Reflection and Conclusions

Through this study, I have come to learn about an aspect of Apostolic culture that I never gave much thought to. I had heard of the Pentecostal Pouf and had fixed my hair in such a fashion, but I never thought about the fact that the size of the pouf meant anything. Over the course of this study, I have had the opportunity to watch a friend of mine become enveloped by this culture of hair as she enrolled in a Pentecostal Bible college. As I watched her hair go from flat to poufed, I asked her about why she had chosen to start fixing her hair in that style and she explained her desire to fit in with the other girls who all seemed to be so confident in expressing their Apostolic identity. This led me to think back to the first time I poufed my hair and I realized that I had the same feeling when I attended my first youth retreat at twelve years of age. What was notably different was that I never associated the hairstyles with the Pentecostal community, I just saw it as a pretty style that the older girls/young women would do. I always viewed it as a form of adornment and never cared to take the time to do anything more than a simple hairstyle that would keep my hair out of my face. Additionally, such styles were not very popular among the women at my home church and I never felt any pressure to fix my hair in a certain way.

So as I explored this culture and how hair was used to negotiate piety, I often felt as a bit of an outsider to the community. Yet, I fully understand how Barbara Myerhoff felt when she said “When I judge these people, I judge myself” (Myerhoff 1980: 28).  I am part of this community and have a certain shared set of beliefs with the community members that participated in this study and this made it hard for me to write about some things that may present the community as a bit vain. But as I realized that it is my job as an anthropologist to present the material that was given to me by the community I studied, it became easier for me to accept my dual role as a community member and an anthropologist.

Aside from the personal growth and knowledge I have gained, there are some aspects of this study that are worth pointing out. The first is the way that hair is seen as crossing the boundary between the physical and spiritual realm. Without this belief, hair could not act as an indicator of piety within this religious community. The second is the way in which hair acts as a form of social capital and is meticulously done to influence the perception of oneself by others. While at, some superficial level, this may be reminiscent of the way teenagers favor peers who best fit a certain preconceived idea of perfection, these community members held hair as a marker of their religious identity first and as a marker of piety second. This study also reaffirmed cases that had been seen throughout the world, as the limitation of having uncut hair caused a certain burst of creativity that gave rise to various Pentecostal hairstyles. Finally, it became apparent that counter-culture movements (in general) have very unique markers and when mainstream culture begins to imitate these markers, the people who associate with the counter-culture movement become agitated and begin to reassert the importance of that marker within their community. Overall, this study has contributed a significant amount of information regarding this religious community that should be used for further studies and the theories developed in a population that is better representative of the community.

A Gendered Piety and Counter-Culture Movement

As previously stated, this community views hair as something that helps to distinguish men and women. Similarly, the standards that define a pious woman are different than the standards that define a pious man. Where a woman is required to cut her hair, a man is required to stay clean shaven. Where women are to wear clothing that pertains to women, men are to where clothing that pertains  to men.  A woman is to be submissive to God, and to her husband, and a man is also to be submissive to God by treating his wife in fairness and with respect and being a role model for his children and younger men. The role of men and women in this community were said to be “not unequal, just different.” The women in this study regarded the feminist movement as an evil, one saying it is “a device of the devil to warp the minds of modern people into thinking that men and women are the same instead of allowing them to embrace their different God-given roles.”

However, aside from enforcing gender roles through physical attributes, it was important to the women that they practiced what they believed and could prove their beliefs to anyone who asked. Some women said that they did the former by being Sunday school teachers and teaching the children about God, others stated that they were involved in various community service projects that re-affirmed they were “helping the sick, weak, and poor” (reference to Matthew 25:34-40), still others said that they proved themselves as Christians simply by being a shoulder for others to lean on and assuring them with the Word of God. This last example tied into proving their beliefs because this was often the way that others began to question the beliefs of the women in the study. One woman explained the horrible feeling she had when she was asked about some of her beliefs and couldn’t answer the questions, she added “since then, I have been very adamant about knowing why I believe what I believe, instead of being a blind follower.”

This same participant, who wished to remain completely anonymous, added that:

“In America, people have gotten to a point where they want to see the proof and if you can’t provide that proof then they write you off as unimportant. Apostolic Pentecostals are really the minority group in the US and because we stand out as being different from the cultural norms, our beliefs are often written off as too traditional and invalid. Yet, the people that write us off as such neglect to remember that God is unchanging, and His people ought to be the same.”

This tie between defining a pious woman by her actions and knowledge of her beliefs and being part of a counter-culture movement was an unexpected twist to this study. However, this identification of Pentecostals as a counter-culture movement helps to explain the disgust that the women expressed at Snooki’s pouf. The women were not upset merely because she was an outsider of the group fixing her hair in a “Pentecostal Pouf”, but because her actions, particularly her lifestyle of partying, directly opposes their beliefs and their lifestyle. With this in mind, it becomes apparent that the members of this community feel a growing pressure to be different from the rest of society in order to preserve their morals and spiritual beliefs in an ever-changing world. And so the emphasis on gender piety (displayed by physical markers and a certain lifestyle) becomes more important to defining the community as a counter-culture movement.

The Lolita Effect and Social Capital

I do not use the term “Lolita Effect” in reference to Durham’s work (2008) about the media sexualization of young girls, but rather I describe an effect observed in “Reading Lolilta in Tehran” (Nafisi 2003). Nafisi explains that in Lolita, Nabokov (1955) uses the relationship between Humbert and Lolita to show how a person can be an individual even when oppressed by an outside force:

“Lolita was given to us as Humbert’s creature… To reinvent her, Humbert must take from Lolita her own real history and replace it with his own… Yet she does have a past. Despite Humbert’s attempts to orphan Lolita by robbing her of her history, that past is still given to us in glimpses” (Nafisi 2003: 36).

Nafisi noted the way that this concept impacted her life and how it took shape in the class that she was teaching. She explained that within the constraints that the Iranian government imposed on women  after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the women found a way to express their individuality even though they were all required to wear a hijab and certain other attire when they were in public. This mostly included the women wearing bright colors under their required attire and ensuring that these colors were seen when they had the opportunity to remove their coverings.

In terms of this research, the constraint of having uncut hair, although self-selected by the participants choosing to be part of this religion, means that the women must have an outlet so that they can express their individuality. As Carol was quoted in the previous post, “Your hairstyle had to be of a certain caliber but you didn’t want to have your hair too similar to your neighbor’s hair.” This shows that although Pentecostal hairstyles were partly defined by members of the community by the poufs, the members of this community become creative with their hairstyles as a means of expressing their individuality.

Part of their individual identity lies within how these women are positioned socially within the church, for instance whether they are a pastor’s wife (who is expected to be the epitome of a pious woman) or a new comer to the faith (who isn’t expected to have most things figured out yet). The women in this study noted that the pastor’s wives and the older ladies typically did more elaborate hairstyles than the other women. They also noted that many of the generation behind them, 12-17-year-olds, tended to wear their hair down more often than they did. One woman described this as part of the normal stage of development where they try to find themselves by being as different as they can from their parents’ generation and hence they often rejected the more traditional Pentecostal hairstyles.

This phenomenon can be interpreted as the creation of social capital within the community when hair is examined at a level of second order of indexicality (Bourdieu 1986; Pierce 1931; Saussure 1983). A woman’s membership to this community is marked by uncut hair which then indexes a certain level of piety because she is seen as obedient to God’s word. These women then pouf their hair and the women with larger poufs are seen as the ones who are more rooted in the religion. Therefore, hair acts an indexer of status within this community and women with larger poufs are treated with respect. One woman, who wished to remain anonymous, added “Not only do the older women and women in higher positions do larger poufs, but if a young woman or a woman who is new to the religion tries to do a poof that is just as large, they are often seen as trying to be something they are not perceived to be.”

Pentecostal Hairstyles: the Pentecostal Pouf

Thus far, the culture of hair in this community has been defined by the women as believing that hair should be uncut and that having uncut hair gives them an authority over the angels. However, there is a bit more to it than that. As one participant, Natalia, said, “Uncut hair defines an Apostolic woman within the community, but our ‘Pentecostal hairstyles’ mark us to people in the world.”

The term “Pentecostal hairstyle” does not indicate a style that worn only by Pentecostals, but describes a variety of hairstyles, mainly up-dos, that are fairly elaborate and typically include a type of pouf. One participant, Esmeralda, described the hairstyles as “reminiscent of the hairstyles of 1960s beehive” and another participant, Heather, stated “I was rather upset when I saw that girl Snooki wearing a ‘Pentecostal Pouf’ because as it becomes popular in the world, it loses its association with us Apostolic women.”

1960s Beehive (on left) and Snooki's Pouf (on right)

Several of the women who were raised in this religion stated that they often felt they pressure to wear their hair in a certain way, especially when they went to church conferences and youth camps where they would be exposed to other members of their same faith. At the same time, they expressed the need they had (and still have) to be seen as an individual in the midst of all the elaborate hairdos they believed they were expected to do. Carol explained it saying,

“At youth camps it was like your hair had to be runway ready. Your hairstyle had to be of a certain caliber but you didn’t want to have your hair too similar to your neighbor’s hair. And this really didn’t really change too much as I stopped going to camps and started attending women’s conferences. What changed was the attitudes that women had towards those who chose not to pouf their hair. As women mature they tend not to care about each other’s hair, but many still focus on making their own hair have the ‘Pentecostal essence’, something that distinguished them as being part of the group.”

A similar idea appeared as Leah (whose family came into the religion when she was a young child) described her first trip to her district’s youth camp:

“My first youth camp was an interesting one because none of the girls at my church told me that it was such a formal occasion. It wasn’t until the first morning when several of the girls woke up an hour early to have enough time to fix their hair that I realized that it was going to be a completely new experience. My thought was “camp=relaxed=ponytails”, maybe a few curls for evening services, but this was not the case for the majority of the girls at the camp. Most had a small pouf and a simple bun for the daytime and larger pouf and very elaborate bun for the evening services. From the first day, there was a sort of segregation between girls who wore the poufs and those who didn’t. I thought that this was because of the familiarity between some girls who knew each other because they came from large youth groups and that the hairstyle was just a popular thing in their group. But as I began to talk to different people, I realized that most of them were barely familiar with each other and there were quite a few new faces that year. It hit home for me that hairstyle mattered when one of the girls, who was a few years older than me and was regarded by the others as someone who knew how to do hair very well, offered to fix my hair for the final day of camp. I agreed because I wanted to see how one of those hairstyles would look on me. On that day, I was treated very differently by some of the girls who hadn’t spoken to me throughout the rest of the week. Now, while this was the case for me at my first camp, at other camps I’ve been to, the hairstyles have been much simpler, like ponytail simple. It seemed silly to me that I was ostracized by some because of my hair, but that was back when I was maybe thirteen, in general girls of that age are very aware of their appearances and religious beliefs don’t necessarily change that level of consciousness.”

Here, three very important aspects of this culture of hair emerge:  hair as a means of preserving cultural/religious identity, hair as symbolic capital, and the Lolita effect. The first will be addressed here and the latter two will be addressed in a separate post.

As Leah explained, it was not until an older girl at her youth camp did her hair and showed her how to do it that she learned the style for herself. Now that Leah has children, she says that it is important to her that her daughter knows how to do Pentecostal hairstyles from a young age. She mentioned that her mom never liked her doing the styles because she feared that so much teasing of her hair would cause her hair to be damaged beyond the point of repair. She adds that while she won’t allow her daughter to tease her hair to create a pouf, that she has learned several other ways to create it using various hair clips and, she added reluctantly, even using Bumpits. She wants her daughter to have a sense of pride in her religious heritage from a young age and says that the uniqueness of Pentecostal hairstyles is a way for her daughter to show that pride to people “in the world” and express her individuality to people within the community.

Variety of Poufs

On Uncut Hair

submission by Addison

The first thing that each of the participants spoke about when asked about their hair was I Cor 11:1-16. Therefore, it is important to understand the way these verses are interpreted by the preachers in this organization and the way this scripture is understood by the women themselves.

On separate occasions, three participants suggested a paper by Rev. David Bernard, UPCI General Superintendent, about the way hair is viewed doctrinally as part of the Apostolic identity. In this paper, Rev. Bernard concludes that, according to the scripture, a woman’s hair should be uncut, including any trimming, because it is her symbolic covering and cutting it would shame her husband and dishonor God. He adds that while the concept of our actions dishonoring another person or deity is culturally incomprehensible in America because of our belief in individuality, that everyone is responsible for their own actions, at the time that Paul wrote the letter to the church in Corinth, the explanation for why dishonoring God was a negative thing was not necessary.

Furthermore, Rev. Bernard explains that

“A woman’s long hair symbolizes that she submits to God’s plan and to the family leadership of her husband. It is her glory. It is a sign to the angels of her commitment to God and her power with God. It is a covering so that she can pray and prophesy publicly without being ashamed” (Bernard 2009).

This exemplifies a common theme that the women spoke about as they explained why they did not cut their hair. The key words here are “glory” and “sign to the angels”. The women I interviewed unanimously referred to their hair as their glory, which is a direct reference to I Cor 11:15.  Other than in reference to their hair, the term “glory” referred only to God. Leah stated that this was because a woman’s hair was a reflection of God’s glory when she lived in obedience to God’s Word and did not cut her hair. It is this obedience and submissiveness to the will of God that is believed to give these women the authority over the angels. Lydia described this authority as “one of the coolest things in the world. It’s like crossing this threshold between the physical and spiritual realms and having command over Holy beings that, when you think about it, should have some command over us.”While many referenced that their uncut hair was their glory and that it gave them power over the angels, none of them viewed their hair as having the primary purpose of being a covering. Kelsie stated, “I know it’s a covering because the Bible says so, but I tend to think of my hair as my glory and a symbol of my obedience to God’s Word.” This idea was echoed by most of the participants in this study, with one adding that it was hard for her to think of it as a covering because American culture does not believe women need to be covered, but “if God said it’s a covering, then it’s a covering.”

In addition to speaking about their hair as their glory and having power over the angels, the women spoke about their hair as distinguishing them as a woman. This was another point that Rev. Bernard stated in his paper, saying

“Hair length makes a distinction between the sexes, which God considers to be important. (See Genesis 1:27; Deuteronomy 22:5.) Since to a great extent the world has abandoned this divine symbolism, it is also a mark of separation from the world (II Corinthians 6:16-17)” (Bernard 2009).

Carol took this same idea and said “draw a picture of one woman and one man, and make sure you can tell the difference. Now, doesn’t the woman have long hair? Aside from the way we dress, our hair marks us as women. I sure wouldn’t want to be confused as a man!” Here, it is evidenced that this community highly regards traditional gender roles and align their actions (in this case, keeping men’s hair short and women’s hair uncut) to this belief. Here, Natalia added that shorter hairstyles were not created until the “Bobbe” in the 1920s and that this haircut was created for its shock factor, in direct rebellion to gender norms. This begins to show how cutting hair became linked with rebellion, not mere disobedience, to the Word of God, a topic that will be explored a little later in this blog.

Overall, the responses that dealt with the Biblical interpretation of I Cor 11:1-16 were in line with Rev. Bernard’s paper, which is available at (http://urshan.ccsct.com/uploaded/Symposium%2F2009%2FPapers/2_Bernard_-_Bible%27s_Teaching_about_Hair_Length.doc). Further responses to this scripture will be explained throughout the remainder of this research.

Literature Review and Some History

There is not a great deal that has been written about this subject in particular. There are several studies regarding Pentecostalism in various parts of the world and how the religion enforces gender roles in the communities (Calley 1965; Gill 1990; Pfeiffer et al. 2007). Each of these studies focuses on gender inequalities that exist in their particular communities and conclude similarly that Pentecostalism has become a way of forcing the women to accept inferiority because of the belief that the woman should be submitted to her husband. Even if this is the case, the issue I raise with these studies is that none of these writers tell their audience what type of Pentecostal group they are working with.

While lumping all Pentecostals into one group may have been acceptable in the case of Calley (1965) because he studied their communities during the “second wave of Pentecostalism”, where Pentecostal ideas were being spread throughout the world in the same form that they were revived at Azusa Street (Wagner 1988). However, during the “third wave of Pentecostalism”, starting around 1980, the term “Pentecostal” was expanded to include all people who have little structure to their church services and instead promote spontaneity in the Holy Spirit to guide the service. It was at this time that many charismatic churches popped up and called themselves “Pentecostal” because of the negative connotations of calling themselves “charismatic”. These churches did not preach what Pentecostals claimed as their own doctrine, preaching that God will bless you no matter what, rather than preaching Acts 2:38 and the holiness standards that Pentecostals had traditionally prided themselves in (Wagner 1988).

Today, there are two main groups of Pentecostals:

1. those who believe in the trinity and do not follow any sort of holiness standards, here the term “Pentecostal” refers to their way of worshipping and
2. those that believe that the trinity does not exist, but that God has been “manifested in the flesh” as Jesus and “justified in the spirit” and that the three are one.

The latter group holds holiness standards in high regard and often use the term “Apostolic Pentecostal” to refer to themselves, the term “Apostolic” referring to their doctrine and the term “Pentecostal” referring to their lifestyle. In this study, I use the terms “Pentecostal”, “Apostolic”, and “Apostolic Pentecostal” interchangeably, referring to people who identify with the latter definition of the term “Pentecostal”.

Although there is not any information available regarding hair and this religious community, there is a plethora of information regarding the significance of hair, particularly within Black communities (noteably Fordham 2007; Majors 2004). Furthermore, Olivelle (in Hitlbeitel and Miller 1998) shows how women in India and Nepal use their hair as a public representation of where they are in their lives. For example, a virgin will plait her hair in one way and a married woman will plait her hair differently. The notion that different hairstyles connote different personality traits and social positions is echoed throughout U.S. history. For example, in the 1960s, a short curly hairstyle indicated a woman as being of a higher social class, well educated and traditional, while long straight hair was indicative of a hippy. While this literature is plentiful, it fails to reference the reasoning behind each hairstyle and rarely touch upon how the various connotations of each hairstyle came to be. In this study, I note the basis for why the women do not cut their hair and examine how they have come up with creative ways to be seen as an individual while being different through their hairstyles.

Background and Purpose

Being raised in an Apostolic Pentecostal church, I grew up trying to meet certain “holiness standards” that distinguished people in my religion from people in other Christian denominations. Such standards included watching my language, wearing skirts, not cutting my hair, practicing abstinence, staying away from drugs and alcohol, and generally trying to live a life that showed my dedication to following what I read in the Bible. These standards all had some sort of Biblical support to them that justified the beliefs to myself and helped me to explain my actions to others when I was asked about why I always wore skirts or never cut my hair. When I would go to youth camp every summer, I would see fantastic ways that the girls and women would do their hair everyday and the even more elaborate ways their hair would be styled for church services. I would come back from the camps attempting to copy the hairstyles I saw but with little success. I always wondered why the women at my own church never did their hair so elaborately and I never came to a clear conclusion.

Over the past six months, I began to speak to a woman in my church who is writing a book about women of color and hair. As she explained to me what hair meant to her and to some of her informants, I began to understand how important hair is to negotiating a person’s identity. As I used this understanding to think about the role of hair my own religious community, it became clear that hair could possibly be an indicator of race, class, piety, and even a way of enforcing gender roles in the community. However, my own views and experiences are insufficient to explain the role of hair in this particular community. Therefore, this ethnographic research begins to explore how hair is used to negotiate piety in the Apostolic Pentecostal community.