Shiloh Jolie-Pitt Got A Haircut, OMG!

Shiloh Jolie-Pitt is cute and adorable and it's obvious that she marches to her own drummer. I've never seen her wear baby heels in public like Suri Cruise and I don't know the last time she was pictured in a dress.

Mind you, I'm not watching her day and night. But nor do I see the need to observe her closely to make sure that she's living up to gender expectations. I simply don't think that her lack of fancy footwear and sparkle and ribbons and tulle means anything more significant than that the girl likes to be comfortable. Word on that Ms. Shiloh.

Her laid-back style has, however, concerned some media folks. They're worried that she looks like - gasp! - a boy. They worry that her parents, gene-pool winners Angelina and Brad, dress her this way because they wanted a boy. Hogwash, I say.

But the concern hasn't stopped. Once again something has happened to set off a flurry of stories in the grocery store tabloids about her boyish appearance.

Shiloh's most recent 'masculine' action that has alarmed the gossipnets is a hair cut. A short hair cut.

But please don't panic folks. The experts don't think her choice of hairstyle is anything to worry about. Oh, no, wait: they do. USWeekly found a panel of hairdressers who referred to in with terms like 'Princess Charming'.

'Princess Charming'? So she's a boy princess? Why does she have to be a princess? Or for that matter, a boy? Sure, they also said things like 'it's not a contrived look' (um... she's three), and 'precious' (agreed), but still: why the insistence that short hair = boy?

It's been suggested that the media obsession with Shiloh's appearance has something to do with an idea that she isn't fulfilling her 'princess destiny' to be the most beautiful child of the most beautiful celebrities ev-ah? It sounds plausible. Sad, but plausible.

Mind you, I'm not sure it's a conscious concern of the media machine. Or at least I hope that it's not. Perhaps the media has turned into the over-opinionated older relative who thinks boys should be boys and girls should be girls and if they don't act that way, they just ain't right.

How annoying. And scary.

So here is what I, Katie aka motherbumper, think about Shiloh's new 'boy' haircut:

That is me, age five. I rarely wore skirts or dresses in public at that age. My hair was this short for many more years to come. I wore a lot of clothing inherited from my brother. And I'm completely 'normal'. And I don't remember ever being thought of abnormal -- well at least not for having short hair. And if I remember correctly, many of my friends were this way too.

So I think Shiloh Jolie-Pitt is wonderful, completely cute, and totally normal. Just like I was at that age (or at least that's what my parents told me.)

Mind you, I wasn't in the public eye nor was I ever used to sell magazines. Their loss. I was kick-ass cute.

(Ed. note: and this is me when I was small. Short-cropped mullets FTW! Post your own tomboy pics, and leave a link in the comments, if you dare.)

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Comments

[Loukia]

She is GORGEOUS. From day 1. And her haircut is SO CUTE. And if I had a girl, I guarantee you I wouldn't dress her in pink all the time. I love the way Shiloh dresses. (Please, pay no attention to my very PINK blog. Think maybe a re-design is in order soon!) Anyway. Shiloh is stunning. Like her daddy. Sigh.

[Loukia]

P.S. I have very short hair when I was 9. It was HORRIFIC. I can't even talk about it.

[Saisquoi]

I think that's an absolutely darling haircut. And I don't think she looks like a boy and more than little boys with longer hair look like girls. They look like adorable small children.

In fact, should my daughter ever decide to grow hair, we are likely to keep it short for a while, simply because she is SO ACTIVE and I remember how much fun it was to have knots wrestled out of my hair. Totally practical.

[Crredwards]

I have two girls and I can tell you the short haircuts are BEST. You can put girly clips and little whale-spout style ponytails in and people think it's adorable, and you don't have to mess with tangles. As for the gender-confused, they're idiots. Children are supposed to be androgynous, IMO. Puberty is when they can start wringing their hands in concern.

[Kristin]

Oh so many comments to make. First, how much can a kid be messed up by having the media obsessing over your appearance starting at 2? Next thing they'll be publishing pictures of her going wild with the juice with headlines like "TODDLER GONE WILD: SHILOH STRUNG OUT ON SUGAR."

Second, what the hell is with the gender cops? Is anyone surprised that Angelina Jolie's kid dresses a little androgynous. How a 2.5 year old dresses says a lot more about the style of the parents than the kid. My little girl wears a lot of boys clothes because I see no need to limit her to the girl stuff and her hair is long because I'm too lazy to cut it. As far as short hair is concerned, short=less brushing.

Third, and here's the big one, who cares if she doesn't turn out "normal" anyway. Does it matter if she grows up to be gay or bi or trans or any other shade of queer/gender-queer? No, and you can bet that Angelina wouldn't care either. It's easy to get caught up in the wrong point with this stuff but the issue isn't "does (insert controversial item here) make your kids queer?" It's "why does it matter if your kid is queer?"

[Annika]

And everyone thinks my son is a girl because he has long, curly hair. Apparently gender identity is REALLY IMPORTANT to people who don't know our kids at all.

[bon]

in the 70s, short hair for little girls was IN. i rocked the requisite mushroom cut for oh, twelve years. so did most of my friends. but we're in a backlash era right now, and OUR little girls are expected to code ultrafemme or be singled out as Other.

whereas we actually get away with little boy having Beatle-ish long hair (tho not Celine Dion-kid long, because that's just Scary too. maybe he & Shiloh will grow up and fall in love. oh, except, of course, they've already been deemed gay).

on the pendulum of fashion, we seem to be sampling all 40s-50s expectations for females and late 60s-70s for boys.

i think Shiloh's look signifies her parents' status as hipsters, ahead of the curve and damn the critiques of the vanilla masses, more than anything else.

[patois]

I had to post my own. I think this was the longest it was for many years.

http://www.wheeallthewayhome.com/2010/02/me-and-shiloh-two-of-kind.html

[C @ Kid Things]

Granted, if I didn't know who that was a picture of I would think it was a really cute boy. Still, the idea here is cute. It's still cute, boy or girl.

My oldest son had long hair for awhile. It bugged the crap out of his grandparents. People need to learn to just let it go, it's just hair.

[a]

My mom had our hair cut short because she did not want to deal with knots. I didn't think of my hair at all then, but in retrospect, it's not attractive. I don't get my daughter's hair cut, because she looks cute with long hair. But if she keeps putting the hair in her mouth, it's coming off. Odds are that for a 3 year old, practicality is the only concern when it comes to hair.

Gender identity in a 3 year old...ridiculous.

[Shanna]

People are seriously concerned that Shiloh, a THREE year old, is having identity issues? She is 3, her parents are probably just making sure that all the kids are completely clothed, since they have how many of them now? Also, maybe she got gum in her hair. I know that is why my butt length curls went in the garbage when I was three. Or she could have gotten a hold of a pair of scissors and started the cut herself and that is all that was left to salvage.
My two year old girl has the classic bowl cut going on simply for ease of just getting out the damn door everyday.
Don't take my comments as bagging on you, I am just amazed that anyone is even thinking those things about a 3 year old. She is still a baby, the media needs to let her be little and she can be a princess when she is old enough to make that call herself.

[Adventures In Babywearing]

You and SHE is darling. And how do people know she didn't cut her hair herself, or one of her brothers did? That has happened to everyone with a daughter that I've known, so they have to get a cut to "fix" it and sometimes it's a bit pixie-iesh but super cute!

Anyway.

Steph

[LindsayDianne]

You ARE cute. The media coverage of this poor kid is anything but.

[Melinda Neely]

Not only did I look like a boy, but I must have had the worst hair on the planet. http://www.flickr.com/photos/melindahinsonneely/4389827553/
Mom, how did you do this to me?

[heather...]

I'm still laughing at you saying you're normal.

[MsSyko]

Shiloh's cut is adorable. People trying to tag her as gender-troubled is ridiculous, she's not old enough to know the difference, really, other than "what's that" when Mom changes her baby brother. I had read that recently she was obsessed with the Peter Pan story and insisted that her parents call her either John or Peter. More fodder for the idiots.

It would be MY guess, since Shiloh is one of six rather small children, that the short haircut is for convenience and nothing more. My two daughters were born in the '60s and both wore "pixie" haircuts for years.

Heck, I wear one now. Nothing like work-free hair!

[Alicia]

Mother of four here who has shaved her head off and on since college, as recently as when I was pregnant with my second baby. In all this time, I'm pretty sure I never lost my vagina, not even once.

[Marsha]

I actually wrote something about this myself a few days ago: http://flotswebsite.blogspot.com/2010/02/wow-huh-day-before-we-went-to-get-her.html

[Mommymaile]

My daughter has short hair! And good taste in music(see photos)

http://mommalovebug.blogspot.com/2010/02/not-boy.html

I had a lovely bowl cut as a tot, and my brothers hand me downs. I still have to pee sitting down (unless I want it on my leg)

[Mommymaile]

Also, there was a time when men had long hair and wore makeup and high heels! No one thought King Louis XIV was a woman...

[rebecca]

mine has short hair, too!

http://rebeccaisfabulous.blogspot.com/2010/02/violet-has-short-short-hair.html

[Fairly Odd Mother]

I need to try to scan the photo of me with super-short blond hair at the beach at 3yo. The hair isn't what you'll notice, it's the fact that I'm wearing a boy's red bikini bottom suit. My mom is Austrian, and little girls didn't wear tops at the beach back then. But, with my short hair, I look EXACTLY like a little boy. It's too cute.

Here is my own blondie---my middle child who rocks the short hair. It pains me that she is starting to grow it out after years and years of super-short hair: http://fairlyoddmother.blogspot.com/2008/04/its-bird-its-plane-its.html

[Lynn @ Walking With Scissors]

Wow. I had short hair, too. Does this mean that I'm gender confused? Should I seek help of some kind? Can anyone reccommend a good therapist? Surely there must be some kind of lasting trauma from such a thing. Post traumatic stress disorder? Now I'm all worried. Thanks a lot.

Here's me:

http://www.walkingwithscissorsblog.com/?p=647

[Julie]

I had a shag in the early 70s (first and second grades)(sorry no pics). Then I went long. Then short in 5th grade. And stayed there. And have been short ever since. My boys have had longer hair than I do now. Heck, my husband had longer hair than I did until our little guy was a year old. Short rules. I am a tomboy, always was, and am definitely not gender confused. My husband bakes cakes, cries at the end of chick flicks and dresses better than many females I know. He's not confused either. You know you're doing something right when the little guy uses Mom or Dad interchangeably regardless of which one he's talking to. Ha.

[Lindy]

I would bet Dad dressed her that morning. I know when my daughter is dressed by dad she doesn't look all that girly. Not a bad thing...