Ever since I was very young, I have always wanted short hair. Not short as in shoulder-length, not short as in chin-length, short as in a pixie cut…or shorter.

I was never mesmerized by long hair, never dreamed of having a flowing mane of mermaid locks, and I hated having my hair styled. In fact, every evening after getting finished with a bath or shower, I would clip a hand towel around my neck just because the feeling of wet hair on my neck made me cringe.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I jumped at the chance to have my hair cut into a pixie-do when presented with the option one summer when all the recreation soccer goalies—myself amongst them—were required to wear sticky, sweaty, unbreathable foam helmets.

My reasoning: the hair and the helmet together were just too hot, and since the helmet was required I guess the hair would have to go. And so it went, and since then it has only been getting shorter and shorter, until this past July when I took the plunge and shaved it all off to a buzz cut.

The History of the Female Buzzcut

In recent years, the female buzzcut has experienced a rebirth in the celebrity and fashion community. Blockbusters over the past several decades, including Mad Max: Fury Road, Alien 3, and G.I. Jane, have featured women with shaved heads, usually underscoring their badass personalities.

Most recently, Eleven sported a shaved head in the wildly popular Netflix original series Stranger Things. Across the celebrity spectrum more and more women have been going buzzed, some for films and some for whims, including actresses like Lupita Nyongo, Kristin Stewart, and Cara Delevigne, who have either sported or stuck with the close-cropped look.

The female buzz cut is nothing new and is becoming a more normalized style, especially in the fashion and beauty world, but going buzzed hasn’t always been as easy as picking up a pair of clippers. Pop culture icons like Pat Evans, Grace Jones, Sinéad O’Connor, and Ève Salvail—just to name a few—all buzzed their heads in the name of rebellion and resistance, fighting back against oppressive beauty standards and gender norms that said a woman had to have long hair in order to be feminine and beautiful.

What was originally a political and societal statement—a hallmark of black and queer women pushing back against a culture of patriarchal heteronormative white privilege (try saying that three times fast)—has become less taboo and politically charged and evolved into just another fashion trend and form of expression.

That doesn’t mean that women who shave their heads don’t face judgement—but who doesn’t?—women with shaved heads just don’t care about being judged. It comes with the shaved head. Trust me, I know.

The Power of the Female Buzz Cut

Even though the female buzz cut isn’t the epitome of teenage rebellion and political resistance, it still catches people’s attention just because it is so different from the female beauty standards that people are commonly subjected to in mainstream pop culture. That’s pretty ironic considering women who shave their heads are often admired for their striking beauty and courage.

I can tell you from personal experience that I have never received more compliments on my beauty than I have with this buzzcut. Little girls like to stare at me—and we often share sneaky smiles with each other, my peers tell me I’m “slaying it,” and old ladies comment on how they can’t stop staring at me—even my own grandmother, who at first lamented the loss of my already short hair, had to admit that the buzz really suited me.

One comment always catches me off guard and leaves me unsure of how to respond, and that’s, “You’re so brave! I wish I had the courage to get my head buzzed, it would make life so much easier!” What I want to say in response is, “Just shave it. It doesn’t take courage to shave your head, a shaved head creates courage.” But of course I don’t want to come across as insensitive or unempathetic, so I usually just smile and shrug.

However, I wholeheartedly standby the statement that I’d like to say, and women across the buzzcut board often comment on how sexy, courageous, and confident they feel with their cropped cap of peach fuzz.

Clara Rae Natkin, a make-up and visual artist interviewed by Nylon, was quoted as saying, “I’ve always felt the most sexy, confident, and powerful after I shaved my head.” Another buzzcut babe, Cherie Camacho, associate manager of team and culture at Glossier says, “This is the sexiest I’ve ever felt in my life! I feel so badass in a way that I’ve never felt before. I’m finally in love with myself.”

If you’re ready to radically love yourself in a way that you could have never imagined, you should definitely shave your head. Shaving your head isn’t the only way to love yourself, but it’ll really fast-track your progress, because you’ll wake up every day to nothing but you.

When women choose to wear the female buzzcut, they choose to stop comparing themselves to other women and caring about the judgement that hovers around us all in our social media society—and when you reject judgement from yourself and others, confidence just starts pouring into and out of you.

The female buzzcut trend is more than a trend, it’s just another do for women to wear to express themselves, and as a short-hair fanatic, feminist, and proponent of self-love and female empowerment—I am here for it. Are you?