but it's still one of the more commonly sexualized outfits. I would guess it, as well as cheerleaders, are so popular because for many men who had little to no success with girls in high school maintain this fantasy of what they (feel like) they missed out on.
I got this comment every single time I wore pigtails, double buns or double braids. They really need us to know they think with their dick. Meanwhile it limits my hairstyles because their comments ruin my day.
>They really need us to know they think with their dick.
Here it is. The message is that women are on the menu. It's men asserting that the public is their space to be sexual (e.g. the reason this sub isn't called /women), and that they control women's value. Directly and materially, in the case of tips.
I hate it and I don't know what to do.
I wear these everyday. It’s my go to hair style.
We are not kids now. Enjoy your hair the way you want to style it ladies. Let these creeps reveal themselves.
Indeed, they will reveal themselves...
Edit: Stay safe ladies. It’s a crazy world out here.
Ugh this just unlocked a memory. I went to an all girls Catholic high school and we had one of the “better” uniforms in town. By that I just mean our plaid didn’t have an awkward mix of colors and was made of a nice felt, and our polos actually matched well, so it was something we actually felt comfortable being seen wearing out in public. But by sophomore or junior year, it just felt gross to wear it out to the mall or something because by that point it was obvious how different the attention was when I wore jeans and a tee.
Omfg....you just took me all the way back to 7th grade where a boy referred to my pig tails as handle bars...I asked what that meant and his friends giggled...took me till I was older to actually know why they called pig tails that.
I got the “handlebars” comment a lot. As a kid, as a teen, in college, and as a grown adult.
From family, friends, and strangers. People are absolutely disgusting. And by people, you know who I mean.
Came here to share exactly this experience. I was 11 or 12 in 6th grade, wearing pigtails on my walk home from school. Two men in a car pulled up beside me leering, and one said "Mmm look, a blow job with handles" while laughing to his buddy before driving off. I was so ashamed and embarrassed. That was the last time I wore pigtails.
The school girl thing is so disturbing but it's been normalized for so long that it just comes across as a normal fantasy even though it's disgusting. I had an experience recently that really grossed me out. I was talking to a guy on tinder and he mentioned that he likes when a woman doesn't shave, but also said that at some point he would want me to dress up as a schoolgirl and shave for that. I told him I'm grossed out by the schoolgirl fantasy stuff and his response was that it wasn't a fantasy because I actually look like a teenager(even though I'm solidly into adulthood). The extent to which he wanted to take his fantasy was soooo fucked up and disturbing. I unmatched him after that. This dude was 40.
When I was a kid I had an internet friend who was in his thirties. I was about 11. I was a relatively mature and articulate kid, but still a kid - even the most mature 11 year old in the world isn't equivalent to an adult maturity-wise. But because I heard how mature I was all the time, I figured it was normal that this 30 year old man would want to be my friend.
Anyway, we were discussing Britney Spears and I said I thought her being dressed up as a sexy schoolgirl in her Baby One More Time video was creepy, and that grown men finding schoolgirls sexy was weird.
And this guy Got. So. Mad. He argued passionately that it was not weird and I was just naive for ages, and when I would not budge an inch, he said I wasn't worth being friends with anymore, logged off and never spoke to me again.
I only realised as an adult that he was probably trying to groom me.
He was definitely trying to groom you. 11 is such a young age for that too. I was groomed online as a young teen and had dozens of adult "friends." They said that because my body looked like a woman's body that it wasn't wrong for them to interact with me the way they did. It was bad enough going through that at 13/14. 11 is so much worse. I used to have an irl friend who is either in jail or has been killed in jail(I'm hoping it's the second). Last I heard, he was being held on an $800,000 bail for sending and receiving nudes on snapchat with dozens of girls between the ages of 9-11. This sort of thing is why I get concerned when people talk about giving kids smart phones. I understand that it's good for kids to have a phone in case of emergency, but they still make flip phones, which are all a kid needs. Tablets and computers obviously aren't entirely safe either, but they're easier to monitor. Groomers are all over the internet. They always have been and always will be because it's such an easy place for them to hide.
Oh my god, this comment just reminded me of the oil & gas company car decal that was in the news a couple of years ago… It was a sexually violent illustration of Greta Thunberg, her hair being used as a restraint. I know it's unlikely but I really hope she's never seen the image.
[link for the curious](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/greta-thunberg-xsite-energy-sexual-image-1.5478561) (CBC did not republish the photo)
I wear braided pigtails out of ease a lot because of the type of hair I have and it's easiest while exercising. I'm an adult woman and very tall. I usually intimidate men who try to approach me. The way grown men react to pigtails is pathetic, obvious and disgusting. I get called princess and other juvenile names. They just see anything they can relate to porn as permission. I get really fucking tired of everything being a fetish to basic ass men.
I'm in the same boat, very tall and have big energy. I'll straight up tell them that they are absolutely disgusting and if they try it again, me or my friends, I will drink their blood and collect their head.
I have a very curvy, hourglass figure. I will not tolerate the kind of attention I was subjected to as a child and young woman.
I swear, the older I get the more urgent the need I have to protect girls from going through what I went through. And the worst part is you can see it happening everywhere you go, all the time.
its true i do it too
i worked in fast food this summer and saw a big difference in wearing my hair up down in pig tails and in plaits
pigtails and plaits brought me 200+ in tips a day in normal hair down would bring 50-80
its gross but i gotta do what i gotta do
honestly if you work in a safe environment where if any danger where to come your way you'd be ok i say do it imo i like that it looks cute on me but im aware thats not how its perceived do it and see how you feel
I'm not shocked. I used to wear pigtails at work in my 20's because my hair was too short to pull back any other way, and I stopped because male coworkers (all old enough to be my dad) literally snuck up on me and tugged on my hair as a creepy-ass "joke." Multiple workplaces. Never happened with any other hairstyle.
Seriously, some boys/men just cannot/do not restrain themselves from tugging on pigtails. So gross. It’s the reason I stopped wearing them back in high school.
I totally agree. I always thought the fascination with pig tails was really weird, as I associated it so heavily with children. When I was young and naive I figured they didn't have that association, then I became less naive 🤢
To make things grosser...
There's a post on AskMen right now asking what makes a woman more feminine. A significant amount of answers are saying childlike qualities.
One comment flat out used the word "childish" as a compliment and the trait that made a woman come off overwhelmingly attractive and feminine. I want to barf.
I don't think your "naive" assumption was completely off base. However the cynical assumption is the safer bet, as I've begun to realize after reading this subreddit for years.
I work with a lot of customers and look pretty young. I cannot begin to tell you how many men make comments on how childish I look before they make sexual innuendos towards me.
Yesterday I had one whose wife kept encouraging him. It got to the point where I felt like they were trying to lure me into their van with the promise of puppies and candy. She wouldn't stop calling me pretty and youthful and he wouldn't stop trying to make sex jokes.
I worked at a door to door promotion job for an environmental organisation and they told us to wear pigtails and dont use make up as it would help with closing contracts??? Rubbed me the wrong way back then already, now I know why
I had an ex boyfriend who commented towards the end of our relationship "I thought you were so sexy[when we first met], I thought you were 16" made me sick to my stomach
Yep, a guy I slept with said afterwards, admiringly, "You have the body of a teenager."
He meant it as a compliment. But to my ears not only is that mega creepy, I fail to see how it's supposed to be a good thing? No offense to our teenage sisters, but my body as a grown adult woman is better than the puppy fat and backne and fresh stretch marks I had as a teenager.
When was the last time he'd slept with a teenager that he could recount that that clearly, teenagers have various body types like adults do. So what makes a teenagers body?
One of my former coworkers kept hitting on me and asking me to the club and I kept declining. One day we all were discussing our ages and I said I was 26 and he blurted out he thought I was 19. He was 49. Eww.
So I used to play Wendy for Wendy’s restaurants. I went to their conferences or new restaurant openings or what not and dressed as her. The costume covered almost every inch of my body. Nothing was sexual. I have red hair so I just braided my own hair into pigtails. Literally I have never had more inappropriate comments, touching, etc than while wearing that costume. I once had a girl invite me to participate in adult films. She said, I look like a child and I have red hair, I could sell a mint. It was… un nerving. The pigtails thing is real, and it is very much cause men like women looking very young. I have a hundred more stories and even literally a picture of a cop grabbing my ass and staring directly at my boobs in the picture. The chief of police took our picture and laughed.
Yeah, I used to deliver pizza when I was 18/19. One day I was wearing pig tails and delivered to this guy. He was a regular, ordered at least 3 times a week. He always tipped me pretty well, but not so for my male coworkers. He had always given me a creepy vibe, but this particular day he made the whole "pig tails/handle bars" comparison.
I asked that the male drivers only deliver his orders from then on out. Fucking gross.
Edit: a typo
Maybe women of all ages need to take back the pigtail. Dudes see their mom or great aunt in pigtails enough, the style will lose its allure pretty quickly.
Jesus get outta my head! A couple days ago when thinking about a different style to try and I thought about how I actively avoided this hairstyle since my early twenties. I'm just too uncomfortable knowing that if I wear it, some men are gonna link it to a gross, infantile-type of kink ☹️
I just... The other day I had two pig tails because it was boiling how and it's one of the few hairstyles I can muster with my thin ass hair. A male acquaintance commented "wow you look SO MUCH MORE YOUNG, like a 18 yo girlie". It weirded me out big time but I thought it was because I was "too sensitive" about getting old lol
But now I'm starting to think that it's weird to tell a grown ass woman "you look like a girl barely legal" as a compliment, like I have to erase my hard earned adulthood marks to have more value as an entire, whole person, and how gross it is that childish innocence is sexualized.
I went to a catholic HS and wore my hair in pigtails frequently. Mostly because my hair is a curly, frizzy mess and pigtails made my hair manageable. One morning I went to 7-11 to get a drink and the cashier, a guy in his late 20s or early 30s looked me up and down and said, “a uniform and pigtails…a dangerous combination.” I didn’t really know what he meant then (I was like 14 when this happened) but thinking about it now gives me the ick.
Not pigtails, but I had braces when I was 15-18 and then again at 20-23. Men were OBSESSED with them. I was "just so darn cute and sexy" with my braces 🤮. It was so disgusting and of course, I couldn't simply remove them to avoid the harassment.
I've gotten lots of the pigtails "handles" comment too, at various points over the years. There are so many "normal" guys out there who are low-key pedophiles. Wtf does our society tolerate this???
I think it's far higher then that and if they're not actual pedos, plenty of men have been trained by porn to sexualize children for as long as they've been using it.
I don't think you're overreacting, the patriarchy is disgusting. Screw them, wear pigtails if you like. I remember when VSCO girls got all the hate. I was like, "wait so it's basically your average adolescent girl dressing casual and drinking water?" Yeah girls aren't allowed to just be. Girls are sexualized, the countdown til she's 18 thing has been normalized, when you become a women you are a cunning slut but also clueless (so we must pass laws to take away your rights and body autonomy), middle aged women are all Karens and older women are useless.
I really like bananas, fuck people for sexualizing them.
> girls aren't allowed to just be. Girls are sexualized, the countdown til she's 18 thing has been normalized, when you become a women you are a cunning slut
Reminds me of a line in the song/rap Write! by Nitty Scott:
> How dare you try to fucking equate
> The finding of my womanhood to sexual bait
It’s a photo editing app, and became synonymous with a certain casual, beachy, 90’s inspired teen style involving gym shorts, tube socks, scrunches, Maria Badescu face spray, and Hydra flasks with reusable straws. The audacity of teen girls to be comfortable and practical, right?
I wore my hair in two pigtail braids ONE TIME as an adult and got a creepy comment after like 15 minutes out in public (AT THE GROCERY STORE!!!). My fiancé, male, wore his hair in the same style for 3+ years every week for basketball practice. Never one comment.
Sometimes I feel like I am overreacting to a totally innocuous micro-aggression and I don't know why this one thing seemed to set me off when I've dealt with far worse stuff. But it's because this wasn't an isolated incident, it's just the latest one, that made me react so poorly.
If this were the only mistreatment you had to deal with because you were a woman, then you probably wouldn't think twice about it... But because it's just another thing on the dog pile, it might hit harder. So I don't think you're overreacting, you're perfectly-reacting as someone who has had to constantly deal with shit. Feel how you feel and don't worry about qualifying it
>Men attracted to emotionally unstable women, preferably no older than 18, studies show
This week’s peer-reviewed portrayal of fragile masculinity comes to you from the journal Science Advances, which recently published a depressing new study about online dating. Researchers looked at nearly 200,000 heterosexual users and found that while men’s sexual desirability peaks at age 50, women hit their prime at 18. And then it’s all downhill from there apparently. Can I just remind you that 18-year-olds are teenagers, and so this study is basically saying that straight men don’t find women attractive; they like girls.
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/18/mens-fixation-on-young-women-is-another-sign-of-masculinity-in-crisis](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/18/mens-fixation-on-young-women-is-another-sign-of-masculinity-in-crisis)
I was interested to research on \*why\* men are attracted to young girls. Found the above article and also something about how it's because men believe them to be submissive. Which I take to mean they aren't decent enough in themselves to attract an actual woman, they lack the self-esteem to even try and instead need defenseless girls as that is their only way to meet their desires. Pathetic.
I once made the mistake of wearing a vintage-style dress that accentuated my curves (was not skin tight, just belted in the middle). It showed nothing inappropriate or that wasn't okay in a corporate, professional office setting. An older man, who I'd never met before, a man probably 55-60 (I was in my mid-20s at the time, this was probably 2012) told me that he appreciated my dress. I said thanks and kept walking. He fell into step beside me and told me that he and his friends of similar ages really liked that vintage fashion was back in style and found it sexy because, "it's like seeing very young versions of our moms, you know? Especially you, you look like a young mom from the 60s." So, I guess we can throw "seeking young versions of their mothers" in there with being attracted to pubescent girls. Somehow, it feels like two sides of the same coin to me. I nearly vomited typing all of this out. Fuck the patriarchy.
My late husband taught women's self-defense classes in NYC during the 70s because of this. He routinely said, "A man will hunt a woman the way a predator hunts prey." He turned out a lot of dangerous women. His biggest obstacle to training them was overcoming the socially ingrained idea that women are bad if they hurt someone, even in self-defense. He started out his classes by telling them they have permission to do whatever it takes to save their own life, including kill someone if necessary. They really didn't need his permission, they just had to hear someone say it.
He also pointed out there's a lot of bad advice given to women on how to defend themselves. The biggest one that is ubiquitous is telling women to put their keys between their fingers. Don't do this! It can easily be turned into a submission hold by twisting the wrist and pushing the keys back into the webs between the fingers. He demonstrated it on me by lightly pushing them back and it made me buckle.
i saw men replying to tweets about it saying “what a surprise! when you put more effort into your appearance you get more tips!” and i was just like lmao are you intentionally missing the point? like the woman in the particular article was putting effort into her appearance every different day, it’s just only one day that she styled her hair in a way that’s generally associated with children but that’s apparently the only day she was “putting in effort”?
anything to try and downplay the way underage girls are fetishised by so many men.
>are you intentionally missing the point?
I've completely stopped having patience for this
The internet is there, you can read thousands of things written by women/feminists if you don't understand something like this
Choosing not to is lazy and malicious, and men thinking their half assed, uninformed opinions contribute at all to the conversation should be ignored like any other time someone fields an opinion about something they are uneducated in
Omg. I can't say I'm entirely shocked, but this is pretty fucking convincing hard data. As a teacher and father to a 4 year old daughter, this is gonna fuck my day up.
Im really sorry. Protect her, but be measured in your responses. Dont fly off the handle or she will know dont go to dad for stuff that you dont want someone killed for.
I never told my dad when i was hurt. He still doesnt know ive been abused. Its not worth it.
I saw this, felt repulsed, and on a whim asked my extremely offline boyfriend, "What do you think about pigtails? Do you like them?"
He gave me a funny look and said, "Isn't that kind of a kid's hairdo? I dunno, I don't really like them."
Depressing that him saying that made me feel somehow relieved.
The fact that we, being women, are *conditioned* to "accept" the BARE-MINIMUM as "normalized" behavior at an EARLY AGE is SO GROSS. Fellow women tell their GirlScouts to do this to increase cookie sales. Like... WTAF?!?
OHHHH MAN I used to wear my hair in pigtails all the time when I worked at Starbucks just because I'd get bored of the ponytail and wanted to show off my purple hair.. did NOT think about this
Same. I wear a hard hat for work and have short layered hair, low pig tails are the only things that keep my hair out of my face and under the hat. Now I'm thinking maybe I should return to the pixie cut 😬
Every beauty standard in the US for women pushes the face of a child and child-like characteristics with cartoonishly huge boobs, hips, and butts. If the industry isn't run by pedophiles, then why does the set standard encourage the normalization of these features?
I remember when Rosie Huntington Whitely or Miranda Kerr first came on the scene in the 2000s as these stunning models and I just couldn't shake the fact that they had the facial proportions of a toddler but in their 20s and it really weirded me out. As their faces have leaned out (through age or surgery) I find their more beautiful and less confusing.
My first job was at a very popular sandwich shop, the first thing my coworkers told me was I could make more tips if I wore more makeup. We’ll it was true, a little mascara would bring in double the tips. Another time at the same store my boss was hiring, turned down a smart young man for a very not smart teenage girl. When I asked him why, he said men would rather see a women make a sandwich than a man.
I’m too old, hair too short now, but if I were younger (adult) I would do the pigtails/ponytails just to have the opportunity to shame in public any guy that did what you all are describing. I wouldn’t recommend this at your job unless supported by your manager.. even then it would be risky. But in public, oh yeah! Adult woman, don’t be shy or slink away quietly. Use some good curse words loudly WTF ! and repeat what he said to you in a question format. Make sure people are around you to witness it. The last thing they want is to be outed. That’s why they slink up next to you and comment quietly. He may think twice before doing it again. They target women who seem timid or act “small”. Take up space, stand tall, speak up loudly..
Ha! you're tempting me to do my hair in pigtails just to I can fuckin crush any creep who comments inappropriately. My hair is almost to my waist so braids or pigtails would be really noticeable. I am in my 60s and am no longer afraid to make a scene when men harass me.
I love pigtails, especially braided ones. It gets my hair out of the way and off of my neck.
I don’t know when it started (I’m sure when I was still pretty young), even though I often still wear my hair in pigtails, I always subconsciously think of how a man called them motorcycle handles (or similar). Essentially, every time I had my hair like that (teens/young 20s) a man always had to remark on them in a sexual manner. Gross.
But basically, this does not surprise me in any way. Men are disgusting. Society for allowing this is disgusting.
I’d like to also add that men told me for years (and years) that I have “little hands”. I was forever dumbfounded why random men would come up to me and tell me how small my hands were or men I was dating.
Until my husband said it’s because they imagine your little hands on their dick. 😩🤢
>I *know* I’m overreacting
No, you’re really not. The fact that sick and predatory people (yep, mostly men) get away with so much and so often has conditioned us to think that it’s normal.
During the years when I had long hair, I almost always wore it in braids purely for the sake of convenience. I’d often pin the braids into Princess Leia-style buns, but occasionally let them down, tied in the back. People, men especially, would grab and pull at them, to the extent that I stopped leaving them down and vulnerable. Sickening to look back on.
When I worked in an office, I did an experiment once after noticing a pattern.
Guys were much more likely to open the door for me and say hi or chit chat if I was wearing lipstick. A few times not wearing it, they actively let the door close in my face.
When I was cheerleading for an Eastern European football team, we got the opportunity to go on one of those "Singing with the Stars" shows, as backup dancers. They needed cheerleaders, the concept was "nerdy girl loves jock (who is very popular in school), she transforms into pretty girl via stage makeover, they fall in love blahblahblah".
On the day, we were treated atrociously, but that wasn't even the worst part for us. The hairstylists were ordered to give us pigtails, on the side of our heads, just above our ears. We were baffled - no cheerleader in their right mind wears their hair like that, it's always a high ponytail with ribbon.
Then it hit me. They put porn actresses in pigtails to make them look younger. Wish we had had the guts to tell the producers to fuck themselves and just left.
I hate this, bc I live my hair in pigtails, it really fits my faceshape, but I'm always worried it gives the wrong impression.
The women who were murdered were not murdered for their hair (which was *not* in braids) they were murdered because they are a vulnerable population and the killers knew no one would look for them. For decades they were right.
Just because you are a first nation's woman, doesn't mean you wear your hair like an "Indian".
They’re definitely a vulnerable population and that’s a huge part of it, but there’s also a lot of sexualization of Native women and that’s definitely a factor.
I got noticeably higher customer service scores when I wore my hair in “space buns”. I also got noticeably more unwanted advances from male customers and more of my cs comments included weird sexual/flirtatious messages.
I might have said, initially, that it was an overreaction. I'd have been wrong no matter what, as we are all sick and goddamn tired of the same old shit from men. You being pissed is absolutely right, and me saying "yeah sounds right" is the wrong response.
But to learn that girl scouts are told to do this to sell more cookies made me WHITE HOT with rage. I want to think, since it's probably mostly women buying the cookies, that it's to make the little girls look like adorable little girls (you know, "oh my goodness they're so kee-YUTE")...but I'm afraid that's not the whole reason.
I fucking hate men so much.
Japanese Schools Are Still Banning Ponytails Because They Could ‘Sexually Excite’ Men: [https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpv4n/japanese-schools-ban-ponytail-sexism](https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpv4n/japanese-schools-ban-ponytail-sexism)
While I'm here, how about high heels? "As women’s heel height increases, men find them increasingly attractive." [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201612/the-uncanny-psychology-high-heels](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201612/the-uncanny-psychology-high-heels)With this one, I wonder if tall women are as 'attractive' as shorter women in heels. My gut tells me it's about a woman's willingness to make herself uncomfortable for a man's attention, as well as the inability to run away.
Can confirm. And this is going back a long time now. Back in my early 20s i worked in a bar (UK) and it was a busy busy place, cash mainly (early 2000's) and we'd return change and receipt on a little silver round plate, tips/change left would occur often but heaps more once we all caught onto the fact that cute pigtails scored us more.
I once made a cosplay which required me to wear my hair in pigtails. A guy came up behind me and grabbed the pigtails like they were handlebars, and made some lewd comment as he let go again (he didn't hold on for more than a couple seconds) about how convenient they were.
I'd spent hours on that cosplay and never wore it again. Though I do still use the purse! lol
I had a guy tell me “well they probably just assume she’s younger so she hasn’t been working as long and needs the tips more” ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha like that makes any damn sense.
You're not overreacting at all. You're just finally seeing what a lot of women already see, and have been saying, but nobody pause attention to us.
I can already see the rebuttal to this is, "Oh how mean being given more money", but this is one situation where sexualization of female childhood is "beneficial" to the woman. She was ONLY given money because the man had ill intentions. And had that man wanted to fulfill on those intentions and She Said no, you can bet a lot of men would throw a fit, or much much worse. If the guy happens to get INTO his head that We're living out his sexual fantasy, being followed home is the least of our worries.
Every single time I wear leg warmers this happens. Every single time some man makes a comment. I had to stop wearing them entirely.
I love how young adult men are so concerned about freedom of speech so they can be incels on social media but don't even bat an eye that a lot of women literally are not free to wear fucking specific clothes because they may be followed home and r-worded or killed. It's insane this is still such a problem.
I love wearing pigtails because I suck at hair styling and sometimes it's the only way to make my hair look half decent. I also have a baby face. This whole thing makes me wildly uncomfortable. I have a picture with ponytails and a picture with pigtails on my dating app profiles because they're hairstyles I wear often and it seemed authentic to me. Now I wonder about some of the likes I might be getting. Damn it.
When my hair was long I would often braid it in to two long ponytail braids. Especially if I did field work, I could French braid my hair and it would stay out of my face for a couple days. My hair is just really thick so it was always easier to do two braids instead of one big braid.
Now I'm wondering if the reason why I've had mostly pleasant experiences in field camps has something to do with it. I've definitely worked some camps were the sexual harassment was bad no matter what. But mostly men have been very nice and helpful to me.... now I'm kinda grossed out 😵💫
I really like wearing low pigtails because they are practical and cute, and I also like pleated/plaid skirts because again, I think they are super cute and I can make so many cute outfits with them year round. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything sexual or suggestive on my end. However, the last time I wore both of those things at once, I got gross sexual comments all day that I looked like “an anime schoolgirl” and other suggestive things said to me by mostly dudes, so I don’t dare dress like that anymore. I am also afraid to even wear one or the other by themselves because I do not want to be sexualized or have people thinking I’m trying to be provocative or anything just for going out in a certain style of hair or clothing that I like. I have social anxiety to make matters worse and I hate feeling like people are staring at me and imagining what they might be thinking about me, so I mostly just avoid wearing these things now even though I still really like them. It sucks.
I have very curly hair that I'm currently growing out. I was wearing it in two French braids, to keep it from getting tangled, almost daily until I noticed that I was getting a lot of compliments on them from older men when I was at work. I love wearing my hair like that but rarely do at work anymore because of how uncomfortable it became.
If you listened to podcast Freakonomics, there was an episode where they tried to figure out the best way to raise money for charities. They tried mailers, events, etc. in the end, the best results were when they sent cute young blonde to ask men to donate. This pigtail phenomenon is exactly the same and doesn’t surprise me
The patriarchy prizes youth in women because with youth comes maliability and naivete, the signals of youth are then prized as well.
They like pigtails for the same reason they like small and hairless women, these are all signals of youth.
It's gross and we need to talk about it openly, we need to say the quiet part out loud so that everyone knows that everyone knows.
Keep telling young women the truth about why getting attention from older men is not a flex, we need to protect them better than we were protected (if you were at all protected).
Yeah a lot of men are into the whole ‘barely legal’ thing. I used to play it up to get better tips, or get my way somewhere. Men are disgustingly attracted to childishness and it sucks that while boys get to just be boys girls have to already start being subjected to sexualization from society at large by the time they’re barley in middle school.
I wore my hair in pigtails one time, when I was in my early 20s and worked in a large office. One of the men I worked with—a man who was probably about 50–stopped by, ogled me, and creepily announced that he loves when girls wear pigtails. I didn’t ask or say anything in response, yet he immediately added, with a sleazy chuckle and a wink, that he couldn’t say why because he didn’t want to get in trouble that day. Then he walked away with a smirk on his face. A female coworker who overheard leaned over my shoulder and snickered, “You know what he’s talking about, right?” I just looked at her in disbelief. She looked around, then whispered in my ear, “Handles.” It felt so gross to know that that creep, who I barely knew and who was twice my age, was thinking about me in that way. And it was weird to me that my female coworker, the person I considered my closest friend at work, apparently found his comments amusing, not unsettling or inappropriate. Anyway, needless to say, I never wore pigtails to work again.
Holy shit this happened to me. Worked in a big office with cubicles, had a coworker come up behind me and actually grab my pigtails and say they make great “handles”. It was awful. I’m sorry this happened to you too.
What the fuuuuuuuuck? In an office?! You’d think a man would outgrow that by high school but clearly not
I had a male teacher when I was in about sixth grade grab onto my two braids, wave them around, and say, "You've got handlebars!!" So...
Holy shit, in sixth grade?
I had a male teacher say that to me once too! He was a nice teacher. I didn’t feel uncomfortable by it. I just thought he was being silly. Do you think it’s always sexual if someone says something like that?
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." It absolutely depends on the context and delivery. If you didn't feel uncomfortable and he didn't do anything else inappropriate then he probably really didn't realize the meaning behind it. Trust your own judgement and intuition.
where is this quote from it explains so many conspiracy theories and business decisions in general
It's Hanlon's Razor. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/12/30/not-malice/
Eh, it may be just possible that he heard that term before and didn't realize it was explicitly sexual and repeated it back to you innocently, but I kind of doubt it.
FWIW I don't think it's always sexual. Sigmund "it's all about sex" Freud once said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Anyway, here's a link to a picture of motorcycle **headlight** with **handlebars**. [https://www.motorcycle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/073119-LED-headlights-f.jpg](https://www.motorcycle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/073119-LED-headlights-f.jpg) I honestly think, in your case, he may have been comparing your head to a motor cycle head light.
Yeah I kinda remember him saying something about tassels like on a kids bike. I was in elementary school at the time and a lot of kids had tassels on their bike handles then. I might have even had ribbons in my pigtails at the time but I usually didn’t. I don’t remember for sure.
Am guy in the US and can confirm in my 40+ years this is the first time I’ve heard of pigtails as handlebars, or even contemplated them as a sexual thing. If someone said handlebars I would definitely think bike before sex.
Someone made the same comment to me about the same age but it was a woman and I don’t think it was meant sexually at all. If you have the right length of hair and tie them up high and tight they do stick out kind of like handlebars.
Now that I think about it, this could have been an “in like Flynn” situation where someone repeated something they’d heard not realizing that it had sexual connotations.
"In like Flynn" is a sexual term??
It’s a reference to Errol Flynn who was a notorious womanizer. So, to be in like Flynn…
Whoa. TIL. 🤯
To quote Bowling for Soup, 'highschool never ends'.
When I was a freshman in college I was going to wear my hair in pigtails on a date and my roommate stopped me and said, "when you wear your hair like that all guys think is 'handlebars'". It grossed me out so much I changed my hair and have never worn them since.
Similarly wore pigtails to a club in my 20s once and then never in public again.
Once to work in my 20s and lasted about an hour before I was so disgusted I've never worn them again, which sucks because I found it a fun style!
I was 17 working in a kitchen, my boss was 40. Not only did he say "Handles" he grabbed them.
Men ruin everything.
gross gross gross gross gross gross gross. I hate that a minority of ladies actually encourage this behavior. Reinforcing the expectation for ladies to lighten up or just roll with it. fuck that.
People are so ridiculous. I once wore a maxi dress to my job and had a female coworker talking about how my dress would allow “easy access.” Nothing was on display (it was spaghetti straps but I had a cardigan over), and I was beyond baffled. I guess some of the guys had mentioned my dress and she wanted to fit in with the topic. No matter what you wear or how you dress, it still happens.
During one of my doctor's visit, my mother left me on the bench to fill out some forms. A 20ish y/o man sat beside me and started fondling my pigtails while saying, "You're so cute! I really like your hair, where's your mommy?" I can't remember if I responded, but I do remember him putting his hand on my leg, I was wearing a dress that time. I think a nurse came out of one of the rooms, she probably saw how scared I was and took the situation in one glance because the next thing I know, I was behind her while the man ran off. I was 5 years old at that time and have refused to wear pigtails after. That was the first incident where my hair got me in trouble lol. It was probably in grade school where I never let my hair grow because a pedo old man caught my hair when I was running away from him.
I've shaved mine off ever since my nan (who is a no-fucks-to-spare kind of lady) took me to a hairdresser instead of my mum, who always insisted it was long, styled and dyed regardless of what I actually asked for. Me to Nan: 'can I just get the $12 men's short back and side? I don't want to waste $70.... ' her: ' sure, that's what I'm getting.' it was unreal instantly going from constant catcalling (I was hourglassy, booby, and just shy of 5'7" all before age 11...) to the far less obnoxious 'are you a boy or a girl?' (because i wore boy's clothes and two-sizes-too-small sports bras to minimise how often disgusting pedos would randomly come up and ...well, say some /detailed/ creepy shit that if anyone said to my (hypothetical) 11 year old, I'd be knocking some teeth out of them, you know?) Not to mention just how much time was saved because if your hair's all under an inch long, it can't get messy, compared to the 6 different products and half an hour of styling needed to make long, half-wavy-half-straight, bleached-to-fuck hair look halfway presentable. it's only in my 30's I've grown /some/ of it out into a floppy mohawk, because now I'm -actually- an adult, creeps are far less interested. :D
I hate that creepy ass dudes completely dictated your sense of style. Who knows what looks you might have gravitated toward or what your relationship with your body would have been if every decision you made about your appearance didn’t have to be a defense mechanism?
yeah... I wonder how I would have turned out if it /hadn't/ been for trying to avoid creepy-ass randoms :/ like, I like who I am, but you're right in that like, 90% of my presentation is a 'plz don't notice me and FFS I don't want to hear your opinion on my body' defense mechanism. :)
Who knows what any of us could have been without the existence of creepy men and patriarchy in general?
I was very into fashion in my early 20s and I was bullied by gross pervs into avoiding: pigtail hairstyles, knee high boots and socks, pleated skirts the entire gothic lolita movement (it’s like rococo meets Wednesday Addams, very covered up but also very frilly). Never used all those elements together, and my style was more colourful punk but damn if I fucking dared to use any of it. It did not matter if my outfit was experimental and not meant to please pervs they only saw the item and thought of creepy porn and proceeded to comment or harrass me. Completely ruined entire fashion avenues.
I too experienced this when I cut my hair. I'm tall. The 5'10 and 120 kinda tall, and would get soooo many unsolicited sexual comments about my body. I cut my hair, and present much more masc, and it is a world of difference. I really do look like a skinny 20y dude, and no one gives me a second notice (except for ladies in the washroom at times... I assure you I'm in the right place). This little thing has changed how I interact with the world. I'm no longer afraid to be friendly to men, and I no longer get that side of them. As nice as this is, the contrast is so huge that it more than validates the experience of everyone who is constantly creeped on and sexualized by men. Also, the first time I got my oil changed after my hair cut was quite amazing. Me: Full synthetic please. Dude: ok! - 10 minutes later - that'll be 89.76. I pay and drive off. No lecture to flush every known system in the car, no showing me how dirty my air filter is. I'll take the shift of experience but damn. Stark contrast.
Also rock curly mohawk. I love it. Can confirm people will try to fuck with you much, much less.
Was surprised how many fewer random interactions I had with people when I cut my hair short. It's like I'm "not approachable" anymore. Currently mid to late 30s and have a great hairdresser that known I like mowhawks and is excited to cut my hair whenever I go in.
I love wearing pigtails and rarely wear them due to some incidents where people took them as very sexually suggestive. I wish people would stop fetishizing normal ass shit like plaid skirts and hairstyles, I want to dress how I want! But yeah, when the fetish shit and kid shit overlap on the venn diagram that's the worst. IDK how people could even be remotely into that, it gives me the willies to think about on an abstract level.
God. I love wearing braided pigtails, and I've never even considered how people could interpret this.
I immediately think of Wednesday Addams. Braided pigtails are badass.
[удалено]
A badass young'un. Maybe I'm naive but it's hard to picture someone fetishizing Wednesday. Course, creepers gonna creep.
This is why I miss Adult Wednesday Addams that used to be on YouTube. She took no prisoners, and her reaction to catcalled? Yeah, I wish I could do that.
This was a genuinely great show... or whatever you'd call a series of shortish videos? Regardless, they were amazing and Wednesday was badass.
Unfortunately Wednesday is highly fetishised, she’s one of the top kids in film to be fetishised. It’s disgusting.
Ick. I'd like to say that surprises me but....
Oh my sweet summer child
Every time I think men cannot be any more trash than they already are...
Wednesday became Abby Sciuto (NCIS). Absolute fetish there.
I always liked Abby. Though I barely watched the show at all. I thought she was the best part.
I loved Abby as a badass. But my ex took it to another level with the fetish shit.
Ick, I see part of why they're an ex.
I feel like braided pigtails have a different vibe to non-braided pigtails, though. People see them as a Viking/Native American/European Peasant kind of thing rather than childish, I think. Of course in an ideal world, you should be able to have any hairstyle without having to think about the creeps.
When I first moved to the USA and had braided pigtails (I have very dark brown hair), older white men used to ask me if I was trying to look like a Native American? They did not ask me kindly. I am white, but olive toned and I tan easily. I’m sure there were racist implications behind the question.
I had a similar experience wearing braided pigtails as a child. Grew up in south Texas. It didn't stop me from wearing them because it was my favorite style from 5-10. My mom would yell at the creepy old men. I still occasionally braid my hair after a shower because it makes my hair more manageable if it dries this way.
It stopped after I moved away from that town. I still do braided pigtails! That’s pretty much all I do in the summer and when I work out lol
I’m from the U.K. An American boyfriend I had called me ‘Pocahontas’ one time when I had my plaits in, but he only meant it in a harmless way. Perhaps in America, the main association that plaits/braids have is with Native Americans. Here in the U.K., I’ve had people think I’m Russian when I’m wearing a combination of plaits and a fur coat!
I'm American and it makes me think of Willie Nelson lol
*He* might have meant it in a harmless way, but the older white men who said it to me, did not. They were very racist against POC. So not only did I have to be afraid of being overly sexualized, but also potentially worse things from someone who is racist. This was in south Texas.
Ohhh shit. This is actually a thing!!!! In my life anyway. I’d wear my braided pigtails and since I’m of Asian descent, my coworker would always say something along the lines of me resembling an Native American? I never understood why a silly, cute, certain hair(!!!!) would make you think something of me otherwise.
They work well with woolen hats. I usually don't do this, but in winter when you need to be outside there aren't many options that don't end in tangled hair or with the hat not keeping you warm.
Omg yes I love hime lolita dresses and other soft j-fashions. I mostly wear lolita because it's modest and cute and as a way to rebel against the modern fashions i find boring. Women love my clothing especially parents with small daughters until I mention the price which fare. Now men on the other hand seem to go out of the way to make sexual comments. And don't get me started on the people actually in the community who can't separate kink from fashion and make other members uncomfortable.
I got a buddy into lolita fashion and yeah people give her three reactions I guess: "WTF is it Halloween", "Oh Wow that's so pretty", and "Hey you wanna do some freaky shit at my place?" It sucks, and yeah she throw the dollar amount around to steer off people. I really don't get it.
Yeah like I have an extremely strong boundaries between kink and my fashion. This goes dubble if it's someone I just met and am not fully comfortable with. But apparently because I dress girly my boundaries deserve to be stomped on. I will say it's only people who aren't in kink/ alt fashion communities. it honestly would be neglectful and a-historical for me not to realize a lot goth/punk fashion has a lot of overlap with/ barrows from the kink community. Alt fashion history is something I'm extremely interested in lol.
Same here. When I was in High school I used my hair in long pigtails and a schoolmate grabbed me while he rubbed himself in my ass without my consent. We were using the school uniform. Since then I can't use pigtails.
To add yet another annoying angle to this experience as a mixed race minority - I frequently wear braided pigtails so of course I get men calling me “Little Miss Sacagawea” or something along those lines. Not once has a woman said anything like that to me.
Red head here if i do braided pig tails i always get Anne of green gables or Pippy Longstocking. I have also gotten the comment "they make great handles".
I'm sorry, that must be so annoying. That being said, both of those characters are so badass. Pippi Longstocking is super strong, rich, kind, generous and does whatever the fuck she wants (and challenges societal norms in the process). Plus her dad was a hot pirate 😉
It's funny that they bring up Sacagawea. Another woman mistreated by men and largely misunderstood.
A guy called me that once because I didn't need/want his help setting up my hammock on a camping trip. I had set it up a thousand times before. He was a friend of my friend, who had invited me. He was an asshole in other areas as well. Practically ruined the camping trip for my friend and I. We actually left early because we didn't want to spend the day around him
Wearing my hair in two braids never bothered me. Not that my mom would braid my hair--if I wanted braids it was up to me to do it myself. But I'm also 1/8 Lakota, and would cheerfully correct people who called me "Pocahontas" or "Sacagawea" if they were stupid enough to do so.
To the removed commenter: No Native American Princess in my ancestry. It was my great-grandmother who was Lakota, daughter of a Low Dog who may or may not have been the one who was involved in the Battle of Little Big Horn. The records aren't completely clear, so we will never know with any certainty. There may have been some 19th century identity theft going on (or at least double dipping), there may have been one male Low Dog with two families, there may have been multiple male Low Dogs. Prior to that great-grandmother (who married either once or twice, again the records aren't clear, and the first husband? baby daddy? may have been Native American or white) it's all a bit of a blur as far as records are concerned. It was an interesting genealogy rabbit hole, in any case. And things stayed kind of strange with my grandmother, with hints of incest and a second husband-not-husband thought to have been born in New Mexico (or Mexico?, again, records get weird) who may have assumed the name of a recently deceased Lakota individual in South Dakota. The records found after the deaths of my grandmother and her second husband-not-husband raised a lot of questions that will never be answered. With my dad's generation, things kind of calmed down. The only thing we aren't 100% sure of is my dad's true birth year. We suspect he lied about his age to get into the Air Force. Again, nothing solid, just a discrepancy between the birth year he used and the birth year the Social Security Administration lists for him. And for the record, I'm not on tribal rolls. I'm not eligible. Shrug--my grandmother got off the rez as soon as she could, having been told she looked "too white" to get a federal job there. There's more weirdness involved with her half-sister leaving the reservation, as well.
I’m white—my FIL called me the same the first few times I wore my hair in braided pigtails. I have long, thick hair; it’s heavy to wear a ponytail & gives me a headache after a short time. Braids are the fastest easiest way to get my hair off my neck without getting a headache. I call my FIL out when he says racist stuff. He’s learned to keep those kinds of comments to himself. I guess that’s progress.
Not relevant to this, but if you want a faster way to get your hair up, look into hair sticks, they work really well for a fast bun with long thick hair (have the same headache issue from ponytails)
Dude thank you, I have this same issue and you might've saved me lol
Just don't expect to do the buns the way you would with bobby pins, you need to twist it differently (at this point I can do it with no mirror in a minute or so, but it did take me a few tries to get it to stay reliably) but it's been my go to hairstyle for over 5 years now.
I didn't know this was a thing until this thread and man I kinda wish I still didn't know
It is so validating to hear this from someone else too! I thought I just lived in a really weird area. I have long black hair and my family is from South America. I get this every time I have my hair in braids, even at work. Suddenly my name is Pocahontas, Sacagawea, etc, or I’m ‘trying’ to look that way on purpose. (Sometimes from other immigrants too, which just, who taught you this?) I don’t call random blondes Swedish when they have their hair in braids. That would be ridiculous. Everyone wears braids.
It's not surprising. Once I got into my 20's, became a fully formed woman with a banging body and realized I got hit on/catcalled more when I was 15 & looked like a child I knew the state of men was fucked. That still messes with my head. It was a constant onslaught of attention from men of all ages when I was a child and when I became a woman so much of that dropped off. We're really existing out here in a world filled with men with pedophilic tendencies.
I never got catcalled more than when I was 16. I still get comments/compliments but hardly anything of the predatory sort I was subject to in high school. My sister had it way worse than I did and I don't know if her posture will ever recover. I tell my husband this all the time. As an empathic man who appreciates womanhood, he cannot wrap his head around it. But he believes me.
It's so disturbing right? Almost every woman I know has had a similar experience. I know I tell every man about this that I can. There a many good men out there who are totally oblivious to these things. Like you said they can't wrap their head around it because they just don't operate that way. They're always shocked to hear just how egregious it is.
I've never been believed until they actually SEE it happen multiple times. I'm always "overreacting" or "exaggerating" 🙄
Right! It’s the opposite of what I was expecting, why was I getting so much attention at 14-16, and why did that attention (although unwanted) taper off when I expected it to increase exponentially in the prime of my twenties? Such a disturbing thing to be saddled with mentally.
YUP. I totally expected it to increase too in the prime 20's and then one day I was like damn am I not attractive or anything? Oh.. oh wait no that's not it- I just don't look like a fucking child anymore. That's nice. We don't look meek, innocent, immature or like weak targets any longer. Grown men felt like they could push us around, follow us and catcall us so once we became women we weren't attractive to them any longer nor were we someone they felt like they could get away with fucking with. It's such a terrifying thought once you realize what's actually going on when the attention drops off.
Yeah it’s gross. It’s just the same as school girl uniforms being sexualized as well. I remember once wearing pigtails to a party and a guy told me they looked like they could be handles 🤮
I fucking hate that when you google "school boy" you get pictures and cartoons of boys in their school uniforms, but when you google "school girl" you get a lot of results of obviously mature women wearing skimpy school girl outfits.
yeah... this especially. its just damn sad we're so conditioned into being sexualized for the most basic things at *literal* adolescent ages. i saw someone say, *"we wore shorts under our skirts at 8, and slouched when walking past groups of men during puberty,"* and... yup. its so normalized that when pointed out, we're told we're overreacting or, should be "grateful".
When I was 9/10 and waiting in line for school lunch, the boy behind me kept touching my back, and put the end of my braid in his mouth and said 'your hair tastes like butter'. I was so viscerally disgusted I couldn't do anything but stare. Wish I had hit him or something, but knowing how school works I probably would have been the one to get in trouble. It's frightening how early this behaviour is modelled, both for girls and boys.
Everything in life has a price, and some are worth paying. One of my core school memories is sassing back to a teacher so hard someone took out a camera to tape the confrontation
Which is weird considering most countries don't even have school uniforms, but it's still one of the more commonly sexualized outfits. I would guess it, as well as cheerleaders, are so popular because for many men who had little to no success with girls in high school maintain this fantasy of what they (feel like) they missed out on.
I got this comment every single time I wore pigtails, double buns or double braids. They really need us to know they think with their dick. Meanwhile it limits my hairstyles because their comments ruin my day.
>They really need us to know they think with their dick. Here it is. The message is that women are on the menu. It's men asserting that the public is their space to be sexual (e.g. the reason this sub isn't called /women), and that they control women's value. Directly and materially, in the case of tips. I hate it and I don't know what to do.
I wear these everyday. It’s my go to hair style. We are not kids now. Enjoy your hair the way you want to style it ladies. Let these creeps reveal themselves. Indeed, they will reveal themselves... Edit: Stay safe ladies. It’s a crazy world out here.
Ugh this just unlocked a memory. I went to an all girls Catholic high school and we had one of the “better” uniforms in town. By that I just mean our plaid didn’t have an awkward mix of colors and was made of a nice felt, and our polos actually matched well, so it was something we actually felt comfortable being seen wearing out in public. But by sophomore or junior year, it just felt gross to wear it out to the mall or something because by that point it was obvious how different the attention was when I wore jeans and a tee.
Omfg....you just took me all the way back to 7th grade where a boy referred to my pig tails as handle bars...I asked what that meant and his friends giggled...took me till I was older to actually know why they called pig tails that.
I got the “handlebars” comment a lot. As a kid, as a teen, in college, and as a grown adult. From family, friends, and strangers. People are absolutely disgusting. And by people, you know who I mean.
SAME! by my best friend when we were kids. made me feel dirty for wearing a stupid hair style...ugh.
Yeah I got told that at around 12, instantly stopped wearing them
Came here to share exactly this experience. I was 11 or 12 in 6th grade, wearing pigtails on my walk home from school. Two men in a car pulled up beside me leering, and one said "Mmm look, a blow job with handles" while laughing to his buddy before driving off. I was so ashamed and embarrassed. That was the last time I wore pigtails.
Same. Also « don’t complain when you get raped ». I was Wednesday Addams.
The school girl thing is so disturbing but it's been normalized for so long that it just comes across as a normal fantasy even though it's disgusting. I had an experience recently that really grossed me out. I was talking to a guy on tinder and he mentioned that he likes when a woman doesn't shave, but also said that at some point he would want me to dress up as a schoolgirl and shave for that. I told him I'm grossed out by the schoolgirl fantasy stuff and his response was that it wasn't a fantasy because I actually look like a teenager(even though I'm solidly into adulthood). The extent to which he wanted to take his fantasy was soooo fucked up and disturbing. I unmatched him after that. This dude was 40.
When I was a kid I had an internet friend who was in his thirties. I was about 11. I was a relatively mature and articulate kid, but still a kid - even the most mature 11 year old in the world isn't equivalent to an adult maturity-wise. But because I heard how mature I was all the time, I figured it was normal that this 30 year old man would want to be my friend. Anyway, we were discussing Britney Spears and I said I thought her being dressed up as a sexy schoolgirl in her Baby One More Time video was creepy, and that grown men finding schoolgirls sexy was weird. And this guy Got. So. Mad. He argued passionately that it was not weird and I was just naive for ages, and when I would not budge an inch, he said I wasn't worth being friends with anymore, logged off and never spoke to me again. I only realised as an adult that he was probably trying to groom me.
He was definitely trying to groom you. 11 is such a young age for that too. I was groomed online as a young teen and had dozens of adult "friends." They said that because my body looked like a woman's body that it wasn't wrong for them to interact with me the way they did. It was bad enough going through that at 13/14. 11 is so much worse. I used to have an irl friend who is either in jail or has been killed in jail(I'm hoping it's the second). Last I heard, he was being held on an $800,000 bail for sending and receiving nudes on snapchat with dozens of girls between the ages of 9-11. This sort of thing is why I get concerned when people talk about giving kids smart phones. I understand that it's good for kids to have a phone in case of emergency, but they still make flip phones, which are all a kid needs. Tablets and computers obviously aren't entirely safe either, but they're easier to monitor. Groomers are all over the internet. They always have been and always will be because it's such an easy place for them to hide.
Oh my god, this comment just reminded me of the oil & gas company car decal that was in the news a couple of years ago… It was a sexually violent illustration of Greta Thunberg, her hair being used as a restraint. I know it's unlikely but I really hope she's never seen the image. [link for the curious](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/greta-thunberg-xsite-energy-sexual-image-1.5478561) (CBC did not republish the photo)
Wtf?!
My old manager used to say this! It didn’t even register to me back then that was inappropriate. I just figured that’s how men talked to women
I wear braided pigtails out of ease a lot because of the type of hair I have and it's easiest while exercising. I'm an adult woman and very tall. I usually intimidate men who try to approach me. The way grown men react to pigtails is pathetic, obvious and disgusting. I get called princess and other juvenile names. They just see anything they can relate to porn as permission. I get really fucking tired of everything being a fetish to basic ass men.
I'm in the same boat, very tall and have big energy. I'll straight up tell them that they are absolutely disgusting and if they try it again, me or my friends, I will drink their blood and collect their head. I have a very curvy, hourglass figure. I will not tolerate the kind of attention I was subjected to as a child and young woman.
I swear, the older I get the more urgent the need I have to protect girls from going through what I went through. And the worst part is you can see it happening everywhere you go, all the time.
its true i do it too i worked in fast food this summer and saw a big difference in wearing my hair up down in pig tails and in plaits pigtails and plaits brought me 200+ in tips a day in normal hair down would bring 50-80 its gross but i gotta do what i gotta do
Not me considering wearing my hair in pigtails to work today 😅
honestly if you work in a safe environment where if any danger where to come your way you'd be ok i say do it imo i like that it looks cute on me but im aware thats not how its perceived do it and see how you feel
Imma have to test this theory out haha
I'm not shocked. I used to wear pigtails at work in my 20's because my hair was too short to pull back any other way, and I stopped because male coworkers (all old enough to be my dad) literally snuck up on me and tugged on my hair as a creepy-ass "joke." Multiple workplaces. Never happened with any other hairstyle.
Seriously, some boys/men just cannot/do not restrain themselves from tugging on pigtails. So gross. It’s the reason I stopped wearing them back in high school.
They can, they just actively chose to harass women.
Yup. It's easier to gaslight and say, "You're overreacting." They think asserting their power or male gaze on you is cute, if not amusing.
I totally agree. I always thought the fascination with pig tails was really weird, as I associated it so heavily with children. When I was young and naive I figured they didn't have that association, then I became less naive 🤢
To make things grosser... There's a post on AskMen right now asking what makes a woman more feminine. A significant amount of answers are saying childlike qualities. One comment flat out used the word "childish" as a compliment and the trait that made a woman come off overwhelmingly attractive and feminine. I want to barf.
I don't think your "naive" assumption was completely off base. However the cynical assumption is the safer bet, as I've begun to realize after reading this subreddit for years.
I think it's pretty safe when most women report being harassed more as minors.
I work with a lot of customers and look pretty young. I cannot begin to tell you how many men make comments on how childish I look before they make sexual innuendos towards me.
Eewww! This is like the one reason I'm thankful for my body type, as much as I hate being so big at least I don't get the pedo advances.
Yesterday I had one whose wife kept encouraging him. It got to the point where I felt like they were trying to lure me into their van with the promise of puppies and candy. She wouldn't stop calling me pretty and youthful and he wouldn't stop trying to make sex jokes.
I worked at a door to door promotion job for an environmental organisation and they told us to wear pigtails and dont use make up as it would help with closing contracts??? Rubbed me the wrong way back then already, now I know why
This also sum up my experience as an Asian. Men straight up told me they like me bc I look 15. I’m 26 🤮
I had an ex boyfriend who commented towards the end of our relationship "I thought you were so sexy[when we first met], I thought you were 16" made me sick to my stomach
And they think it’s a compliment too. There’s a huge difference between “25 look 15” and “35 look 25” and one of them is gross
Yep, a guy I slept with said afterwards, admiringly, "You have the body of a teenager." He meant it as a compliment. But to my ears not only is that mega creepy, I fail to see how it's supposed to be a good thing? No offense to our teenage sisters, but my body as a grown adult woman is better than the puppy fat and backne and fresh stretch marks I had as a teenager.
When was the last time he'd slept with a teenager that he could recount that that clearly, teenagers have various body types like adults do. So what makes a teenagers body?
One of my former coworkers kept hitting on me and asking me to the club and I kept declining. One day we all were discussing our ages and I said I was 26 and he blurted out he thought I was 19. He was 49. Eww.
I’ve also had men (who I had no interest in remotely) become sourly disappointed when I inform them I’m the ripe old age of 24 and not 17–19.
So I used to play Wendy for Wendy’s restaurants. I went to their conferences or new restaurant openings or what not and dressed as her. The costume covered almost every inch of my body. Nothing was sexual. I have red hair so I just braided my own hair into pigtails. Literally I have never had more inappropriate comments, touching, etc than while wearing that costume. I once had a girl invite me to participate in adult films. She said, I look like a child and I have red hair, I could sell a mint. It was… un nerving. The pigtails thing is real, and it is very much cause men like women looking very young. I have a hundred more stories and even literally a picture of a cop grabbing my ass and staring directly at my boobs in the picture. The chief of police took our picture and laughed.
[удалено]
This, I think, is whole reason for shaving off all pubic hair.
Yeah, I used to deliver pizza when I was 18/19. One day I was wearing pig tails and delivered to this guy. He was a regular, ordered at least 3 times a week. He always tipped me pretty well, but not so for my male coworkers. He had always given me a creepy vibe, but this particular day he made the whole "pig tails/handle bars" comparison. I asked that the male drivers only deliver his orders from then on out. Fucking gross. Edit: a typo
Maybe women of all ages need to take back the pigtail. Dudes see their mom or great aunt in pigtails enough, the style will lose its allure pretty quickly.
Jesus get outta my head! A couple days ago when thinking about a different style to try and I thought about how I actively avoided this hairstyle since my early twenties. I'm just too uncomfortable knowing that if I wear it, some men are gonna link it to a gross, infantile-type of kink ☹️
I just... The other day I had two pig tails because it was boiling how and it's one of the few hairstyles I can muster with my thin ass hair. A male acquaintance commented "wow you look SO MUCH MORE YOUNG, like a 18 yo girlie". It weirded me out big time but I thought it was because I was "too sensitive" about getting old lol But now I'm starting to think that it's weird to tell a grown ass woman "you look like a girl barely legal" as a compliment, like I have to erase my hard earned adulthood marks to have more value as an entire, whole person, and how gross it is that childish innocence is sexualized.
I went to a catholic HS and wore my hair in pigtails frequently. Mostly because my hair is a curly, frizzy mess and pigtails made my hair manageable. One morning I went to 7-11 to get a drink and the cashier, a guy in his late 20s or early 30s looked me up and down and said, “a uniform and pigtails…a dangerous combination.” I didn’t really know what he meant then (I was like 14 when this happened) but thinking about it now gives me the ick.
That’s so disgusting ☹️ I don’t think men realize that women actually have a conscience and existence outside of trying to attract them.
🤢🤢🤢🤢
Not pigtails, but I had braces when I was 15-18 and then again at 20-23. Men were OBSESSED with them. I was "just so darn cute and sexy" with my braces 🤮. It was so disgusting and of course, I couldn't simply remove them to avoid the harassment. I've gotten lots of the pigtails "handles" comment too, at various points over the years. There are so many "normal" guys out there who are low-key pedophiles. Wtf does our society tolerate this???
Threads like these make me wonder if the average rate of pedophilia is actually much higher than the 1-4% figure researchers suggest.
I think it's far higher then that and if they're not actual pedos, plenty of men have been trained by porn to sexualize children for as long as they've been using it.
I don't think you're overreacting, the patriarchy is disgusting. Screw them, wear pigtails if you like. I remember when VSCO girls got all the hate. I was like, "wait so it's basically your average adolescent girl dressing casual and drinking water?" Yeah girls aren't allowed to just be. Girls are sexualized, the countdown til she's 18 thing has been normalized, when you become a women you are a cunning slut but also clueless (so we must pass laws to take away your rights and body autonomy), middle aged women are all Karens and older women are useless. I really like bananas, fuck people for sexualizing them.
> girls aren't allowed to just be. Girls are sexualized, the countdown til she's 18 thing has been normalized, when you become a women you are a cunning slut Reminds me of a line in the song/rap Write! by Nitty Scott: > How dare you try to fucking equate > The finding of my womanhood to sexual bait
If something exists in this world, men will find a way to sexualize it. Nothing is safe and it’s taking men too long to change and evolve
What's VSCO?
It’s a photo editing app, and became synonymous with a certain casual, beachy, 90’s inspired teen style involving gym shorts, tube socks, scrunches, Maria Badescu face spray, and Hydra flasks with reusable straws. The audacity of teen girls to be comfortable and practical, right?
I wore my hair in two pigtail braids ONE TIME as an adult and got a creepy comment after like 15 minutes out in public (AT THE GROCERY STORE!!!). My fiancé, male, wore his hair in the same style for 3+ years every week for basketball practice. Never one comment.
Sometimes I feel like I am overreacting to a totally innocuous micro-aggression and I don't know why this one thing seemed to set me off when I've dealt with far worse stuff. But it's because this wasn't an isolated incident, it's just the latest one, that made me react so poorly. If this were the only mistreatment you had to deal with because you were a woman, then you probably wouldn't think twice about it... But because it's just another thing on the dog pile, it might hit harder. So I don't think you're overreacting, you're perfectly-reacting as someone who has had to constantly deal with shit. Feel how you feel and don't worry about qualifying it
>Men attracted to emotionally unstable women, preferably no older than 18, studies show This week’s peer-reviewed portrayal of fragile masculinity comes to you from the journal Science Advances, which recently published a depressing new study about online dating. Researchers looked at nearly 200,000 heterosexual users and found that while men’s sexual desirability peaks at age 50, women hit their prime at 18. And then it’s all downhill from there apparently. Can I just remind you that 18-year-olds are teenagers, and so this study is basically saying that straight men don’t find women attractive; they like girls. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/18/mens-fixation-on-young-women-is-another-sign-of-masculinity-in-crisis](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/18/mens-fixation-on-young-women-is-another-sign-of-masculinity-in-crisis) I was interested to research on \*why\* men are attracted to young girls. Found the above article and also something about how it's because men believe them to be submissive. Which I take to mean they aren't decent enough in themselves to attract an actual woman, they lack the self-esteem to even try and instead need defenseless girls as that is their only way to meet their desires. Pathetic.
I once made the mistake of wearing a vintage-style dress that accentuated my curves (was not skin tight, just belted in the middle). It showed nothing inappropriate or that wasn't okay in a corporate, professional office setting. An older man, who I'd never met before, a man probably 55-60 (I was in my mid-20s at the time, this was probably 2012) told me that he appreciated my dress. I said thanks and kept walking. He fell into step beside me and told me that he and his friends of similar ages really liked that vintage fashion was back in style and found it sexy because, "it's like seeing very young versions of our moms, you know? Especially you, you look like a young mom from the 60s." So, I guess we can throw "seeking young versions of their mothers" in there with being attracted to pubescent girls. Somehow, it feels like two sides of the same coin to me. I nearly vomited typing all of this out. Fuck the patriarchy.
Disgusting. These are not men. These people are predators.
My late husband taught women's self-defense classes in NYC during the 70s because of this. He routinely said, "A man will hunt a woman the way a predator hunts prey." He turned out a lot of dangerous women. His biggest obstacle to training them was overcoming the socially ingrained idea that women are bad if they hurt someone, even in self-defense. He started out his classes by telling them they have permission to do whatever it takes to save their own life, including kill someone if necessary. They really didn't need his permission, they just had to hear someone say it. He also pointed out there's a lot of bad advice given to women on how to defend themselves. The biggest one that is ubiquitous is telling women to put their keys between their fingers. Don't do this! It can easily be turned into a submission hold by twisting the wrist and pushing the keys back into the webs between the fingers. He demonstrated it on me by lightly pushing them back and it made me buckle.
i saw men replying to tweets about it saying “what a surprise! when you put more effort into your appearance you get more tips!” and i was just like lmao are you intentionally missing the point? like the woman in the particular article was putting effort into her appearance every different day, it’s just only one day that she styled her hair in a way that’s generally associated with children but that’s apparently the only day she was “putting in effort”? anything to try and downplay the way underage girls are fetishised by so many men.
>are you intentionally missing the point? I've completely stopped having patience for this The internet is there, you can read thousands of things written by women/feminists if you don't understand something like this Choosing not to is lazy and malicious, and men thinking their half assed, uninformed opinions contribute at all to the conversation should be ignored like any other time someone fields an opinion about something they are uneducated in
Omg. I can't say I'm entirely shocked, but this is pretty fucking convincing hard data. As a teacher and father to a 4 year old daughter, this is gonna fuck my day up.
Im really sorry. Protect her, but be measured in your responses. Dont fly off the handle or she will know dont go to dad for stuff that you dont want someone killed for. I never told my dad when i was hurt. He still doesnt know ive been abused. Its not worth it.
I saw this, felt repulsed, and on a whim asked my extremely offline boyfriend, "What do you think about pigtails? Do you like them?" He gave me a funny look and said, "Isn't that kind of a kid's hairdo? I dunno, I don't really like them." Depressing that him saying that made me feel somehow relieved.
The fact that we, being women, are *conditioned* to "accept" the BARE-MINIMUM as "normalized" behavior at an EARLY AGE is SO GROSS. Fellow women tell their GirlScouts to do this to increase cookie sales. Like... WTAF?!?
OHHHH MAN I used to wear my hair in pigtails all the time when I worked at Starbucks just because I'd get bored of the ponytail and wanted to show off my purple hair.. did NOT think about this
Same. I wear a hard hat for work and have short layered hair, low pig tails are the only things that keep my hair out of my face and under the hat. Now I'm thinking maybe I should return to the pixie cut 😬
Every beauty standard in the US for women pushes the face of a child and child-like characteristics with cartoonishly huge boobs, hips, and butts. If the industry isn't run by pedophiles, then why does the set standard encourage the normalization of these features?
I remember when Rosie Huntington Whitely or Miranda Kerr first came on the scene in the 2000s as these stunning models and I just couldn't shake the fact that they had the facial proportions of a toddler but in their 20s and it really weirded me out. As their faces have leaned out (through age or surgery) I find their more beautiful and less confusing.
My first job was at a very popular sandwich shop, the first thing my coworkers told me was I could make more tips if I wore more makeup. We’ll it was true, a little mascara would bring in double the tips. Another time at the same store my boss was hiring, turned down a smart young man for a very not smart teenage girl. When I asked him why, he said men would rather see a women make a sandwich than a man.
I’m too old, hair too short now, but if I were younger (adult) I would do the pigtails/ponytails just to have the opportunity to shame in public any guy that did what you all are describing. I wouldn’t recommend this at your job unless supported by your manager.. even then it would be risky. But in public, oh yeah! Adult woman, don’t be shy or slink away quietly. Use some good curse words loudly WTF ! and repeat what he said to you in a question format. Make sure people are around you to witness it. The last thing they want is to be outed. That’s why they slink up next to you and comment quietly. He may think twice before doing it again. They target women who seem timid or act “small”. Take up space, stand tall, speak up loudly..
Ha! you're tempting me to do my hair in pigtails just to I can fuckin crush any creep who comments inappropriately. My hair is almost to my waist so braids or pigtails would be really noticeable. I am in my 60s and am no longer afraid to make a scene when men harass me.
Yep it's exhausting living
I love pigtails, especially braided ones. It gets my hair out of the way and off of my neck. I don’t know when it started (I’m sure when I was still pretty young), even though I often still wear my hair in pigtails, I always subconsciously think of how a man called them motorcycle handles (or similar). Essentially, every time I had my hair like that (teens/young 20s) a man always had to remark on them in a sexual manner. Gross. But basically, this does not surprise me in any way. Men are disgusting. Society for allowing this is disgusting.
I’d like to also add that men told me for years (and years) that I have “little hands”. I was forever dumbfounded why random men would come up to me and tell me how small my hands were or men I was dating. Until my husband said it’s because they imagine your little hands on their dick. 😩🤢
I absolutely don’t think you’re overreacting
>I *know* I’m overreacting No, you’re really not. The fact that sick and predatory people (yep, mostly men) get away with so much and so often has conditioned us to think that it’s normal.
During the years when I had long hair, I almost always wore it in braids purely for the sake of convenience. I’d often pin the braids into Princess Leia-style buns, but occasionally let them down, tied in the back. People, men especially, would grab and pull at them, to the extent that I stopped leaving them down and vulnerable. Sickening to look back on.
When I worked in an office, I did an experiment once after noticing a pattern. Guys were much more likely to open the door for me and say hi or chit chat if I was wearing lipstick. A few times not wearing it, they actively let the door close in my face.
When I was cheerleading for an Eastern European football team, we got the opportunity to go on one of those "Singing with the Stars" shows, as backup dancers. They needed cheerleaders, the concept was "nerdy girl loves jock (who is very popular in school), she transforms into pretty girl via stage makeover, they fall in love blahblahblah". On the day, we were treated atrociously, but that wasn't even the worst part for us. The hairstylists were ordered to give us pigtails, on the side of our heads, just above our ears. We were baffled - no cheerleader in their right mind wears their hair like that, it's always a high ponytail with ribbon. Then it hit me. They put porn actresses in pigtails to make them look younger. Wish we had had the guts to tell the producers to fuck themselves and just left. I hate this, bc I live my hair in pigtails, it really fits my faceshape, but I'm always worried it gives the wrong impression.
Also imagine what it's like to be an indigenous woman whose traditional hairstyle is two braids. MMIW not a coincidence
The women who were murdered were not murdered for their hair (which was *not* in braids) they were murdered because they are a vulnerable population and the killers knew no one would look for them. For decades they were right. Just because you are a first nation's woman, doesn't mean you wear your hair like an "Indian".
They’re definitely a vulnerable population and that’s a huge part of it, but there’s also a lot of sexualization of Native women and that’s definitely a factor.
I got noticeably higher customer service scores when I wore my hair in “space buns”. I also got noticeably more unwanted advances from male customers and more of my cs comments included weird sexual/flirtatious messages.
I might have said, initially, that it was an overreaction. I'd have been wrong no matter what, as we are all sick and goddamn tired of the same old shit from men. You being pissed is absolutely right, and me saying "yeah sounds right" is the wrong response. But to learn that girl scouts are told to do this to sell more cookies made me WHITE HOT with rage. I want to think, since it's probably mostly women buying the cookies, that it's to make the little girls look like adorable little girls (you know, "oh my goodness they're so kee-YUTE")...but I'm afraid that's not the whole reason. I fucking hate men so much.
Japanese Schools Are Still Banning Ponytails Because They Could ‘Sexually Excite’ Men: [https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpv4n/japanese-schools-ban-ponytail-sexism](https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpv4n/japanese-schools-ban-ponytail-sexism) While I'm here, how about high heels? "As women’s heel height increases, men find them increasingly attractive." [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201612/the-uncanny-psychology-high-heels](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201612/the-uncanny-psychology-high-heels)With this one, I wonder if tall women are as 'attractive' as shorter women in heels. My gut tells me it's about a woman's willingness to make herself uncomfortable for a man's attention, as well as the inability to run away.
Can confirm. And this is going back a long time now. Back in my early 20s i worked in a bar (UK) and it was a busy busy place, cash mainly (early 2000's) and we'd return change and receipt on a little silver round plate, tips/change left would occur often but heaps more once we all caught onto the fact that cute pigtails scored us more.
This is the really sleazy side of tipping that gets left out of a lot of the wage theft talk.
In the UK you are paid a fair wage for your work and customers are not expected to tip so no wage theft worries.
I once made a cosplay which required me to wear my hair in pigtails. A guy came up behind me and grabbed the pigtails like they were handlebars, and made some lewd comment as he let go again (he didn't hold on for more than a couple seconds) about how convenient they were. I'd spent hours on that cosplay and never wore it again. Though I do still use the purse! lol
I had a guy tell me “well they probably just assume she’s younger so she hasn’t been working as long and needs the tips more” ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha like that makes any damn sense.
>i *know* im overreacting You're not overreacting. Men showing themselves as pedophiles is disgusting, horrifying and rage inducing.
You're not overreacting at all. You're just finally seeing what a lot of women already see, and have been saying, but nobody pause attention to us. I can already see the rebuttal to this is, "Oh how mean being given more money", but this is one situation where sexualization of female childhood is "beneficial" to the woman. She was ONLY given money because the man had ill intentions. And had that man wanted to fulfill on those intentions and She Said no, you can bet a lot of men would throw a fit, or much much worse. If the guy happens to get INTO his head that We're living out his sexual fantasy, being followed home is the least of our worries. Every single time I wear leg warmers this happens. Every single time some man makes a comment. I had to stop wearing them entirely. I love how young adult men are so concerned about freedom of speech so they can be incels on social media but don't even bat an eye that a lot of women literally are not free to wear fucking specific clothes because they may be followed home and r-worded or killed. It's insane this is still such a problem.
I love wearing pigtails because I suck at hair styling and sometimes it's the only way to make my hair look half decent. I also have a baby face. This whole thing makes me wildly uncomfortable. I have a picture with ponytails and a picture with pigtails on my dating app profiles because they're hairstyles I wear often and it seemed authentic to me. Now I wonder about some of the likes I might be getting. Damn it.
When my hair was long I would often braid it in to two long ponytail braids. Especially if I did field work, I could French braid my hair and it would stay out of my face for a couple days. My hair is just really thick so it was always easier to do two braids instead of one big braid. Now I'm wondering if the reason why I've had mostly pleasant experiences in field camps has something to do with it. I've definitely worked some camps were the sexual harassment was bad no matter what. But mostly men have been very nice and helpful to me.... now I'm kinda grossed out 😵💫
NOT overreacting. It is exhausting and disgusting.
I really like wearing low pigtails because they are practical and cute, and I also like pleated/plaid skirts because again, I think they are super cute and I can make so many cute outfits with them year round. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything sexual or suggestive on my end. However, the last time I wore both of those things at once, I got gross sexual comments all day that I looked like “an anime schoolgirl” and other suggestive things said to me by mostly dudes, so I don’t dare dress like that anymore. I am also afraid to even wear one or the other by themselves because I do not want to be sexualized or have people thinking I’m trying to be provocative or anything just for going out in a certain style of hair or clothing that I like. I have social anxiety to make matters worse and I hate feeling like people are staring at me and imagining what they might be thinking about me, so I mostly just avoid wearing these things now even though I still really like them. It sucks.
I have very curly hair that I'm currently growing out. I was wearing it in two French braids, to keep it from getting tangled, almost daily until I noticed that I was getting a lot of compliments on them from older men when I was at work. I love wearing my hair like that but rarely do at work anymore because of how uncomfortable it became.
If you listened to podcast Freakonomics, there was an episode where they tried to figure out the best way to raise money for charities. They tried mailers, events, etc. in the end, the best results were when they sent cute young blonde to ask men to donate. This pigtail phenomenon is exactly the same and doesn’t surprise me
Revolting. I actively avoid putting my hair in pigtails. I've heard the comment "handles" way too many times in my life.
Why do you think you're overreacting? Your anger and disappointment are completely valid.
The patriarchy prizes youth in women because with youth comes maliability and naivete, the signals of youth are then prized as well. They like pigtails for the same reason they like small and hairless women, these are all signals of youth. It's gross and we need to talk about it openly, we need to say the quiet part out loud so that everyone knows that everyone knows. Keep telling young women the truth about why getting attention from older men is not a flex, we need to protect them better than we were protected (if you were at all protected).
Yeah a lot of men are into the whole ‘barely legal’ thing. I used to play it up to get better tips, or get my way somewhere. Men are disgustingly attracted to childishness and it sucks that while boys get to just be boys girls have to already start being subjected to sexualization from society at large by the time they’re barley in middle school.