My Life. My Hair.

The last time I had curly hair was when I was 16. I went to a junior technology college. I was one of the first and only 10 girls in the Department of Electric Engineering..

It was the first year that the Department of Electric Engineering accepted female students. During orientation, the 10 of us stood awkwardly in the first row feeling the burn from the eyes of 1,500 teenage boys on our backs. And that did not include the guys and girls from the other four Departments. But we weren't the only ones feeling the heat. Since the 10 of us were all placed in the same class, the boys in my class really didn't know how they felt about it. The envious/jealous looks they got from everyone else was almost as unbearable as the sleazy/judging eyes that ran up and down our bodies.

By the time the orientation ended, we were labeled.

We were "affectionately" dubbed "The EE Diamonds" (because of diamond's high thermal conductivity... guess it's an electric engineering kind of thing). During freshman year, the 10 of us couldn't go anywhere without being checked out, teased or sometimes verbally harassed. That's why we traveled in pairs/groups. However, that didn't last much longer. In the matter of weeks, lists after lists appeared from nowhere: the ranking order based on attractiveness, smartness, bitchiness and, of course, (assumed) sluttiness.

It didn't take long for these lists to have a rotting effect on the new and fragile friendships between the girls and between the girls and the guys in the class. Small cliques started to form and hurtful rumors started to spread. Everyone had opinions about every little thing, from the length of our hair to the color of our nylons (the school required that girls must wear light-color nylons under our skirts. We wore skirts in the summer, and Taiwan is located in the subtropics. It was ridiculously hot and totally unhygienic).

Outnumbered by loud and obnoxious boys, we stayed quiet throughout the first year. Each of us was struggling to find a way to deal with all this attention. Most of us chose to keep our heads down, close our eyes, and hope all this would be over soon. Then summer came and went. On the first day of school in my sophomore year, I showed up in the school uniform, bare-legged with a full head of long curly hair.

Why can I say? It was the year when Julia Roberts' iconic "Pretty Woman" came out, and I was madly translating and learning to sing Madonna's "Express Yourself" and "Like a Prayer".
Unfortunately for me, in a culture that emphasizes conformity and values obedience, I became an instant target.

Before the makeover, I had been in and out of first three slots on all the lists. Now I remained No.1 on the lists of bitchiness and sluttiness. You'd think the girls would be happy to have the heat off their backs, but they weren't because I also started getting a different kind of attention: the positive kind. I was appointed by my Chinese Lit teacher to be the event coordinator for the Office of EE Student Representatives. I helped organize writing contests, music concerts, and sport tournaments. Through working for and with different students, teachers, school administrators, and some famous people from outside the school, before the end of that year, I was a writer/editor of the school newspaper, a member of the choir, and the Chairwoman-elect of the school's Women's Association.

The year I had my hair permed the first time, I discovered the power of my sexuality, had my first taste of fame and power, gained independence from peer pressure, and realized I could be whoever I wanted to be.

Twenty years later, I had my hair permed again.

Before losing one ovary, I was exactly the kind of woman I wanted to be: strong-willed, independent-minded, and free-spirited. I felt invincible... unstoppable. Shortly after my first chemo treatment, I had my hair completely shaved off. It wasn't as difficult to deal with as I expected because it was a fresh look and the "bad-ass"ness was very fitting under the circumstance. Two years after that, just when my hair was finally long enough for me to think about doing something different, I was learning the ropes of taking care of a baby. My hair was least of my concerns then.

Nine more months later, I looked at myself in the mirror and what I saw was an exhausted Mommy. Around Mother's Day, my friend Lin posted this link, and it was a wake-up call. Baird stated that the French philosopher Elizabeth Badinter's "insistence that women should be women first and mothers second is refreshing: unapologetic and confident", and I couldn't agree more! While the two roles co-exist, they don't necessarily compliment one another. It's a simple concept: being a mother doesn't and shouldn't mean that you neglect your own sexuality and well-being. But it's not that simple to do in the day-to-day juggling act.

Well, the curls can be a start. With my new curls, I feel more like a woman and not-just-Mommy already.

I really need to learn to take pictures of myself by myself...