Whatever happens on 25 October, one thing is certain: the new deputy Labour leader will have a bob. Lucy Powell and Bridget Phillipson may have vaguely different political views but they share a haircut. Seven of the ten women in Keir Starmer’s cabinet have bobs. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper also keeps it short, with a pixie cut. Only Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy have resisted the chop. Well, Angela Rayner did too, but look what happened to her.
“It is now clear that to become a high-ranking woman in Starmer’s government, you must adopt the Labour Bob,” one X user recently posited, while another quipped, “The Labour bob is the cabinet’s initiation.”
Is it sexist to even mention a female politician’s haircut? Male politicians accrue column inches about their shoddy lids – especially the mops of Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and François Hollande (whose hairdresser was paid €10,000 a month, as much as a government minister). But male haircuts that generate discussion are usually remarkable in some way. There is no rhetoric about the identikit “Labour short, back and thinning on top” cut that dominates the male side of the cabinet table.
Female politicians have to walk a difficult tightrope with their image: one that is feminine enough without being coquettish. A form-fitting suit that isn’t too suggestive, a heeled shoe that isn’t too high. Margaret Thatcher’s hardhat of a hairstyle was nicknamed “the thatch” and proved to be her persona writ large: immovable, resilient, enduring. Anna Wintour, an extraordinarily influential figure whose razor-sharp bob is indelibly linked to her image and character. Both women’s signature hairstyles required galling quantities of time and money to maintain. Thatcher once had 118 hair appointments in 12 months. Wintour’s hairdresser visited her every weekday for six years. Could Margaret have been the Iron Lady, or Anna Nuclear Wintour, without a haircut that so tangibly enforced their steely characters?
“The most important thing I have to say to you today is that hair matters,” Hillary Clinton said during a speech at Yale in 2001. “Pay attention to your hair, because everyone else will.” Her words proved prescient ten years later when, on a foreign trip, Clinton used a hairband rather than waiting for a local hairdresser to pass Homeland Security vetting. That decision generated “Scrunchiegate”. The press argued Clinton had undermined her political prowess and America’s reputation; Clinton posited it was merely pragmatic.
Hair – especially for a woman – is both sword and shield. It must be wielded intentionally and weaponised accordingly; if it isn’t, it will be used against her. We can’t know the individual reasoning behind each female politician’s decision to don a bob. Perhaps many of them feel most empowered, most capable, most them with it. But is it possible that one day female leaders could feel free to choose any haircut – and resist the tyrannical inevitability of the bob?
[Further reading: Could Bridget Phillipson win?]
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