Would a feminine long or short hairstyle be an inconvenience in battle?

jesus what is with you and these bait-y posts about how feminine women are or aren't

The answer is: yeah, long hair can be an inconvenience in battle for men and women. It's easy to grab, you risk getting scalped, it can obstruct your vision. It's not a great idea to have it flowing all willy-nilly in the thick of battle. I don't know how the dwarves have survived as long as they have with huge beards that are easy to grab, that are veritable soup-catchers for stray darkspawn blood.

But more importantly, when you're sweaty and covered in gore and have a helmet on your head, you have bigger things on your mind than whether your ~~voluminous locks~~ are sufficiently feminine. You either put it in a tight bun or braid to get it out of the way or you cut it off.

Now, since we've had about eight billion threads about women's hair and how terrible it is when it's short, let's talk about men's hair. Would long or short hair be an inconvenience in battle? Do men who get buzzcuts never stop to think about how lumpy their skulls are? Why do none of these men think about all the boners they could be giving people if they had super long hair??

Oh, I'm sure that, say, Zevran is thinking quite precisely of such things.

As for hair in general, I don't tend to think about it too much in terms of length, for either gender, but if anything, when playing a character with a combat-focused background, I will avoid long bangs. Sort've a "how can they fight if there's hair in their eyes?" thing.

This is the reason that Pocahontas scene is total bulls**t. Wind is the long haired's enemy, not their friend.

If you can survive a battle with a beard like that you've proven yourself a warrior 

Oh yeah, even Alistair thinks Zev's hair is "a little much" - because it brushes his shoulders and... has a braid in it?  Ofc Zevran is naturally radiant and looks great no matter what. 😎


Oh god yes, I had hair down to my ass in high school and I had to brush it every time the bell rang because that shit got tangled walking to and from class.


Love it. "Oooh, he's so manly and virile that he's not even worried about some genlock yanking his beard!" 😍

It wasn't a problem for the Vikings, Japanese, Chinese, Native Americans, Aztecs, Mayans, or hundreds of other examples throughout history.

People who say long hair is not practical in battle have no understanding of history and culture.

As many already have said, long hair is in the way and can easily be grabbed by the enemy to hold you down.

So you cut it off!

Prince William's buzzcut is because he is going bald. And that's the modern style for men - apparently half bald is ugly or makes you look older so balding men are increasingly likely to just shave the whole thing off. And because men are going bald younger ...

So the whole bald buzzcut thing isn't just because of practicality. Better a lumpy skull then a mocked "combover" or something similar

I don't actually have an opinion on buzzcuts. I was just making a point about picking on totally arbitrary hairstyle choices.

Well judging by the answers given in this thread.  Having a penis dangling down there would just give the enemy something to grab on to.... 

The point is that practicality clearly wasn't a huge problem for people fighting in wars throughout history.  If you're going to argue for practicality's sake, you have to ignore history.  This is why I always chuckle at the threads complaining about boob plates, long hair on women (not long beards/hair on men), or going into battle scantily clad... It just shows those people have no knowledge of what ancient warfare was actually like...