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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. — 1 Corinthians 11:14-15
Long hair tends to be among the Tertiary Sexual Characteristics used to establish a character as female.
Long, luscious hair is almost universally regarded as an archetypal feminine trait and commonly accompanies other such traits. The only exception seems to be the Badass Longhair, which has been a masculine trait at least since the Bible Times. Nowadays, the two tropes are commonly merged to produce a Lady of War. Or a Badass Bishōnen.
This is a Super Trope that affects several other tropes, including:
A Wholesome Crossdresser will often, but not always, have long hair either naturally or as a wig. Mostly to help creating a feminine look and if not it will sure give even if they just like their hair that way. Similar for several sister tropes.
Compare Hair Decorations, Pink Means Feminine. Contrast Boyish Short Hair.
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 Hair Decorations (a pink headband). Of course, it was considered 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 Axis Powers Hetalia 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.
Comics
- In the The Sandman story "A Game of You", the transwoman 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.
Fan Fiction
- In most fanfics which feature a male character turning female, said character will automatically get long hair. Because hair length is clearly determined by the presence of two "X" chromosomes.
Film
- The Disney Channel movie Motorcrossed 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 said 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.
Literature
- 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.
- 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".
- 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.
- One short children's book (the name escapes this troper) dealt with a girl lamenting over her shortened hair making her look like a boy after a haircut. The trope is Inverted when she meets a construction worker with long blond Compressed Hair who reminds her that hair length doesn't make the gender.
- 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.
- The opening scene in Terry Pratchett's 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.
- In John C. Wright's The Hermetic Millennia, the Nymphs all wear their hair at least waist long.
Live-Action TV
- 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.
- 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.
- In an episode of Charmed when the sisters cast a spell to turn one of them into a man, her hair becomes significantly shorter (and she gains a goatee) as part of her gender transformation.
- 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.
- Morgana, Guinevere and Morgause from Merlin (as well as most of the female guest stars) all have beautiful long, shiny, styled hair.
- 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!"
- 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.
- The documentary Whose Hair Is It Anyway? examines this trope in relation to the use of hair extensions amongst modern girls. One woman spent £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 theorise 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.
Professional Wrestling
- The WWE Divas are generally portrayed with long hair, bordering on Rapunzel Hair. 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 emphasise her prudish and unfeminine character and even had her head shaved at one point.
- Female wrestlers will normally only have short hair if they are giving themselves a decidedly unfeminine gimmick. For example Roxxi in TNA was the Hardcore Knockout, Alpha Female is The Giant etc.
Webcomics
- Princess Voluptua in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! has Rapunzel Hair that spills down to the floor.
- In 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.
- 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 butterflies for good measure.
Web Original
- 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.
- Played straight with most female human characters from the Disney Animated Canon films, but subverted with Snow White, Cinderella, and Tiana, who all sport bobbed hair (most likely because the first two were both given hairstyles corresponing to the decades their respective films were released in, and the third to match the time period her film takes place in), as well as Mulan and Rapunzel, who both start out with long hair, but inevitably have their hair cut short.
- 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 for not being feminine, her friends weren't able to say she was.
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Fluttershy and Rarity fit this trope to a T. 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.
Real Life
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