Note: to read an alternate opinion on butch representation on The L Word, go here.

When The L Word first premiered in January 2004, there were no butch characters on the drama--all of the women looked femme and could easily pass for straight women. Although many viewers pointed out, and rightly so, that many lesbians don’t look butch, it is important to include butch women on The L Word for several reasons.

First, the show is a drama about a group of lesbians, and no matter how femme West Hollywood is, butchness has been and always will be an important aspect of lesbian life and culture; to ignore that is to deny reality. Second, The L Word provides a wonderful opportunity to counter the negative stereotypes of female masculinity that abound in our society. It is important to challenge gender norms in order to break down the discrimination that women who are not traditionally feminine often encounter.

Third, it’s really important to have hair diversity on the show. I love long hair—after all, my hair is long—but some girls just look cute with short hair. Even worse, a few of the characters had really bad hair, possibly compounding the stereotype that lesbians have no fashion sense.

As the season progressed, however, The L Word made significant strides toward including butch women in the cast. The character of Shane has a masculine physicality that has become recognizably butch over the course of season one, and the character of Ivan the drag king has gone further than any of the other characters to grapple with the slippery notion of gender. These are great steps toward including different kinds of lesbians on The L Word and the producers should be applauded for going so far so soon.

But these positive developments do not come without problems, most of which comes down to the hair.

Let’s first consider the character of Shane McCutcheon, the professional hairdresser. (Is this a subtextual message? you might ask. Well, it just might be.) Shane, played by the oh-so-seductive Katherine Moennig, has become a woman that we all love to want. She is kind, forthright, sexy as hell, and walks with that butch-y saunter that declares she is self-confident and ready to take you home.

Shane does not fit the traditional appearance of a butch lesbian. She does not have a butch haircut, although in the tradition of the mullet, she does have a bizarre haircut. Despite a few scenes in the episode “Losing It” in which some gay men mistake her for a boy, Shane does not look remotely like a man--she clearly resembles a woman. She does wear some kick-ass steel-toe boots, but her shapely jeans and clinging shirts also reveal her to be, well, her.

There is nothing wrong with a woman who walks like a butch but is recognizably female. Most butch women do look like women. More importantly, they remind us that women do not all have 36-28-36 proportions. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the character of Shane having longish hair, either—although the fact that her hair generally looks like a rat’s nest is really unfortunate. However, it is problematic when the one main character on the show who is set up as “butch” is denied one of the most important signifiers a butch woman has in American culture today: her butch haircut (other signifiers include but are not limited to: her chain wallet, boxers, and a motorcycle). That suggests that there is some fear of allowing those markers of female masculinity on-screen.

The problem with butch representation on The L Word isn’t only about the hair, but hair is an important indicator of where The L Word falls short in its acceptance of butch women. It is ironic that Shane, the one major “butch” character, is a hairdresser, because she should understand more than any of the other characters how important hair is. Anyone who has had a good or bad haircut knows what a difference a haircut can make, and for many self-identified butch lesbians, the moment they cut off their long hair is a significant marker in their lives.

But on The L Word, this marker doesn't seem to exist. In fact, the only lesbian character on the show who does have short hair is Shane's one-night-stand-turned-stalker Lacey (Tammy Lynn Michaels), who only appeared in a few episodes (and was kind of in-between butch and femme, anyway).

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