fight the real enemy.

there was the muslim girl in france. the law was passed forbidding students from wearing any sort of religious symbols, including veils. girls who compromised by wearing bandannas or hats were told that there is a difference between wearing such things for fashion and for religion, and still refused entrance to school. the girl shaved her head. her mother cried. her friends thought she was rebellious and brave, and her teachers thought she was defiant. her mother supports her, now.



buddhist nuns are not buddhist monks. many sects refuse to allow women to be fully ordained. those that do often charge the nuns with little more than cleaning the monasteries. laypeople support the monks, feeding them. they tend to forget the nuns. she is stereotyped as a failed woman. she is a widow, her husband divorced her, she is mad. it is mentioned again and again: there must be something wrong with a woman who would cut off her hair.



when i was in highschool, some girl on the real world had a shaved head. and i remember a friend telling me that a lot of girls who have been raped do it, because they don't want to be pretty anymore. i'd rather a delilah of the dykes, cutting her own hair and pushing over pillars and temples like they were only part of some cardboard japan and being generally hot.



(they say goldfish have no memory. i guess their lives are much like mine, and the little plastic castle is a surprise every time. and it's hard to say if they're happy, but they don't seem much to mind. from the shape of your shaved head i recognized your silhouette as you walked out of the sun and sat down. and the sight of your sleepy smile eclipsed all the other people as they paused to sneer at the two girls from out of town. i said, "look at you this morning. you are, by far, the cutest. but be careful getting coffee. i think these people want to shoot us.")