Shaved heads in basic training; is this mandatory? If it is, then why and why only for males?

Sounds Fair Enough to me. They will all look like Ripley from ALIEN-3 (lol)

i do not believe that females should shave their heads they have not ever done it in the past why should they now a trim maybe but to shave them bald no that would be the same as saying men should get special time to use bathrooms for that time of the month sry but there are things that are meant to be separated

Truthfully, I never thought about it much. But then again, I went through HS running Track and X-C and working summers as a lifeguard/WSI. For practical reasons, my hair was crew cut and never more than a half inch or so long.

This is something I never thought of it even gave a rats ass about while I was in. When I had a couple females in my squad I had to learn their regs for something other than a board. And yes they had to maintain just like the regs for the males.

In the beginning - head shaving was more of a moral builder and a start to the we are all alike....same clothes same food same haircut...etc. It also was about hygiene. Put a couple hundred young men in to a single building to live and you will inevitably have the sole who has lice. If one man has it. Soon you all have it. It's a pest control solution. Women when they came into service did not initially go through the same basic training. The taught young ladies how to be women. They weren't on the front lines. Many were clerks assistants typists -female laborers. As times went on there was always a second standard for women. Still is. Men get cut close as always. And women....well ....they have their own set of standards. Call me a sadist. But I feel you go to boot...you ALL should look alike sound alike act alike...regardless of your imaginary or real gender. Shave them all. Bald heads as far as the eye can see. Make boot camp what it is truly about...making every one equal to build them all into a cohesive unit with the same standards across the board.

Realistically, I see busybody questions like this as a indicator that our soldiers are simply thinking less and less as time goes by. For one thing, there are recruiting concerns. Good luck getting ANY females to enlist if you shaved their heads. Second, the time it takes for a male to grow his hair out from shaved to male regulation maximum length is what? MAYBE six months? For a female, highly likely to be more like 2 years. Third, females, across all cultures are more concerned with their appearance than males are. And forcing them to remove what makes them "female" in their eyes is pretty well akin to an act of psychological rape. You wanna see military females getting into constant fistfights with offpost civilian females once they get out of basic, due to harassment? Perfect recipe for it, right there.

There are many reasons why females don't need their head's shaved. It actively sets them up as "weird" in a lot of the public's view, whereas we have male movie stars that are bald, and sill getting parts on the regular. Women in society have a hard enough time as it is, without us finding a dipstick way to make their lives harder.

And the goofball "equality" argument just doesn't hold water, SSG. We all know that "women's" equality is what is being strived for, as women in many fields still get paid substantially less than men. Women who bring valid rape allegations are made to be pariahs within their communities for getting the local superstar jock in trouble. Applying "equality" to this particular example very much comes across as a passive-aggressive anti-female stance. Something one can get away with, because "hey, equality!". Now, this may come across as a little sexist, but I will still say it: Women are the weaker sex, and are to be protected, physically and in all other ways. Including from a societal perspective. Women are victims in many ways, and trying to find another way to make them victims, i.e. shaving their heads, is about a beta male idea as I've ever heard.

When I joined the Navy in 1974 there was a new CNO and I was told that we could have the shaved cut or the regulation cut. The regulation cut was a bit longer but our drill instructor said that if we get gigged at inspection then off it goes. I chose the regulation but made sure that it would not get hit on inspection.

Not mandatory just to make u feel stupid

I would think that the shaved head issue is for SEVERAL REASONS. One is probably a way of putting all the young recruits on a level playing field... the same with putting them all into the uniform. This uniform idea is also done in private schools. So that there is no obvious rich or poor, all are the same. Second is the idea of a kind of mental game/adjustment - your life has changed. There was the before time and the NOW, delineated by hair vs no hair. Its often a shock to the young men (I remember seeing the 1000 yard stares as their hair went bye-bye... Its a kind of way to shift the mental attitude. A third reason is that its TRADITION. The military is big on tradition! And fourthly... I would imagine that in the past, it was done as a health measure, a way to make sure that no lice or parasites were dragged into the barracks with the new recruits. That stuff can spread like wildfire. I know this first hand... when one of my dogs dragged home a dead woodchuck with fleas... in about 20 minutes, he had fleas, gave fleas to the other dog, and all 17 of the cats, AND the five kids and me. It was an unholy disaster. EVERYONE got a flea bath. The dogs, kids, cats and me. By the time it was done, I was cut to ribbons from claws of struggling animals, and the bathroom had a fine, red mist in the air from all the blood let out of me. My husband laughed and laughed at the descriptions of the "fine red mist", but I assure you it was true, AND not as funny as it sounds. Its an experience I heartily hope to NEVER repeat. I can only shudder to think what it would be like to have all those recruits spreading fleas or lice from one to another in the close quarters of the barracks. As to why its not done with females: First, they DO insist that you must keep all that hair off your collar, and that if not, it must GO. We cut each other's hair in the supply closet. Really, truly. We policed ourselves. Our TI said he LOVED when he drew the "short straw" for the female recruits. He said we listened better immediately, there were far, far fewer of us that thought we'd enlisted as the General on day one, and that lead to much less disciplinary problems. I would imagine that there was no NEED to shave our heads as a shock as we were already conditioned from childhood to be obedient to orders and leadership. Of course, maybe that is changing now, as people are raising daughters differently than they did in the past... It would be interesting to see over the next 20 to 30 years, how training for females changes to keep up with the changing mental attitudes of the growing female children.

If you're a male and you're complaining about a tradition that has been around for generations then maybe you should stay home so you can take care of your hair. When I was in the 101st and you were in combat arms, God help you if you ever needed a haircut. I have seen 1SGs take a toothpick and put it on a soldiers ear. If hair touched the toothpick you needed a haircut......AND YOU GOT ONE AND DIDN'T SAY A DAMN THING ABOUT IT.

Hey in 1989-1990...in the army...that was your first sign that your not at home anymore and your first step in the army and your first step into a fraternity that will last you forever, in a bigger world

I agree, females want equal treatment then shave their heads too, but I think in todays world this 'tradition' of shaving heads is not really necessary. There are other ways to tear down the weak, sniveling civilian and build him or her back up again!

I feel the military is different from civilian life. We must keep that. Our unit all had the same haircut it was part of our uniform. It showed pride unity and it was part of who we were. Military life has changed much but something's must stay

In the Marine Corps I grew up in the hair cut the first day on Paris Island is taking every thing from you and building the recruit up. You earn everything in boot camp even the patch of hair the recruits in the final phase was earned. We couldn’t wait until third phase to grow our hair out even the little we were allowed to grow. I enjoyed earning everything even the most common things. It was part of the whole process to me.

I think the hair cuts in boot camp should follow regulations. I got out of the Navy in 1986 so no doubt things have changed. Male hair was high and tight, females were off the collar. They shaved the heads to bring recruits closer to the SAME. Their job was to tear you completely down to your very lowest point and then build you back up and train you to military standards. I could get on board with a females hair being cut from long hair to a length that is off the collar. Shaved heads also make the 7 min shower (I think it was 7 mins) possible. We would wash our hair with the same soap that we washed the rest of us. IDK, there is someone sitting in an office somewhere that makes a lot more money then I do, setting these rules but that's my opinion.

For starters, I will leave the gender issue alone because I don't want or like a woman to look like a man. So lets just focus on the men. The shaved head should be a requirement in basic training. Plenty of people will not like what I am about to say, but tradition is a major part of the military and should be maintained. That haircut is part of an introduction to the military and shows that the recruits has left his civilian life behind. From that moment forward his life has changed and he is being recreated into a soldier.

From a practical standpoint the young soldier may not realize it at the time, but the shaved head also benefits him as well! For two months you get the privilege of playing in the dirt, doing nothing but exercising, shooting, and all those things boys and young men love, or should love to do. The cost however, is limited sleep and limited time for things like say... hygiene. I don't know about you, but old men like myself still go out into the yard and play around in the dirt making things, planting gardens, tending to the livestock (unless you're a city boy in which case you probably just sit in a metrosexual salon getting a manicure) and all the things an average day brings with it. At the end of the day I personally hate the feeling of grime stuck between the follicles of what is left of my hair.

Speaking of that, having a shaved head in basic training is simply good practice as well! Eventually you will become like me and realize that while you have never retreated in battle... your hair has. Sure, you can pretend you still have hair for a time. But after a while you have to accept the reality that a massive amount of hair on the side of your head does not constitute hair on the top of your head, even if you do let it grow over your ears. So you find yourself once again with an army regulation hair cut... and then you find that just isn't worth the effort nor the cost of paying a barber the full price for only 1/4 of the work, so you drop 20 bucks on a pair of clippers and simply cut your hair yourself... basic training style.

So there you have it. The shaved head boot camp haircut for the military man really does represent the full circle of life.

Is this really an issue? I’m sorry to sound cold or dismissive but it’s part of the whole package. Get over it.

It is for hygiene purposes. You will see many people with fungus once they shave their heads. And in a couple weeks will go away

I think we, as an advanced society, can probably evolve with this issue. Let's get some funds and perform a psychological impact survey to find out how a military would behave with different hair cuts. Both Male and female.

Considering males still outnumber females and considering reception is a lengthy process, it's more efficient to line up the males and spend a minute or two on their hair vs catering to a style they want. In BCT you shouldn't get to choose, that's done for you as part of the breaking down and shaping process. It's about keeping everyone looking and training the same.