Expectations

Abstract

How does the ponytail maneuver gendered expectations? Although in the introduction I distinguish cultural sociology from critical theory and the cultural studies tradition, which reveal foremost the reproduction of social inequalities and hierarchies, there is no denying that the ponytail is gendered. This chapter explores ponytailed agency within the plausible limits of culture. I stress the ways that women may use ponytails to meet a multitude of expectations, and I argue that codes of fashion and customs permit women (and men) to wear this hairstyle to display gendered expectations in amplified and sober ways. This dynamic process generates a half-life of the ponytail in which its many forms and imitations are manifest in diverse situations that intensify and condense customs to make fashion and to recreate customs. What directs the ponytail’s performativity are the codes that define the ways we meet fashion and customs: as commercial ploys or with altruistic intentions, as normal or deviant in diverse situations. Ponytailed women, in style or simply by habit, can fight for democracy or represent commercial interests, and media critics ensure we see this wealth of prospective role models: some standing on the barricades and some imitating neoliberal and patriarchal ideals.