Hair Speaks: Sikh Women 1

Background The short submission here is one that will give a brief synopsis of the developing paper and research. Here I highlight a few of the overarching themes that surfaced. It is in the presentation that I will go into further details of methodology, findings, themes and conclusion.

Hair Speaks: Sikh Women Voicing Spiritual, Sexual and Identity Body Politic With reverence for The Divine,

Whats the big deal? Such a girl issue, theres bigger things to worry about. They just want to take the easy way out; getting rid of it is easy, keeping it is the test... Why doesnt she just remove it? She looks like a man, how is she going to get married?

Each of these remarks reflect messages that were either directly or indirectly communicated to the ten Sikh women I interviewed for the ethnographic research. Each of these comments carried with them a voice and message of judgement, assumption or ignorance rooted in a reality of directives and expectations coming from all levels of family, Sangat, intimate relationships and society at large; whether in the home, school, work, Gurdwara or through the thousands of media images we are inundated with everyday, these voices played a key role in how the women came to know their bodies, their femininity and their identities as Sikh women.

Early on I recognized that women were able to clearly identify various voices and messages that contributed to the navigation and negotiation of their femininity and Sikh identity;

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however, they were not so easily able to identify their own personal voice of thought, analysis and/or decision. In fact, it was quite challenging at times. For many of the women, the discussion focused on reflections of expectations of others; expectations of the self in regards to hair, identity and femininity were largely unexcavated territory. Thus, it was with hopes to listen, understand, narrate and politicize the voices I heard, that I began the research into the journeys of ten women. All of whom had navigated their bodies, identity and hair through the realm of the consumerized mainstream expectations of femininity and the realm of an aspiring Sikh identity. Through listening to the stories of their struggles in the complicated nexus of pressures and expectations, it became evident that they carried similar themes of guilt, shame, confusion and frustration and that their physical bodies too were reflective of their torn experience; at times a cite of strong esteem and confidence, and at others a cite of mixed emotions responding to mixed expectations.

I became really attached to it[hair]...its a huge part of how I am as a woman...of what my beauty is. But also a huge part of how self conscious I am of myself...I have a mustache and some dharree coming in...and I have large eyebrows and really hairy arms and legs and so its also a point of contention for me...I was teased as a little girl...now there is a different pressure that comes along with trying to find a husband...and Im a Sikh woman, were [supposed to be] strong!

As Sikhs, we grow up learning that our kes embodies our identity; however, most often and almost always, the attention, discussion, history and images representing Sikh identity speak

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to and represent the identity of Sikh men only;1 their hair, their Dastar and their dharees. 2 For women, often the kes of the head is relegated to fulfilling norms of femininity or to complacency of expectations; whereas, the politic and contention embodied in their facial and bodily hair is ignored. Facial and bodily hair is usually either removed physically through a variety of means as waxing, plucking, laser etc.; kept un removed yet hidden away as embarrassingly personal and unacceptable; managed discretely through bleaching; or rejected socially if unremoved and visible. Consequently the hair is denied a presence, politicization or agency; rather, remains something to be dealt with on a personal level.

I stopped going swimming, I was in competitive swimming. I didnt feel comfortable with my leg hair. Sometimes I would shave a little bit without telling my parents..but it wasnt worth it. It was just too much...

People and their gendered performativity are markers of their socio-culture constructions.3 Womens bodies have specifically endured a particular expedited construction of gender that has superimposed itself through a Western globalized imperial-consumerist cultural hegemony of beauty and femininity. This construction of the feminine is one that informs gendered expectations on a global span, even for Sikhs and Sikh communities. Whether in Panjab or the diaspora, mainstream expectations of femininity have become the norm, the rational and the accepted. Juxtaposed against the expectations of a Sikh identity, women have struggled personally and silently in the very political feat of countering the gendered hegemony through their ab-normal, ir-rational and un-acceptable un-feminine hair, without any collective
1 2

(Axel, 2001) (Singh, 2005) 3 (Butler, 1997)

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acknowledgement or regard. In fact, women have experienced their struggle being reduced to one of mere vanity and weakness; thus, left in the margins for women to discuss during the free time and open Q&A periods of camps and retreats, where women can be informed of the right answers and reminded that this is a personal challenge.

The expectation for a woman is that she should be pretty appealing to the eye...pressure to be groomed...and apart of being pretty as define by society is the conventional pretty, where you dont have facial hair

The way people look at you is just like...you can go remove it [hair] you know. You dont have to do that [keep it]...They treat you differently, theres a different vibe. I wouldnt say all of society,...but generally.

Women stated that although many of them had attended many camps and retreats that this is an issue that has always arrived wrought with tensions and overall taboo. Whether discussions at home or the Gurdwara, they stated that there were less discussions, more directives and usually a quick wrap-up of the discussion, as it would quickly tread into sensitive areas. Again leaving the struggle unexplored. Here I would propose that a great injustice is occurring as we render the social struggles of our times as predicaments that we as a collective cannot counter, for fear of what the discourse may entail. From a Khalsa analysis, I cannot think of a more powerful tool to counter the violence of domination, imperialisms, hypocrisy or hegemony over land, person or consciousness, than through asking, observing and listening to the most marginalized; and thus challenge the status quo. Today Sikh women are fighting a war waged

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against their gender before they are even born; should they live, they live to experience systemic constructions on many socio-economic-political levels that continue to marginalize and silence their existence.

The presentation will illustrate in more detail some of the journeys of the women and highlight how some shared that through self-reflexivity, criticalness and self-challenge, that they were able to navigate themselves towards a decision that took the spectators out of the room, connected them with their voice and thus developed a strong sense of a feminine Sikh identity for themselves.

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Bibliography
Axel, B. K. (2001). The Nations Tortured Body: Violence, Representation, and the Formation of a Sikh "Diaspora". Durham: Duke University Press. Butler, J. (1997). Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative . London: Routledge. Singh, N.-G. K. (2005). The Five Ks and the Accoutrement of the Khalsa . In N.-G. K. Singh, The Birth of the Khalsa: A Feminist Re-Memory of Sikh Identity (p. 252). Albany : State University of New York Press .