The idea that you're doing anything meaningful, anything beyond saying, "Look at MEEE! I did something!" is just a load of bullshit.

Exactly. That's all it ever was, a cry for attention. It's different if you know the person actually undergoing cancer and are showing solidarity with Jim or Frank or Celia, making them feel less alone. No, she gets to say she's in solidarity with every cancer patient.

Like unearned victimhood, it's a way of portraying yourself as a person to whom society should pay attention, without actually undergoing anything or doing anything that would merit real attention.

Like a legislator forcing charity with someone else's money, it's requires little effort on the part of the head shaver, just a few "zips with an electric razor" and enduring a few stares afterward. And once it's done, the head shaver can look upon those who stare or comment with contempt, saying, "at least I did something" - just like the charity-forcing legislator can later claim to be a champion of the poor as he doles out other people's stolen-at-gunpoint money.

It's another version of unearned power. As the person who "at least did something," you get to hold it over the heads of others, to dictate what happens next.

It's not like you were the only person to rush into a burning building to save a child, but you get to treat others as if you were.

I have a chapter in my book on what to do if your friend has cancer or a serious disease, and the answer, in short, is show the fuck up. You don't have to know what to say. You just have to be there and do what they need. Bring them food. Go to the pet store, their pot dealer, tell them you're going to the grocery store and will pick them up some chicken (cooked!) or meat (cooked!) and some delicious cooked veggies. Green beans and a pre-made salad or one from the salad bar be nice too?

A lot of the days -- most of them -- that I went over to Cathy's, I was just there on my computer while she slept a lot. And when she wasn't sleeping, she read the WSJ and we talked and then hung out and watched Everybody Loves Raymond in the evening. And then her tenant (from an apartment she owned) would come and take over for the evening -- cook her dinner and stay the night so she wouldn't be alone. (When your tenant, too, does that for you when you have cancer -- comes all the way over to your house and stays over in the nights -- that says something about how everybody feels about you.) Miss the fuck out of Cathy.

Well, shaving your head makes it easier to put it up your own ass.

Also, if she was going to shave her head to music, this is the song she should have done it to.

Pulling stunts like Miss Nguyen did might garner a little applause, especially if you're protesting against something really intangible, like "oppressive gender norms."

Looking at the the HeatStreet article, I noticed the "before" picture: Miss Nguyen had really lovely long hair. Did she donate it so someone with cancer could have a wig? I'd like to imagine she did.

By the way, I found myself rereading Cathy Seipp's National Review columns yesterday. I've mentioned it before, but it was Cathy's World that led me here in the first place.

Verily, I "miss" a woman I never met.

I'll always wish the family had published the blog + comments on a DVD. [The child must be an adult by now, I hope shes well and fulfilled.]

Speaking as a cancer and chemo survivor. If I were to meet Ms. Nguyen, I would forcibly glue all her hair back onto her head. And not in a nice, pretty way, either. I'm talking Gorilla Glue and lint from the floor.

"Solidarity" with chemo patients??!! She hasn't even got the hint of a dream of a clue. Good thing she's on campus, out in the wild the stupid ones get eaten first.

bkmale puts it well.

I have a friend who survived breast cancer, and she feels the same way about football season when the fellows wear pink cleats and the refs throw pink flags.

Wouldn't a better way to confront her "privilege" be going to a community college for the first two years and asking for her parents to use the money they would have put toward Villanova toward sending, oh, five children from poorer families to community college with her?

✔

Further, she didn't have the common decency to go to a barber and donate her hair so wigs can be fashioned for people who lose their hair due to medical reasons.

Me! Me! ME! MEEEEEEEE!

Also, that's not shaved. But she is ready to visit Parris Island for 6 weeks. That would be...educational. Which is why she would never go.

Wait...the NFL throws pink flags during boobie month? I hadn't noticed. Yeah, not much of a pro football fan.

And once it's done, the head shaver can look upon those who stare or comment with contempt, saying, "at least I did something"

Yes, yes, that's nice dearie.

When I had long hair and decided to get rid of it, it went to make wigs for others. So, not only did I do something, I did something that helped others.

I'll turn it over to Matthew (6:2-4):

“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.

But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."

When I had long hair and decided to get rid of it, it went to make wigs for others. So, not only did I do something, I did something that helped others. ~ I R A Darth Aggie at April 6, 2017 11:26 AM

Did you shave your head and put it on You Tube or Facebook while whining about "hair privilege?" I didn't think so.

Donating your hair after quietly cutting it shorter isn't running round the streets bald and screaming "look at me!" on social media. I'm sure you didn't kvetch about society's oppressive gender norms as if women having long hair was a plot of the patriarchy. And donating your hair was a nice touch. And I'm sure the people who needed wigs appreciated it.

Likewise I have no problem with the St. Baldrick's fundraiser, which does an annual communal head-shaving. That at least raises money for cancer research. This woman did not raise money or even awareness, whatever the hell good that does. Is there anyone out there not aware of cancer?

She's doing what so many people in our society are doing, public therapy. Instead of confronting one's demons, go on social media and whine about them. Instead of doing anything about injustice, poverty, or the various social problems plaguing the country go on social media and whine about how life's "not fair" and commit a ritual self-debasement while demanding the government do something to fix it and make life "fair" again - as if sometime in the distant primordial past of human existence life was actually "fair" and we can somehow make it "fair" again if we just wish hard enough.

Did the hashtag, #bringbackourdaughters bring a single daughter back? I think even the First Lady got sucked into that one. But as yet the only thing bringing daughters back is the deployment of armed men.

ironic or clueless: feminist protest in solidarity with body image issue central to the male personae?

Hair privilege is real. In my 20's my hair loss decimated my self image and self esteem. I had to move to Tahoe to be in a community where I could wear a hat year-round. Beanie all winter, foam trucker hat all summer (50-year-old men make 150K here and still wear foam trucker hats and carharts).

"Shaving my head allowed me to be in solidarity with people undergoing [expensive divorces] and take time to identify the privileges that I take for granted. Some of these privileges include [getting laid, NOT getting sunburns on your scalp, being able to wear thick-rimmed glasses without looking like fucking Moby.]"

it's called MALE-pattern-baldness. We've had this ground staked out for generations.

Sometime around 1984, I went to have drinks with a coworker after work. He was black and I'm white. We talked for a while in a local watering hole. We'd been there a few hours when a man walked up and told us how refreshing it was to see a white man and a black man socializing. Note, if he'd never seen it before, he hasn't been paying attention.

After he left, my friend looked over and remarked at how nice it was that the man stopped to congratulate us. I, being more cynical, dismissed the man's interaction with us as a publicity stunt, him patting himself on the back for his social awareness and correct viewpoint.

"Why didn't he just see two guys having drinks?" I asked. "And why did he feel the need to insert himself into our private conversation? What gave him the right to do that? Why didn't he just go home happy with having seen evidence of better racial relations instead of inserting himself in a private conversation to point out to the people in it how enlightened he is?"

My friend had grown up in South Africa in the '70s, so I'm sure reminders that overt segregation was not the norm in the US were nice for him - and gave him hope for South Africa, too. I, however, am more cynical and don't think the way to change the world is to shave your head, or tweet inane hashtags, or butt into private conversations.

Aw Conan, it would have been MUCH more fun if you'd sternly said "Step away from my prisoner, sir."

Aw Conan, it would have been MUCH more fun if you'd sternly said "Step away from my prisoner, sir." ~ Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at April 6, 2017 12:57 PM

Ha ha.

What Conan said: "It's different if you know the person actually undergoing cancer and are showing solidarity with Jim or Frank or Celia, making them feel less alone."

One of my coworkers shaved his head in solidarity with kids in the family homeless shelter who had to shave their heads when the lice infestation hit. His gesture was moving because he was the athletic, cool older guy who hung out with them and played the acoustic guitar, and the kids looked up to him.

When my wife opted to shave her short curls rather than watch her hair fall out from the chemo, I offered to shave mine too. She used to call me her Breck girl. She said "No, one of us has to have the looks in this family."

One of her favorite stories was O. Henry's The Gift Of The Magi.

The solidarity does not occur unless it's a direct relationship, a signal of love or friendship to someone with whom you are intimate.

Otherwise, it can't work. The student is just another woman with great skin and beautiful bone structure highlighted by a shaved head.

The chemo would have taken her eyelashes and most or all of her eyebrows, which would have heightened the puffy look of her swollen face or the gauntness or slackness from suddenly dropping a lot of weight.

There is a visceral, automatic, response to seeing someone so unhealthy, a reflexive fear rooted in the animal body's instinct for self preservation. People recoil. It takes something to push past that to be intimate with people we love, and not everyone succeeds.

Going back a long way, to an old and forgotten TV show, a young Jennifer Aniston put it perfectly.

"I changed my name in protest of the deteriorating state of the rainforests"
"What effect did that have?"
"It cheered me up, ok?"

From about 4:20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1wAjcWHkDY

Think you bungled the link Ltw

LTW isn't from our country.

Oops, so I did. Enjoy the bonus parrots! This is the one I meant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlMizX3vX9M&t=970s

Your careless capitalisation of my chosen name offends me Crid. Then again, you are just a dumb American, so I forgive you.

Loved the parrots Ltw

We can't tell you apart. You all look the same to us... FOREIGN.

'Mericuh.