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Hair styles like clothing trends over time and across cultures have commonly been different for men and women. These differences have varied in both style and the extent of difference. The most radical difference have been when men and boys have had very short if not shaved hair at a time that women and girls have had long hair. At other times they have been less detinctive. As a general case, women have had longer hair styles and men shorter styles. There have, however, been times that men have had long, very elaborate styles. This was the case in ancient Mesopotamia. We also see Europeans men with elabiate hair dos (17th and 18th centuries), but these were wigs. We know the Europeans wire wigs, given the elaborate depictions from Mesopotamian and Persian scultures, surely they must have worn wigs as well. Notably boys at the time did not have similar elaborate hair styles, probably because they were so impractical. Egyptian boys often had shavec heads. And these were rare exceptions generally men and boys had shorter hair than women and girls. We do note times when hir styles for boys and girls have been less differentiated. We notice many boys in America and Europe with longish hair (1970s-80s).
Boys have worn quite diverse hair styles even in recent years, varying from shaved or clipped heads to elaborate ringlet curls. I have listed here the specific boys' hair styles with which I am familiar and a synopsis of the available information on those styles. Considerable information is available on some styles, but only limited infornmation on other syles. Please let me know if you are aware of any others or have any childhood memories about your hair styles.
HBC does not plan on going into great detail on girls' hair cuts. We have always been hopefull that some one would lauch a sister site on girls historical clothing and styles. Assessing gender in old photographs, however, is such a difficult problem that we have concluded that some basic information about girls' nair styles, especially 19th century girls' styles would be useful. Just as you can not assume that children with long hair are girls, it is also true that you can not assume that children with short hair are girls.
There were some shared styles, but this was not very commom. The more prevalent convntion was for boys and girls to have different hair styles. But there have over time been a range of shared styles. Even such a definitively girlish style as ringlet curls have been worn by boys, most notabky during the American Fauntleroy era (1885-1905). And we see many Amreican and European boys with long hair (1970s-80s). Probably the single most important style shared by bys and girls are bangs. Of course there are diffeences in how the rest of the hair was styled, but bangs have over time been very popular for both boys and girls.
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