Blue saris and shaved heads

Long, voluminous hair has long been regarded as an archetypal feminine trait.

Anna-Marie Janzen, 25, currently has long curly blonde hair, but she won’t have it for much longer. On July 6, she is hosting a fundraiser and shaving her head in order to raise money and awareness for Mennonite Central Committee’s Pobitra program in Bangladesh.

The program gives women and girls who were forced into the sex trade an opportunity to transition into a new life. “Pobitra” means “holiness, sanctity and the fresh cleanliness of a newborn.” The eight-month program provides alternative job training, some money, teaching about health and hygiene, literacy, mental health, human rights and peace. After they have gone through the program, participants are each given a blue sari to symbolize rebirth.

The same is true for Janzen. Losing her hair will usher in a new part of her life, a life not dictated by archetypal symbols of femininity. For Janzen, who attends Hope Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, the thought process about hair started with her thinking about other cultures and the women in them.

“I started thinking about the women in this world who don’t get the same kind of respect as I do,” she says. “And even that I don’t get as much respect as a man. We’re not looking at the injustice with clear eyes.”

Natasha Woelcke, 23, of First Mennonite Church, Winnipeg, shaved her head in 2009.

“Hair is a large part of feeling beautiful for women,” she acknowledges, “and I thought it would be healthy for me to be rid of it and to search for worth in areas other than beauty, like the Lord’s love for me.”

She took part in a Brave the Shave event that the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation helped organize. She donated her tresses to Locks of Love and raised $3,000 for breast cancer research.

Popular culture and long hair

Both Janzen and Woelcke feel that shaved heads aren’t widely accepted.

Before actress Natalie Portman decided to shave her head for her role in V for Vendetta, she told the British Broadcasting Corporation that she thought people would have predictable opinions of her new look. “Some people will think I’m a neo-Nazi or that I have cancer or I’m a lesbian,” she said.

When singer Britney Spears shaved her head, the pop princess was considered crazy.

And even further back, when Louisa May Alcott published her book Little Women, it contained many references that the main character, Jo, is the least feminine sister. These references are confirmed when she scandalously cuts off her hair to earn money to send her mother to visit her wounded father in the hospital.

“As she spoke, Jo took off her bonnet, and a general outcry arose, for all her abundant hair was cut short,” the book reads. Her hair is even regarded as her “one beauty.”

Theologies of hair cutting

For Janzen and many others who donate their hair, it’s not just about what people think, it’s also challenging their ideas and working for a greater cause. Her life is focused on working for peace and justice.

“Micah 6 says, ‘Do justly, love mercy and be humble.’ That’s the purpose of life,” she says. Cutting her hair off “is just a small part that I can do to encourage justice.”

And for Woelcke, it was about making bald heads more acceptable and acting in solidarity to support those who need motivation fighting cancer.

“Hopefully, in a very small way, this made it more acceptable and less scary for women who do lose their hair during cancer, to see it as a less scary part of a very difficult disease,” she says.