IngentaConnect The Politics of Hair and the Issue of the Bob in Modern China

Author: Sun, Lung-Kee

Source: Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, Volume 1, Number 4, November 1997 , pp. 353-365(13)

Abstract:

Hairstyle was central to Chinese cultural politics and has remained so. For example, in 1645 Manchus ordered conquered Chinese males to shave their foreheads and wear their hair in a long plait (queue) as a kind of loyalty test. The symbolism of the queue continued among Chinese males for many years. In later times women's new hairstyles also became problematic. Official and social opinion frowned on short hair for women, and bobbed hair was a sign of defiance. The bob appeared in the first year of the republic but failed to become a trend. It appeared again under the impact of the New Culture movement of the May Fourth era (1915-1925), when the rhetoric defending the bob seemed to have been adopted from the West. Some of China's provincial authorities banned the bob, but there is not sufficient evidence to tell how widespread or successful the ban was. This article looks at the position of the Zhou brothers on the issue of the bob. Shuren (Lu Xun) and Zuoren were writers and cultural critics, Jianren was a eugenics pioneer. The Zhou brothers' critique of Chinese culture and society was inspired by Fin de Siècle ideas from Europe: eugenics, degeneration theories, abnormal psychology and Decadent rebellion against Victorian morality.

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