My senior thesis in undergrad was entitled “Hair Straightening Among Black Women in Contemporary America”. I thought it would be a fascinating project to take a look at the many factors surrounding my and other Black women’s proclivity toward straight hair. In women’s studies they teach you to value experience as it is very important in lending credibility to events and emotions that are not readily available or captured in male dominated culture. It is from experience that we learn to give credibility to our stories and our voices.
Abandoning the chemical relaxer was for me was a psychological metamorphisis. It was an awakening of my consciousness. It was a common experience that connected me to women of african descent through the world and on a larger scale women of all backgrounds. It speaks to the steps we take to achieve beauty and it begs us to question who erected these standards of beauty and then it implores us to redefine beauty by simply shifting our consciousness and accepting the beauty that the Divine has ordained simply by creation. I will talk more about that in upcoming weeks. I was thinking of starting a new blog but then I wonder “Why?”. For now one is enough.
W. Reid
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October 17, 2009 at 10:18
Holiday Longing
I am pretty white, in fact, very white. And I have this really curly hair. I struggled through the 60s and 70s to straighten it. It took years for me to learn to use “product” to control the curl that I finally appreciated. Still, I straighten it during the winters when humidity dies down. A black girlfriend introduced me to my favorite hair straightener, the Chi, which I use regularly (along with heat curlers) during the winter. I can always tell a really curly-headed white girl who’s instead chosen to calm the curls into a straightish do. Why do we do this? I don’t know. I do find my straightened hair to “feel” better than the wildly curled version. A girlfriend recently told me that people take women more seriously if their hair is straight rather than curly. This had never crossed my mind, but when I asked another women, she said, “Sure. Curls make you look cute, like Shirley Temple.” So, now my hair is straight. Sigh. Though I know this is nothing like the struggle African-American face with their hair (witness the fascination with Michelle Obama’s do), I can relate. A teeny bit.
October 17, 2009 at 10:18
W. Reid
The curly hair thing is not just a black thing it’s woman thing. I ready a book called “Curly Girl” that said 70% of White women straighten their hair. You seem to fit in that category……you may to check it out…. That nonsense about curls making you look like a little girl…nonsense! It’s just cultural conditioning….My suggestion is to embrace your curls….afterall it’s how God made you and let’s give God a bit of credit. Who are you to tell God that the hair with you blessed me is so wrong that it needs to be altered using these very artifical methods? Just something to think about.
October 18, 2009 at 10:18
Holiday Longing
I’ll check out the book. I am actually at peace with the curls, but I get tired of the stiffness (of the product which keeps my very thick hair under control). Then I like to go to the smooth and light feel. I still have curls, but they are smoother, more like a flip. I just wish my Mom had given me better advice and not let me look like a freak when I was a kid with hair either really short or out of control (she actually had it thinned which with curly hair makes it stick out even more!). The thing that I am most grateful for is the color of my hair: red. I am NOT at peace iwth it going grey (as I told my colorist the other day!!). I read somewhere that the advantage of black hair is that you can do anything with it. That’s not quite the same with me, but I do like that I can be different people with my hair.