No one explicitly told me that long hair was beautiful, but even as a child, I knew it was. My Barbies had it. Disney princesses had it. The American Girl dolls I coveted had it. So I had it too, even though it was a literal pain. “One must suffer to be beautiful,” my dad would quip when I yelped and jerked away from my mother pulling a comb through my always-tangled hair. Cutting it short would have been more practical. But I wanted to be beautiful—of course I did. Humans learn early what is