There may really be some people - men even - who are into cutting hair and short hair. May they be granted fulfilment of their desires, too, once in a while, as every human being with an innocent wish should.

But to me, cutting off such incredible hair is the sort of disrespect that people also show when they fell a big old tree for no good reason, or shoot an animal whose meat or fur they really don´t need. It´s always so much cheaper and easier to destroy something than to build something or to just to enjoy the natural beauty of something growing and to let it be, let it move, let it shine.

And why for Heaven´s sake could anybody seriously claim that that ridiculously short and ridiculously asymmetrical hair makes that beautiful woman look any younger?

A statement like that usually comes from female competitors who are really thinking: "Thank God, one attractive rival less!"

Short hair these days is often a sign of a woman who thinks herself too old to care about the effect of her hairstyle on men, and who values practicability more highly than attractiveness. You often see married women cutting off their long hair as soon as they think they have been married long enough to feel safe - tied strongly enough to their husbands by the sheer obligations for the children.

In the light of these observations, it is not only biologically true that thick, healthy and smooth long hair is an attribute of youth. The widespread habit in our society of women going shorter with increasing age also confirms the implicit association of short hair with at least middle age through daily experience.

As I said in some previous post, I am a high-school teacher, and it is true for all of the 20+ years of my teaching experience that about 70% of the senior female students I teach wear their hair between bra-strap and waist length. Long female hair is indeed a phenomenon of youth, and in only a few exceptional cases will girls and young women look younger with a significantly shorter hairstyle.

By the way, there is a sarcastic German macho rhyme about seeing a woman from behind first, and then seeing her face, too. The whole thing works mostly with the implicit notion that (among other things) really long hair automatically suggests a fresh and youthful person - and with the considerable disenchantment setting in as soon as you see the lady´s face and realize her actual age. The original German wording is "Von hinten Lyzeum, von vorne Museum!" A rough translation would be something like: From behind, she looks like she belongs in high school, but from the front she looks like belonging in a museum.

I like the remark on YouTube that just comments on the haircut by stating: "Birth control". I think that almost says it all.