Overcoming Tresses of Distress
I had a chat with a friend some days ago about how I would love to re-live childhood experiences of my mother carving out lines on my scalp with a wooden comb as she prepared to plait the “tie-tie” which was a common hairstyle of Eastern Nigeria those days. After that inspiring discussion I began looking forward to the weekend when I would relive that experience with my own daughter whom at several times expressed her displeasure with her hairdresser in the salon just down the street.
When Sunday came and I made my daughter sit between my knees the way I used to sit between my mother’s knees as a child, I realized how much my five-year old relished this opportunity for mother-daughter bonding. As I begin the weaves I also came to realise how much our priorities have evolved so much over the years that we risk losing traditional value systems that influenced our choices, what we eat and what we wear.
As a modern working woman, I have worn hairstyles ranging from long braids to silky straight weave-on made perhaps from the hair of Indian women or maybe even those gotten from dead horses. . urghh! I will never really know where they originate. However, it fulfilled my fantasy of having very long hair straight hair which gave my natural 5 inch, mildly processed (oppressed) hair a chance to grow out. The other reason many black women like me wear these styles is that the natural curliness of our black hair is not quite appreciated by a society where standards of good hair are judged from the straightness, length and bounce of your hair.
I loved the tresses because my own hair grew healthy under the “extensions,” as the lengths of hair are sometimes called. For one I did not have to deal with my hair daily except once every two or four weeks. Still, eventually they would have to be removed and redone another seven to eight grueling hours. Hair has always been a troubled terrain for me as advancing career and enterprising woman and mother.
African women wear their hair in creative ways underlying the fact that a black woman’s hairstyle is important and even symbolic, so she had better get it right. This may be a reason why emerging hairstyles are being named after successful celebrities like Beyounce, Niki Minaj and why Rihanna’s hairstyle is a signature of her look.
Over the years entrepreneurs have invented a myriad of products in their attempt to meet women’s need to tame their hair into looks more fitting for society. The first African-American female millionaire, Madam C. J. Walker, earned her riches from developing and marketing a successful line of beauty and hair products for black women. These efforts of replicating human hair have been misinterpreted such that we often do not distinguish between society’s standards of beauty and our own way of looking at and evaluating ourselves.
While I was concerned about what would be the lifestyle of Indian or Korean women who grew their hair expressly to be sold to the growing market of African women, the greater worry for me was the distress of hair and beauty ideals in modern fashion that have become a barrier to self esteem of many African women. A broad range of these hair products are sold today at varying prices from five to one hundred and fifty thousand naira (approximately one hundred US dollars). There is the brazilian, indian, peruvian and did I hear about a Bolivian one the other day?
The energy, time and money expended in women’s quest for skills to understand how to use all these foreign hair types indicates that the peculiarity of our own hair texture is perceived to be inferior in the minds of not just whites (including other races from where human hair originates) but even some blacks, men and women.
I can appreciate that for our own self-esteem we strive to appear our best by copying practices of mainstream American society but when we spend more of our productive hours and resources debating the differences between Indian, Brazilian or Peruvian weave-on, in the midst of economic empowerment challenges we face at the workplace and society generally, we diminish our potential to engage with more serious issues.
The message I hope this article will send to our young women and girls is not to care less about their appearance. Rather, it is to make them realise that how they wear their hair, tressed or stretched, must not overshadow what they think, imagine and their potential to contribute to the world.
Parents should teach their daughters that “beauty is only skin deep” and if this proverb appears a bit old-school-ish for this generation to appreciate, I’ll recommend you get an ipod loaded with India Arie’s 2006 Grammy nominated song featuring Akon _ “I am not my hair”. This might inspire someone to overcome her tresses of distress!
Credits:
Photo: ehow.com, dailymail.co.uk
2012, Tiya Miles, Opinion: Why focus on Gabby Douglas’ hair? CNN
Hmmn.
For the ladies.
WoW! This is simply fantastic! I love your consistent tone and language, the way you patiently developed your ideas, the historical/educational angle, everything.
Moreover i have been thinking about this too, not only the well coiffered empty coconuts many young girls flaunt but also the paucity of research on the maintenance of healthy black hair. I havent gotten a direct response from God yet but i am convinced that He never intended for the African woman to go through all this torture. To buttress my point, I ll be wearing Dreads When I am 50 and a prim silver low cut at 80 if Jesus tarries.
This was beautiful girl, True Love Magazine of blessed memory would have given you 10k for this, I ll just say You have won a fan. Best wishes.
Thank you so much Sunshine! I am so releived to read your comment because this is really my first shot at writing something that’s not serious or academic. I am encouraged.
However, I would really need some help on how to make this piece shorter. It seems to loose its “lightness” when I take away some of the flowery expressions.
Am also still thinking where to publish final thing after you all have helped panel beat it to shape. Thanks Girl!!!
Sister, me i just like the article and i think it should be seen by a wider audience. For lean mean editing and ‘deflowering’ May i invite @Suddie @meshybizzo and @petunia007 .
P/s grab an aspirin or two, this WILL hurt!
@Sunshine loool. @izuma i think u might want 2 take aspirin
@Sueddie i meant. @meshybizzo you are so naughty!
good article- being natural is good. so ladies take note
First let me say, beautiful writing! Well studied and portrayed. The only thing I found wrong are a few grammatical errors.
When Sunday came and I made my daughter sit between my knees the way I used to sit between my mother’s
kneesas a child, I realized how much my five-year old (this is a little confusing. Sounded like you but then realised it was you daughter. better use a pronoun “she”) relished this opportunity for mother-daughter bonding. As I begin (began) the weaves I also came to realise how much our priorities have evolved so much over the years that we risk losing traditional value systems that influenced our choices, what we eat and what we wear.Hair has always been a troubled(-ing) terrain (not sure this word quite fits) for me as (an) advancing career
and enterprising(only congests the sentence) woman and mother.Over the years entrepreneurs have invented a myriad of products in their attempt to meet women’s need to tame their hair (Do their hair go wild or become troublesome? If you were taming “women’s need” to style their hair and fit into the society I think that would be more understanding.)
While I was concerned about what would be the lifestyle of Indian or Korean women who grew their hair expressly to be sold to the growing market of African women, the greater worry for me was the distress of hair and beauty ideals in modern fashion that have become a barrier to self esteem of many African women. A broad range of these hair products are sold today at varying prices from five to one hundred and fifty thousand naira (approximately one hundred (thousand) US dollars). There is the brazilian, indian, peruvian and did I hear about a Bolivian one the other day? (for the latter sentence i wrote a version i thought flowed better.)
My version (same amount of words):
A broad range of these hair products are sold today from Brazilian to Indian to Peruvian (and did I hear about a Bolivian one the other day?) and with prices varying from five to one hundred and fifty thousand naira (approximately one thousand US dollars).
The energy, time and money expended in women’s quest for skills to understand how to use all these foreign hair types indicates that the peculiarity of our own hair texture is perceived to be inferior in the minds of not just whites (including other races from where human hair originates) but even some (us) blacks,
men and women(or among us blacks).The message I hope this article will send to our young women and girls is not to care less about their appearance. Rather, it is to make them realise that how they wear their hair, tressed (what does this mean) or stretched, must not overshadow what they think, imagine and their potential to contribute to the world.
I have to say this is one of the first piece of work that has trilled me here on NS (no offense) and it’s not even a story. From the way I see it, it seems about right so I would advice not to trim anyway. Seems you didn’t need that aspirin after all, well except somebody else thinks otherwise lol.
Wow meshybizzo, mikeeffa and sunshine you guys are great! I must confess I already took that aspirin cos my friend told me I would be needing it. After she posted her first story and you all swooped on her she gave up on posting but this has been more constructive than I expected. Yay!!!
Hee hee hee, this old man here (me of course) has been away a long time. He has lost the strength of his constructive whooping editing stick but would sure try to find it once more. For the time being, he still has his reader’s eyes. They see that this article though old, is good. Interesting one. Fortunately, much suggestions have been given.
Oh! Lest he forgets, there’s a certain place where Beyonce is spelled as ‘Beyounce’.
This piece would appeal largely to our dearest ladies (not surprising that you have a fan in @nicolebassey) but I would suggest you add some ‘akpu’ and ‘kpomo’ so as to get the gender leverage to give it to all of us
Nice one @izuma. It’s old but never too late to say ‘Well done. Well done.’