I have only been to the hairdressers three times in my 21 years of life.
As a child, my parents let my ringlets flourish, warned off taking me to the salon by parents who had witnessed their children's precious locks hacked off into characterless block cuts.
Each time I have sat down in the swivel chair I have been reprimanded for my split ends, for having thick hair, for having frizzy hair, for having long hair.
Once I spent three hours having my hair twisted into enormous rollers and painstakingly blow-dried because of a small miscommunication with a French hairdresser.
But when is it appropriate to stop growing your hair however you want?
To settle on one sensible style that secures your position in the adult world?
I at present have what might be considered a silly haircut.
My little brother shaves the bottom half of my head and I try to pretend I don't notice the curious chunks of hair falling out of my pony tail.
And when I cut my fringe I pretend I definitely meant to expose that much of my forehead.
For me, haircuts are frightening (really long hair has been my signifier for as long as I can remember) but they are also fascinating as a social marker.
Long hair is typically considered to be a mark of femininity. It is soft, malleable and entirely impractical.
According to Wikipedia there is a correlation between the length of a woman's hair and her age.
Younger women typically wear longer hair in Western societies.
Long, healthy hair is often considered to be indicative of health and youth and, by extension, fertility.
This brings up the question of shorter hair on women.
If a Western man is to grow his hair long then he might be seen to be rebelling against society, because he is embracing something feminine, whereas if a woman is to cut her hair short, then she is seen to be shunning her femininity.
A typical masculine appearance (short hair) is considered to be the norm, while the feminine (long hair) is the outlier or the other.
There is a tendency in Western society to cast serious judgement on women with short hair.
What is she rebelling against?
Does she not want her physical appearance to indicate how reproductively viable she might be?
It's a confusing position to be in, when your rebellion is to adopt a trait considered to belong to the status quo- i.e. to men.
As a woman, the ultimate insult to society is to free yourself from a physical representation of your gender.
As a man, one of the most risque things you can do is to embrace femininity.
I'm not sure if I really have a point.
At the moment my hair is both long and short and it seems to cause some confusion among those lowest of the low street harassers.
Is she gross because she's not got long hair, or is she appealing because she does?
Is it compulsory for older women to shorten their hair because we, as a society, seek to strip them of their femininity because gender roles and physical expectations do not allow for ageing?
Is it compulsory for young men to cut their hair because, to be taken seriously in the workplace, they have to perform masculinity?
The long part of my hair is making my head too hot for me to come to any conclusion but I hope at some point in the future men and women will be able to wear their hair however they please.
Millie Lovelock is a Dunedin student.
