Lovely hair for a lovely princess like you, Aurora.
"Does not the very nature of things teach you that […] if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering."
Long hair tends to be among the Tertiary Sexual Characteristics used to establish a character as female.
Long, luscious hair is regarded as an archetypal feminine trait in quite a few cultures and commonly accompanies other such traits. One of the few exceptions seems to be the Barbarian Longhair, which has been a masculine trait at least since the Bible Times; and its descendants, the hippies and heavy metal rockers. Another, of course, is that some groups of people are largely incapable of growing long hair without much scalp work. It is important to note however, that what was considered "long" and "short" has changed over the course of history. At various times, styles which would be considered quite long by modern standards were deemed perfectly masculine: but the women of that period typically wore their hair even longer. Although there certainly were times and places where it was the style rather than the length which mattered, or when the question of long versus short hair was decided by factors other than gender. The styles we tend to think of as Rated M for Manly were actually a result of the invention of the barber shop, and thus the professionalization of men's hair care: which happened in Ancient Rome. Prior to that, "short hair" usually meant a bowl cut due to the simple fact that most people didn't want to risk putting a straight razor anywhere near their ears. Trope usually averted for Elves and/or Space Elves, the Proud Warrior Race (if they are more inspired by Mongols, Japanese or Native Americans than Romans), and Angels.
A Super-Trope to:
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Long dark hair as part of the alpha female package.
- Boyish Short Hair: Short, unkempt, or spiky hair, often used to indicate a Tomboy and an Action Girl.
- Braids of Action: Braids are a way for an Action Girl to keep long hair that doesn't get in the way.
- Compressed Hair: Another way to keep long hair out of the way in combat.
- Furry Female Mane: Human-like head hair used to indicate femininity in animals.
- Hime Cut: Long straight hair with full bangs and shorter side locks, used to indicate an Ojou and a Yamato Nadeshiko.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Doing this with long hair increases the girl's attractiveness.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Long hair on a man as a sign of feminine beauty.
- Motherly Side Plait: Hair tied in a loose braid or ponytail resting on the shoulder to indicate motherhood.
- Ojou Ringlets: Curly sidelocks on female characters, used to indicate an Ojou.
- Power Hair: In a society where "feminine" is considered to be synonymous with "weak", "passive," or "shallow", powerful and/or intelligent (and usually older) women wear their hair short.
- Regal Ringlets: Corkscrew curls in medium- to long- hair as an indication of a feminine, high-class woman.
- Shaking Her Hair Loose: Showing the long hair after being hidden in a conservative style.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The tomboy will have Boyish Short Hair while the girly girl will have long hair.
- Tomboyish Ponytail: Ponytails are an easy way to get her long hair out of the way.
- Traumatic Haircut: A forced and/or sudden haircut is traumatic for women who value their long hair.
- Tuft of Head Fur: For less anthropomorphic animals, fur is used as a counterpart to hair. Hair tufts on females contrast with "bald" males, giving the allusion of hair.
A Wholesome Crossdresser will often, but not always, have long hair either naturally or as a wig. A male-to-female Gender Bender will often involve Rapid Hair Growth because of this trope.
Glasses-and-Ponytail Coverup exploits this since glasses and hair up were typically portrayed as unfeminine.
Compare Pink Means Feminine, Real Men Have Short Hair.
Contrast Boyish Short Hair and Bald Head of Toughness.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Mazinger Z: Most of the female characters wore long hair: Sayaka, Misato, Erika, Hitomi, the Gamia sisters... Sayaka even wore a pink headband. Of course, it was considered that a girl seemed more feminine like that. In Great Mazinger, Jun—and even a villainess like Marquis Janus—wore also long hair. It was kind of subverted in UFO Robo Grendizer, though: Hikaru—a feminine Yamato Nadeshiko—wore short hair, and her best friend Maria—a Tsundere tomboy—wore long, curly hair.
- In Samurai High School, when Tsukiko decided to enter school as a boy, she considered cutting her hair but her brother said it'd not be necessary. Just holding it in a ponytail would be enough. He was right. Also, he wore a wig to pose as his sister.
- Monaco of Hetalia: Axis Powers is said to have grown her hair out in order to imitate a Grand Duchess in her profile. She also adds lots of hair decorations for good measure.
- Akane Tendo from Ranma ½ attempted to invoke this, since as a child she believed having long hair like her sister Kasumi would make her more feminine and thus would get Dr. Tofu (whom she initially had a Precocious Crush on) to like her. Then she gets an accidentally Traumatic Hair Cut by Ryoga and Ranma. After she fixes her hair to be much shorter, she lets go of her feelings for Dr. Tofu and keeps her hair short for the rest of the series.
- Pretty Cure:
- In Futari wa Pretty Cure, the girly Honoka has long, deep blue hair, usually decorated with a heart-shaped accessory, in contrast to the tomboyish Nagisa having short hair.
- In Yes! Pretty Cure 5, the most tomboyish Cure, Rin, has short hair, while the other Cures who are more feminien have at least bicep-length hair.
- In HeartCatch Pretty Cure!, Cure Sunshine's long hair symbolizes Itsuki's desire to become more feminine.
- Downplayed in Go! Princess Pretty Cure; all of the Cures are feminine, but Haruka, who has short hair, is a clumsy Genki Girl while the longer-haired Cures are more elegant and graceful.
- In KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode, the masculine Aoi and Akira have short hair, while the feminine Ichika, Himari, Yukari, and Ciel have long hair.
- In HuGtto! Pretty Cure, the tomboyish Homare has short hair, while the more feminine Cures have longer hair.
- Inverted in Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure; the tomboyish Asuka has long hair, while the sweet, nerdy Minori has a short, Velma-esque bowlcut.
- Since Wandering Son is a manga heavily themed around gender and gender roles this pops up:
- Nitori is a transgender girl who likes baking and is quite feminine. Almost every time she envisions herself living as a girl she has long hair past her shoulders. Her hair is cropped short but she buys a long-haired wig when she starts going out as a girl. She ends up growing her hair into a bob in middle school but won't grow it further due to social acceptance issues with boys and long hair. In high school, she cuts it even shorter originally and buys a new wig, this time a bob.
- Takatsuki is a boyish transgender boy. He originally had an androgynous bob style but cut it into a pixie. In middle school, Chiba gets Takatsuki to grow his hair back to medium-length but he gets it cut when he notices she's just trying to make him feminine. Takatsuki growing his hair out to shoulder length in high school signifies his confusion about whether he wants to be a boy or a girl. The last time we see Takatsuki she has long hair and looks more like a Girly Girl than her usual butch look
- Averted with Maho, Nitori's mom Satomi, Makoto, and Momoko who are all varying degrees of feminine but have bob styles or shorter. Chizuru is a tomboyish girl who likes wearing the boy's uniform to school but has the longest hair in the manga. Popular model and singer Maiko originally has Girlish Pigtails but cuts her hair into a pixie late into the series, subverting this trope.
- Bokura no Hentai is an Otokonoko Genre deconstruction that discusses gender roles and gender so this pops up:
- Hacchi and Yui are two long-haired characters who used to have Boyish Short Hair before undergoing a Girliness Upgrade prior to the series. Hacchi was One of the Boys until precocious puberty caused her friends to stop wanting to hang with her. Yui was a tomboy until becoming a model.
- Marika is a trans girl. She likes long hair but keeps her hair cropped into a bob haircut due to living as a boy. She cuts her hair shorter partway through the series but grows it out past her shoulders once she begins living as a girl.
- Ryousuke crossdresses to pass as his deceased sister Yui. In elementary he had short hair but currently, he has long hair, at least partially due to his melancholy nature and partially because Yui wore Girlish Pigtails. When he stops crossdressing he cuts his hair.
- Satoshi is introduced as an effeminate Wholesome Crossdresser with long hair. He cuts it short when he quits crossdressing due to growth spurts. Over the course of the series, he begins to grow it out longer again and even crossdresses a few more times.
- Shun from You and Me is introduced as a Long-Haired Pretty Boy so androgynous that New Transfer Student Chizuru mistakes him for a girl. He is very much In Touch with His Feminine Side. Subverted later when he gets a haircut due to the summer heat. His friends botched it and cut it shorter than he had wanted. Shun stays with this haircut for the rest of the series.
- The Heroic Legend of Arslan tries to use this for Etoile's gender reveal, by showing her taking her long hair out of her helmet. The problem? Over half of the main cast are long-haired pretty boys (even the tough ones like Daryun), so it doesn't quite get the point across smoothly.
- Asteroid in Love: This trope summarizes Ao's Expository Hairstyle Change. When she was a child, she was a grumpy tomboy with Boyish Short Hair to the point that Mira mistook her for a boy. As puberty hit she turns more (conventionally) feminine, becoming a quiet and demure Shy Blue-Haired Girl by Present Day. This was accompanied by her growing out her hair to be longer and tie it into low pigtails, which look so unambiguously feminine that Mira immediately gets an Unsettling Gender-Reveal when they reunited.
Asian Animation
- In Kung Fu Wa: Tee Yang usually has Girlish Pigtails buns, but she lets her hair down when she transforms into Kung-Fu Girl or goes to sleep.
- Min, Tee Yang's best friend has long brown hair that reaches her waist.
- Lamput: In the Season 3 episode "Wig", this seems to be the mindset behind Fat Doc mistaking Slim Doc for a female after Lamput disguises himself as long, flowing hair on his head.
Comic Books
- The Sandman (1989): In the story "A Game of You", the trans woman Wanda has long red hair that, according to her friend Barbie, she is rather proud of. When she dies, her family, who never accepted her as a woman, have her buried with short hair as part of their erasure of her female identity.
- In W.I.T.C.H., Cornelia has the longest hair of all the girls, and she does figure skating.
- X-23 is the Ugly Guys Hot Opposite-Sex Clone of Wolverine. One method of emphasizing this is that rather than sharing Logan's distinctive hairstyle, Laura has long black hair down to around or just past her shoulder blades. In fact, her healing factor even recognizes this as its normal length; when she first appeared in All-New X-Men she was still bald from the events of Avengers Arena and whatever the Purifiers were doing to her, and when she first woke up in the Weapon X lab where Cyclops had his base after being rescued she had a very tomboyish pixie cut. It then grew back out to its normal length again over the course of a conversation with Teen!Scott.
Films—Animated
- Disney Animated Canon's heroines are often depicted with long, flowing hair—thanks to their use of fairy tales. There are a few notable exceptions, however...
- In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White has anachronistic bobbed hair to match the style of the 1930s when her film was made.
- Cinderella has shoulder-length hair again to match the 1950s style of the time, regardless of the film's Victorian setting.
- Mulan starts out with long hair but cuts it short to pass as a boy. Even so, she's easier to recognize as a woman when her hair is down. The merchandise gives her a Girliness Upgrade so that she's shown with her long hair more often.
- The Princess and the Frog is set in The Roaring '20s where bobbed hair was the height of fashion. Lottie the Girly Girl has a bob, but Tiana's hair is slightly longer. Still shorter than the typical princess though.
- In Tangled, Rapunzel initially has seventy feet of hair but at the end of the film, it's cut short into a pixie. Still, the merchandise mainly shows Rapunzel with her long hair, like Mulan.
- Big Hero 6 has a Tomboy and Girly Girl situation. GoGo the Tomboy has short hair, while Honey Lemon the Girly Girl has long hair.
- Violet from The Incredibles has waist-length black hair, which stands out from most female characters in the films since they generally have short hair. It's pretty helpful if she finds herself needing to hide.
- Averted in the first three Shrek movies, where all the male characters except for Shrek have long hair. Understandable because Shrek is supposed to take place in the middle ages and those were common hairstyles during that period.
- Brave—the very feminine Queen Elinor has hair that goes all the way down to the floor. Merida's hair is long too but it's a good deal wilder.
Films—Live-Action
- The Disney Channel movie Motocrossed had a girl cut her hair short to make her look identical to her twin brother.
- The Milla Jovovich version of Joan of Arc has Joan annoyed that the soldiers aren't taking her seriously because she's a woman, so she hacks off her hair in the hope that she'll be considered as one of the men.
- The biopic of the first female U.S. firefighter has the woman having to cut her hair short for health and safety reasons, and she complains that she looks like a boy now.
- In The Brothers Grimm, one of the village children is mistaken for a boy because she had short hair while all the other little girls had flowing long hair. This was part of a ploy to hide the girl from the villain—who was kidnapping the village's daughters. It worked for a while but they eventually caught her.
- In both The Parent Trap (1961) and The Parent Trap (1998), the tomboyish twin has shorter hair than the Girly Girl.
- In Showgirls one of the girls auditioning for the Vegas dance troupe has short hair and is told: "I hope you have a good collection of wigs, sweetie". Cristal also has quite short hair (albeit just above the shoulders) but wears a long hairpiece whenever she's performing.
- Inverted in Sucker Punch where Rocket, the only girl with short hair, is The Heart of The Team. Meanwhile, Blondie fills the role of The Big Guy and has the longest hair of the girls.
- In Suffragette, all of the women have long hair, though most wear it braided in a way that keeps it out of the way. The notable exception is the woman who leads the local group, she has curly hair that she wears open and (relatively) short, in a way that wouldn't look out of place in modern times. As she's the only woman who works in a prestigious job (her husband owns a pharmacy, where she not only works as a pharmacist but also as a sort of doctor), she's in a way the most unfeminine woman.
- The film version of Camelot portrays Guinevere with beautiful long golden hair. In the finale she is revealed to have become a nun—and thus had her hair cut short. Both Arthur and Lancelot find this very tragic.
- Princess Cyd: Contrasting with Katie, who wears her hair short, Cyd's is quite long and thus they are mistaken for a male-female couple from a distance.
- Ophelia: An obvious sign of Ophelia changing from a tomboy as a little girl to more conventionally feminine in adulthood is her hair growing long. Later, she cuts it short to serve the opposite purpose (passing as a man).
- In the movie Switch, a misogynist is reincarnated in the body of a woman. He's unable to handle the upkeep of longer hair and eventually gets a short haircut.
- For The Craft, Robin Tunney had just shaved her head for Empire Records and was still growing her hair back out. The director liked the "very cute pixie" she had when she tested for the film, but the studio insisted she wear a wig—as she was playing The Ingenue lead. Fairuza Balk, who was playing the wilder and more antagonistic Nancy, was allowed to have short hair.
- In-Universe in The School for Good and Evil (2022), long "princess" hair is a hallmark of the School for Good. Sophie is very proud of her long, blonde hair, which makes her stick out at the School for Evil and leads to Lady Lesso chopping it off to make her fit in. Subverted in that Agatha is also long-haired and not at all feminine while Sophie continues wearing feminine clothes and hairstyles after the cut, in line of the movie's themes on how appearances aren't everything.
Literature
- In The Bible, St. Paul writes in one of his letters that while men should keep their hair short, women should be encouraged to keep theirs long, saying that "a woman's hair is her glory." (In that culture, long hair was a sign of submissiveness.)
- Also averted with the Nazirite vow. A man or woman could take this vow as a sign of dedication to God. Among the vow's restrictions was that haircuts were not allowed until the end of the vow's period, when it would all be shaved off and offered as a sacrifice. The most famous one was super-manly man Samson who was supposed to be a Nazirite for life, although he screwed it up in the end. It's also hinted that Paul himself had done this for a while (the book of Acts mentions that he had his hair cut due to a vow).
- Inverted on a large scale in A Brother's Price, where short hair is feminine. Children and men grow their hair out long, and men usually keep theirs braided.
- City of Bones by Martha Wells: Gender-Inverted in the upper-class society of Charisat—fashionable Patrician women crop their hair very short. It was originally done to cope with the heat in the Waste but became tradition.
- Chronicles of the Kencyrath: Jame is androgynous, flat chested, and skinny. She routinely cross-dresses, and is legally regarded as male on more than one occasion. But her hair—which falls well below her waist—is regarded as her one feminine feature. She prizes it, and refuses to cut it even when it would be pratical to do so.
- The opening scene in Discworld novel Monstrous Regiment has Polly Perks clipping her hair short so she can pass as a boy and enlist in the army. The fact that she then takes the hair with her becomes a bit of a plot point.
- Della, in The Gift of the Magi, has hair falling almost to her knees. She has it cut, obviously, and frets that now she looks like a "Coney Island Chorus Girl".
- Averted in The Goblin Emperor; at the court of the elven emperor, all people of importance have long hair. Short hair is reserved for low-ranked servants.
- In John C. Wright's The Hermetic Millennia, the Nymphs all wear their hair at least waist long.
- Honor Harrington: Grayson as a whole feels this way; it stems from their conservative Christian theology. Notably, when Abigail Hearns, Miss Owens, becomes the first Grayson woman to join the Navy, she refuses to cut her hair, despite the inconvenience of maintaining her waist-length brown hair as a serving officer. Properly raised Grayson women do not cut their hair short, and it seems that you can take the girl off Grayson, but you can't take the Grayson out of the girl.
- Played with in Hurog; men tend to wear their hair shorter, but traditionalists might wear long hair, as was the fashion of past times.
- Played with by J. R. R. Tolkien. Most of the women have miles of hair, but most of the men wear their hair long too. Particularly elves. This fact is used by the humans, the bad ones, to deride them as effeminate. However, the reader is made thoroughly aware that this is not accurate. Plenty of long-haired elves in the series are manly, and Galadriel with her super-long hair is nevertheless described as a Tomboy in her youth. And how can you tell that the Rohirrim are actually good guys despite their first appearance? Their long flowing golden locks, naturally. Long hair is a sign of beauty in Tolkien's works, but beauty is not a characteristic assigned only to women: it is generally associated with holiness and goodness.
- Played with in Kat, Incorrigible; Kat cuts her hair short in an attempt to disguise as a boy. When that plan fails, she is stuck with the haircut. Her stepmother hates it, deeming it very improper for a girl, her father doesn't mind, and another woman kindly states that short hair is now the latest London fashion and that Kat looks like one of the women in the fashion magazines.
- Fantine in Les Misérables is heartbroken to have to sell her hair—her crowning beauty, which falls all the way to her hips and is a beautiful blond color—but she does it without a second thought to earn money for her daughter, Cosette.
- Little Women: Jo sells her hair to pay for a train ticket. As she's a 19th-century Tomboy, her long hair was her "one beauty" (according to her sister Amy) because it added to her femininity.
- In The Rape of the Lock, an assault on Belinda's hair is considered an assault on her person, and her beauty, though her hair is still about 90% intact.
- The Silver Crown has a moment when Ellen and Otto are on the run, and Otto suggests Ellen cut her hair to look like a boy to fool anyone looking for her (as they'll be looking for a girl and not a boy). As all Otto has is a switchblade knife, Ellen understandably refuses.
- Timeline: Female time travelers with short hair must use wigs because people in the 1300s strongly held this view. The only women with short hair had it due to a disgrace or punishment for heresy. Passing as a man by cutting your hair short was also punishable by death at the time.
Live-Action TV
- The Survivor-like modeling series America's Next Top Model each season plays with this trope and Boyish Short Hair, as the almost always long-haired models have their hair cut, sometimes a great deal. At least once, this caused a contestant to quit the competition.
- Charmed:
- When Prue casts a spell to turn herself into a man, her hair becomes significantly shorter (and she gains a goatee) as part of her gender transformation.
- Averted in Season 6, where Phoebe sports a pixie haircut. Alyssa Milano decided to do it for her 30th birthday and wouldn't wear a wig (according to Rose McGowan, there was a studio mandate that none of the actresses could change their hair without permission).
- An episode of Chicago Hope had a subplot about a boy who had been raised as a girl. When s/he found out, s/he cut off all his long hair to look more like a boy.
- Women of Game of Thrones who are especially feminine and ladylike have long hair that usually reaches their waists—Daenerys, Catelyn, Sansa, Margaery, Melisandre, Myrcella. Talisa may be a battlefield nurse, but her long hair signifies her noble birth. Brienne of Tarth is the least feminine character and has outright Boyish Short Hair. Other less feminine women like Yara, Osha, Ygritte, and Arya usually have theirs at shoulder-length (the latter sported short hair for a few seasons but only because she disguised herself as a boy and it was growing out to signal Character Development). Cersei had hair longer than most of the other characters but it was cut off in a Traumatic Haircut, marked by a step towards becoming a more ruthless ruler.
- The same goes for the ladylike Rhaenyra Targaryen in House of the Dragon, even in her tomboyish youth. And also perhaps to showcase her Targaryen pride as well.
- Every single one of the girls in New Directions has long, flowing hair (with the occasional exception of Mercedes when she wears her hair natural) right up until the second season finale when Quinn, having lost her Prom King potential boyfriend, proceeds to fail at villainy as well and gets a cute short haircut from Santana and Brittany to make up for it.
- Halt and Catch Fire: At the beginning of the series, Cameron is an aggressive punk rocker with very short hair. Over the course of the series, she mellows out and matures. Her hair also gets progressively longer in each season.
- Several women from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power such as Disa, Miriel and Galadriel, all wear their hair very long and styled as a sign of their noble blood.
- Morgana, Guinevere, and Morgause from Merlin (2008) (as well as most of the female guest stars) all have beautiful long, shiny, styled hair.
- Inverted in Once Upon a Time where the most gentle and feminine of the women Mary Margaret has the shortest hair in the cast—and her Enchanted Forest counterpart Snow White (who was an Action Girl) had long hair. But tomboyish Emma Swan was given beautiful long blonde hair because the creators wanted to convey that she had a "fairy tale princess side to her".
- Hannah Spearritt later played this straight in Primeval—where she played the Tomboy to Claudia Brown's Girly Girl, and her hair was short. Notably, when she grew her hair long again in Season 4, her tomboyish nature had been downplayed.
- Strictly Come Dancing's 2018 season had BBC newsreader Kate Silverton as a contestant. She described herself as a tomboy who always had short hair, so it was a departure for her to wear a long red wig when dressing as Jessica Rabbit. The judges had a She Cleans Up Nicely moment.
- Tommy had long hair in the earlier seasons of 3rd Rock from the Sun. During this time, he was Phrase Catcher for the line, "Cut your hair, you look like a girl!"
- In Veronica Mars, the Veronica of flashbacks, when she was a fairly stereotypical high school girl, has long hair; present-day Veronica, having become a Guile Hero by way of Break the Cutie, favors a much shorter, more severe cut.
- The documentary Whose Hair Is It Anyway? examines this trope in relation to the use of hair extensions amongst modern girls. One woman spent around £400 a month getting extensions put in and would be paranoid about leaving the house without them in. Presenter Jamelia admitted to spending 3 hours every morning getting her hair ready before school. They theorize that the desire for really long hair comes from the classic fairytale princess look. Jamelia's travels take her to India where she discovers that long hair is the mark of a woman's beauty. Women sacrifice their hair to the temple as an act of faith, and the temple, in turn, sells the hair to extensions dealers. The money from that is used to feed the poor. Long hair is also highly valued in Russia, where Jamelia sees fresh hair being cut to make extensions.
- The Worst Witch TV series uses this trope to contrast Miss Drill with the rest of the characters. As the only non-witch member of staff, she has short Spiky Hair and is always wearing sports clothes. The rest of the teachers and the girls all have long hair and all wear skirts and dresses.
Music
- S Club 7 member Jo O'Meara preferred her hair short from their second album onwards, and presumably, for this reason, was portrayed as The Lad-ette on their TV show. Averted when Hannah Spearritt also had short hair, as she remained The Ditz.
- Tears for Fears: All the female models on the "Sowing the Seeds of Love
◊", "Woman in Chains◊" and "Advice for the Young at Heart◊" single covers have long hair.
Professional Wrestling
- Short hair is easier to manage and some wrestlers can't even grow long hair, so extensions and weaves are fairly common, plus they hurt less when pulled on. Jazz has recommended them. Alternatively, a slight reduction in hair length can be a whole gimmick in of itself (smiling Jazzy Bi to brutish giant Alpha Female, "Voodoo Queen" Roxxi Laveaux to hardcore "knockout")
- The WWE "Divas" are generally portrayed with long hair. In fact, it's usually a sign that a WWE Diva is going to get called up to TV once she puts extensions in. As such, they all fall under the category of Girly Bruiser. Some Divas have gone for shorter hairstyles such as Candice Michelle and Ashley Massaro but they usually end up putting extensions in after a couple of months. Alicia Fox changes her hair drastically sometimes with a shorter style but she tends to end up with long hair again. Molly Holly gave herself Power Hair to emphasize her prudish and unfeminine character and even had her head shaved at one point. Peyton Royce had to cut her hair to shoulder length after purple dye ruined it, but after a couple of months put extensions in. Renee Young usually sports a Bob, but often wears extensions.
- The Young Bucks are frequently "mistaken" for girls by the Briscoe Brothers, mostly on account of this. It seemed a little hypocritical when Mark "grew" out his hair, but it turned out to be a wig, it just took a really long time(as in years) to reveal it as no one else was as interested in "punishing" men for having long hair as the Briscoes were.
- Hania The Howling Huntress has long black hair down to her butt, as seen in this video.
- Sonya Deville decided to attack her former Girly Girl partner Mandy Rose and destroy her beauty, so she cut her long hair off. Mandy however chose to view it as an Adrenaline Makeover and came back even harder, defeating Sonya in a Loser Leaves WWE match.
Video Games
- In Ensemble Stars!, sole girl Anzu is shown in a few partially off-screen CGs to have long hair. Three other characters also have long hair (Wataru, Nagisa, and Souma) though in these cases it's more for the drama factor than anything. Still, in one story Souma and Anzu bond over the difficulties of dealing with long hair in hot weather and start sharing hair care tips (which for Souma, naturally, involves some kind of old family recipe of 'horse extract') and Kuro comments wondering why those two are having 'girly talk'. Hajime also has long hair for a boy and dislikes how feminine it makes him look, saying in Holiday that he'd prefer to get a buzz cut, but it suits the cute and girly style of his unit so he's forbidden to cut it.
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: Sol's "feminine" appearance if the player chooses that at any point in the gamenote has hair that reaches down to their waist.
- Inverted in KanColle with the Nagato sisters. Nagato, who has more masculine traits, is the one with long hair, while the more feminine Mutsu wears it short.
- Zigzagged all over the place with Samus Aran in Metroid. The length of her hair varies, but most of the time it usually reaches her shoulders. That being said, femininity is the last thing that could describe her. While some promo material for Super Smash Bros. Melee describe her as "surprisingly feminine", she doesn't really show any typically feminine or masculine traits in any games.
- Averted in OMORI. Aside from the Posthumous Character that is Mari, Kel and Aubrey have longer hair than the rest of the main friend group, yet are the two most outwardly masculine members.
- Princess Peach from Super Mario Bros. has long blonde hair and is the girliest character in the entire franchise. It especially stands out when she's compared to Tomboy Princess Daisy, who has shorter hair post-redesign (though it's still medium length).
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Moebius M has waist-length hair, which makes her look much older and more mature than the short-haired Mio, despite them being exact copies of each other besides the hair. When M swaps bodies with Mio to save Mio's life, Mio desperately asks her friends if she should cut it, because it's a huge pain to wash and keeps getting in her way. It's pretty obvious that the only reason she considers not cutting it is because she thinks Noah might like it.
Webcomics
- Voluptua in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! has long hair that spills down to the floor.◊
- El Goonish Shive:
- Whenever a character changes genders, their hair usually gets longer or shorter to complement their new gender. Justified, as it's built into most of the forms they usually transform into, especially the Female Variant #5 form.
- Tedd keeps his hair long because of this trope as it distracts people from his naturally feminine face and gets them to blame his hair for his looking feminine. At least, according to Tedd it does.
- Most Rage Comics faces are drawn without hair and assumed to be male by default. When an author wants to indicate a character as female, they simply add shoulder-length hair (with a hair dec) to the corresponding rage face.
- minus. invokes this here—she is mistaken for a boy, and consequently grows her hair (previously a bowl cut) long and wavy, wears an ankle-length dress, adds a bow, pink, to her Idiot Hair, gives herself Fertile Feet, and makes a couple of butterflies for good measure.
- Averted in Alice—when Joanne gets a haircut, one of Dot's brothers suddenly realizes that she's beautiful.
- Anvil, of Grrl Power, is dangerously susceptible to the trope. Word of God says that she keeps her hair very long due to some insecurity about her femininity, which in turn is due to her exceptional height and formidable musculature. However, this may not be a good choice for a superhero—and a brawler at that. She's smart enough to tie her hair up securely if she knows that a fight is coming up, but she doesn't always get the chance—and at least one opponent takes full advantage of this.
- Inverted in Bomango: The long-haired Gogo is an aggressive Cute Bruiser-turned-Amazonian Beauty. While Didi, the one who cut her hair short, is a perky Lipstick Lesbian.
- In Tripping Over You, this is a point of contention between Liam, who likes to grow his hair out, and his father Eli, who thinks it's unmasculine. Fortunately, Eli drops the unpleasant "makes you look like a poof" comments after Liam comes out of the closet.
- Princess Princess: Sadie has long hair as part of her overall feminine looks.
- The Guy Upstairs: Hawa has long hair and is noticeably more feminine than the short haired Rozy is.
- Twisted Tropes: A strip argues that luscious hair is a feminine trait by showing two identical panels of a drunkard with only difference is having long blonde hair.
Web Original
- Eri Kawaguchi and Monica Ambrose from Buster Girls both have long hair. Eri is often directly described as a beauty, while the animated Monica is the most feminine member of the main cast.
- Iphigenie from Greek Ninja has very long hair and is one of the most feminine characters.
Western Animation
- In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Katara, the first prominent female character, is the only girl in the core cast whose hair is long and worn down (if not loose, i.e. braided) at all times. Katara is also the most mothering, nurturing, and feminine of the cast — in addition to being the Love Interest. Toph and Azula both have long hair that is almost always up, and Suki has short hair.
- Inverted with Jessica and Emilie in Wheel Squad. Jessica has the longest hair of the duo and is so much of a tomboy that, when she entered a figure skating contest and some of her rivals said she had no chance of not being feminine, her friends weren't able to say she was.
- Leni and Lola Loud in The Loud House.
- Molly of Denali: Vera has the longest hair of the kids, and is a Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak. Tooey's mother Atsaq also used to have long hair before cutting it to a bob in the present day.
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Fluttershy and Rarity. They're the two girliest mane ponies, and they have long manes, Fluttershy's actually is long enough that part of it trails on the ground behind her. As a rule, even in background ponies, the mares have the longer manes.
- Steven Universe:
- This is inverted with Amethyst and Pearl. Amethyst has ankle-length hair, but she's by far the crudest, hedonistic and tomboyish of the Gems, while Pearl's hair just reaches her chin, and she's prim and proper and the most conventionally feminine.
- Played straight instead with Sapphire, the girly girl to Ruby's tomboy. Her long hair contrasts with Ruby's Boyish Short Hair.
- Voltron: Legendary Defender: Downplayed. When Acxa is first introduced, she has very short hair. When she eventually comes back after a brief Time Skip as a love interest, her hair is a few inches longer—just long enough for it to be obvious whenever she moves.
- In Winx Club, Bloom, Stella, and Flora have long hair and are quite feminine.
Real Life
- Generally speaking, what's considered short hair by women's standards (shoulder-length or a bob will often be considered short) would be considered long by men's.
- Nuns entering a convent would cut their hair off as a sign of them giving up their femininity to serve God. Indeed, one of the many forms of abuse committed by nuns in the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland was to cut off the hair of any girls if it was too long and pretty—out of fear it would tempt boys too much.
- The ultimate expression of this trope: The Pioneer plaque, meant to show aliens what humans look like, depicts a man with short hair and a woman with long hair.
- David Reimer is notable for originally being born male and named Bruce at birth, having his penis accidentally destroyed during circumcision, and consequently being raised as a girl. He had genital reconstruction surgery performed on him to remove his testes and was renamed Brenda in an attempt to simultaneously give Dr. Money, the psychologist who oversaw his case a subject for an experiment concerning gender identity, research material, and give Bruce a chance at having a happy life as a female rather than live his life as a male with a mutilated penis. The fact that he bore the name David at the time of his suicide in 2004 shows that this went horribly wrong. Contrary to Dr. Money's claims that the reassignment was successful, David did not identify as female since his preteen years and began living as male when he was 15. The case was so famous that it was the subject of a documentary. In a reenactment of David's sessions with Dr. Money, they discuss the differences between males and females. At this time, David was still going by Brenda and still thought of himself as a girl.
Dr. Money: Brenda, how can you tell that I'm a boy and you're a girl?
Brenda: Because I have long hair and you have short hair. - Inverted by the Masai tribes of Africa. The Masai believe themselves to be related to lions, so men wear their hair long and wild to look like a lion's mane while the women wear their hair clipped short.
- There are some religious groups (for example, Pentecostal Christians) where girls and women are discouraged, or even forbidden from, cutting their hair because of this trope. The idea is that men and women are divinely ordained to look, dress, and behave a certain way.
- During much of history, in the Western world and elsewhere, long hair on women was ubiquitous to the point of being, to a greater or lesser extent, virtually an Enforced Trope (not that there weren't exceptions but some form of long hair was pretty much the feminine norm). Ironically, in many cultures and times, women, at least adult or married women, were expected to put their hair up or even cover it for reasons of modesty.note Examples include the wimples, veils, and hoods that are seen in many paintings of Medieval and early Renaissance women, the Victorian expectation that a girl would start wearing her hair up around the time when she reached marriageable age, and the Muslim hijab, which many women still practice today. Often it was only cut off to disgrace them, or for religious devotion, mourning and disguising oneself as a man (in the last case, this could get them into serious trouble at times, even meriting legal punishment).
- In the 1920s, this trope received a major subversion in mainstream fashion from which it didn't fully recover for decades. As part of the radical new look of that decade, bobbed hair, often worn jaw-length or shorter, became all the rage. At first very daring, it quickly became so popular that within a few years, outside certain cultures and demographics, most women had bobbed hair. Long hair continued to be worn and appreciated by somenote but the average woman of that time had short hair (though still typically longer than most men). In the 1930s, fashionable hairstyles got longer but were still basically short- to medium-length, heavily styled bobs. Moderately long hair experienced something of a revival in the 1940s, though it tended to be styled in a way that reduced the overall length of the hairstyle; by the time of Christian Dior's New Look, long hair was common enough that Dior's models were routinely being photographed with it in a bun. However, shorter styles were back for the 1950s, even among teenage girls, often tightly curled and with short bangs. It took until well into the 1960s for really long hair to become a feminine ideal again. Notably, in many period movies taking place when long hair was in, most of them employed Hollywood Costuming so that the hair would still be short enough to look fashionable to audiences.
- Olivia Hussey's long hair in the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet reportedly inspired loads of women to grow theirs out long (as noted above, long hair was only just coming back into fashion in the 60s). In fact, the original actress cast as Juliet was dropped after she cut her hair and Franco Zeffirelli lost interest in her.
- Mary Pickford had an image as "America's Sweetheart", helped by her long ringlets. They helped her play The Ingenue when she was well into her late thirties. When she bobbed her hair at the age of thirty-seven, her career didn't really recover (although this did coincide with the Rise of the Talkies as well).
- Rose McGowan said that she was advised to wear her hair long in order to get more parts as an actress—or to put it bluntly "people won't want to fuck you". When she decided to retire from acting, she cut all her hair off herself and later shaved her head.
- Emma Watson likewise cut her hair short into a pixie as soon as she was finished with the Harry Potter films—but grew it back out again because she said that longer hair allowed her more rolesnote . She filmed The Bling Ring and Noah while she had short hair, but had to wear extensions for them.
- For the reverse of this Katee Sackhoff had to cut her long blonde hair short for Battlestar Galactica (2003), as producers felt it looked too feminine for her to play an Action Girl. Eventually she got fed up with keeping her hair short for the role and fought for Starbuck to grow her hair out. She's said that she's constantly had to deal with directors wanting her to either cut or dye her hair for an Action Girl role.
- Prior to coming out as Transgender, Elliot Page recalls nearly missing out on roles—as he had shaved his head for Mouth to Mouth—and in fact had to wear a wig when auditioning for Hard Candy (though he wore his natural hair in the film, which was still quite short) and extensions for X-Men: The Last Stand.
- Likewise this was a key to Jackson Lennon realising he was actually Transgender. At the age of thirteen, he had his hair cut short and recalls feeling nicely validated when people on the bus used male pronouns afterwards.
- Mia Farrow became famous for her beautiful long, blonde hair while starring in Peyton Place. Having been raised to be Catholic and very modest, she was uncomfortable with everyone's fixation on the hair and impulsively chopped it off into the famous pixie.
