During the peak of the Wuhan Covid-19 pandemic, several female nurses were forced to shave their heads. The video of this circulated widely and was used as an affective device in gaining the public’s sympathy and respect for medical workers, and also to demonstrate the Chinese government’s determination in resolving the virus outbreak.

This work is the culmination of my visceral reaction to that deeply disturbing video, it’s a reflection of the daily traumas women must endure under the male gaze. Entangled in a net of what women “want to be” and what they “ought to be”, the piece examines the social and cultural significance of the fetishization of hair and female labour. Barbie’s problematic and complicated history mirrors the experience of women living under patriarchy. She is free to choose her career trajectory and confidently takes up any challenge, yet she is also a highly sexualized object. It is uncanny that while Barbie is supposed to be a surrogate for the independent modern female, women today are still being molded into Barbie for the sake of phallocentric ideology.