Why a Masculine Hairstyle is a Must-Have for Female Political Leaders

"Line up the most powerful female politicians in the world - Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, Theresa May, Christine Lagarde, Nicola Sturgeon and Dilma Rousseff, the Brazilian president - and you see a collection of women whose longer hair had to be ruthlessly cut as they ascended. The theme has even been noted and the style given a name: the “pob”, the political bob." This was the analysis of an article published in The Times last Thursday.

"Meanwhile first ladies, such as Samantha Cameron, Miriam Gonzalez or Michelle Obama have busy high-profile lives but are allowed long, swishy hair. For a leadership role the only conclusion is this: long hair looks feminine in a world where power still looks masculine."

The article follows it all the way back to the first female Pharaoh Hatshepsut. Her “entitlement to rule was underscored by her masculine attire”. "She even wore the same false beards that were worn by male pharaohs. This is probably a hair choice too far for most modern female politicians".

The article concludes with a quote from Charlotte Fiell, author of Hairstyles: Ancient to Present.

“Whether you like it or not, politics is still a man’s world,” says Fiell. “That makes it difficult for women. They need to be taken seriously, but if they choose a conventionally feminine hairstyle, that will look wrong. This helmet of hair is the male equivalent of the suit. It is also very controlled.”

It's also of course seen in the macho power stance beloved of Nicola Sturgeon. The last line of the article reads:

Masculinity still means seriousness? “Absolutely.”

In a perverse way this gender-reversing power play is acknowledging the truth of Scripture:
"Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering. But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God" (1 Cor. 11:14:16).

We learn from this that:

- Nature teaches us that women should have long hair but that it is shameful for men to have long hair
- It is shameful for women to have short hair (shorn) as well as shaved
- If a woman has short hair she is dishonouring her head (i.e. her husband or is denying the principle of male headship)
- Long hair is given to women for their glory and for modesty.
- It is not only natural but the church should have no other practice in these mattters

Short hair on women is also a clear violation of God's law relating to maintaining the God-ordained difference between the sexes established at creation.
For more read the following post on this blog.

The mission of the local Church

What can we learn from the past about the mission of the local Church. There is an insightful and practical lecture here about how Thomas Chalmers initiated this in a very degraded, underclass area of Edinburgh in the early Victorian times. It has significant practical pointers as to what we can learn today. Much of the strategies for church extension and planting today are what Chalmers speaks against in the following quotation:

“Now the specific business which we would like to put into the hands of a Christian minister is, not that he should fill his church any how – that he may do by the superior attractiveness of his preaching, at the expense of previous congregations, and without any movement in advance on the practical heathenism of the community: But what we want is, to place his church in the middle of such a territory as we have now specified and to lay upon him a task, for the accomplishment of which we should allow him to the labour and preference of a whole lifetime; not to fill his church any how, but to fill this church out of that district. We should give him the charge over head, of one and all of its families; and tell him, that, instead of seeking hearers from without, he should so shape and regulate his movements, that, as far as possible, his church-room might all be taken up by hearers from within. It is this peculiar relation between his church, and its contiguous households, all placed within certain geographical limits, that distinguishes him from the others as a territorial minister.”
– Thomas Chalmers