According to an eyewitness, Spears was heard saying, "I don't want anyone touching me. The owner, Esther Tognozzi of Esther's Haircutting Studio, refused, suggesting that Spears was having a "hormonal moment". Perhaps the most recognizable image of a woman with a shaved head in recent history is that of Britney Spears during her famous 2007 meltdown.Īfter weeks of bizarre behavior, Spears cruised to a local salon in Tarzana, California with a trail of paparazzi slime behind her, where she demanded to have her head shaved. (Interestingly, many of their prosecutors were German collaborators themselves, hoping to distract from their own crimes.) It wasn't merely a religious punishment: After World War II, for instance, French women accused of sleeping with German soldiers were publicly humiliated by having their heads shaved. The dramatic act of shaving a woman's entire head forced her to physically wear her contrition in a way that was highly visible, marking her like Hester Prynne-a woman outside of society. We find the girls do not like to lose their hair and that the fear of having it cut off tends to make them more obedient. "We find the girls do not like to lose their hair," one of the nuns told a reporter, "and that the fear of having it cut off tends to make them more obedient." The house was shuttered by the 1930s and demolished soon after. Because of this, Sigalove filed grievance and became the center of a scandalous news story. Against her will, Sigalove was enrolled at The House of Mercy at Inwood, a reform school for "fallen women", where sex workers, club dancers, and rebellious teenagers alike were kept under lock and key with the aim of converting them into respectable women.Īccording to historical documents, conditions of the home were deplorable, and the nuns took to shaving the girls' heads when they misbehaved. One of these women was Annie Sigalove, who in the 1890s was plucked from the dance floor of a club on Coney Island and taken into custody by Episcopalian nuns. Unemployment put many young women on the streets for work or otherwise, making them perfect candidates for religious conversion. The Progressive Era saw remarkable changes in urban environments after the Industrial Revolution gave way to rapid expansion in city populations, which was matched by a rise in poverty and squalor. She died early in her thirties, presumably because her body was weakened from the habitual abuse and torture she inflicted on herself, single but devoted to her cause. In penance to God, she tortured herself in various ways-fasting whipping herself wearing a crown of thorns with 99 barbs, which she rotated regularly "so that all parts of her scalp would remain perpetually wounded" and smearing her face with pepper to dispel potential suitors. Rose of Lima, shaved her own head when her beauty began attracting suitors. Executioners forcibly shaved her head and burned her, not once but three times, at the stake.Īnother feverish young saint, St. Ultimately, it resulted in her receiving the death sentence in 1431, after she was convicted of heresy by cross-dressing at barely twenty years old. Joan of Arc, who kept her hair cropped and wore men's clothing in order to avoid the sexual advances of men throughout her military career. One of the most well-known icons of the era is the young and inexorable French rebel, St. Skip ahead a few centuries to the Late Middle Ages and early colonial period: when upheaval in the Catholic church, widespread famine, and the outbreak of the Bubonic Plague gave way to violent conflicts, filthy living conditions, and inhumane methods of punishment. Tweezers, knives, and razors were unearthed in the tombs of Egyptian women, indicating that the process of removing hair was an arduous but prioritized task. The first recorded instance of a shaved head is rooted in ancient Egypt, where both men and women shaved their heads in order to beat the heat and stay clean. Ancient to Medieval Times: The Pretty, Pious, and Punished
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