femininity and hair

And more than merely being opposed to short hair on women, or men shaving, I believe we should be in favor of men growing their beards, and women growing their hair … Far from being the inevitable outcome On the other hand, however, the classed and of a biological imperative, femininity is produced racialised false dichotomy between feminine respect- through a range of practices, including normative ability and unfeminine (sexual) vulgarity, may result body-altering work such as routine hair … However, some of the scariest health risks associated with hair relaxers have little to do with hair at all. For many black women, our unattainable marker of femininity is related to the long, flowing hair that we see everywhere but in the mirror; the sassy hair flip that doesn’t come in your feminine package when your hair grows upwards and out. There’s a sense of subversive pleasure whenever someone does a double take of my legs or pits — and has no idea that I’m shaven elsewhere. The straightness or curliness of our hair is determined by the shape of our hair follicles, which cannot themselves be changed, but hydrogen and disulphide bonds play a large role in changing the curl pattern of our hair once it grows out of said hair follicles. And so, my legs did eventually end up hair free, with a smattering of raised, red-tinted skin from where my inexperienced hand dug a little too close with my very own pink Lady Schick razor. It was referred to as disgusting and unlady like. Usually, nothing. It sometimes feels like a strange mix of personal preference and social sway. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-fight-to-rid-black-womens-hair-salons-of-toxic-chemicals/433386/, Miranda-Vilela, A. L., Botelho, A. J., & Muehlmann, L. A. Hair Cutting Colouring and Perming.Hair Extensions .Manicures Pedicures. CSW Associate Director Sarah Haley wins multiple book awards! At-Home Hair Removal: The Pros and ConsFacial Fuzz Busters. However, this varies by location and culture. Nail Enhancements. And why the rush? Human hair is largely composed of tough, fibrous proteins known as keratin, and the proteins in our hair are held together by strong bonds known as disulphide bonds and relatively weaker bonds known as hydrogen bonds. The results of this constant message are countless stories of black women being exposed to toxic chemicals in hair relaxers used to permanently change their hair texture, some as young as the age of five (and in extreme cases, younger). I zeroed in on my mother’s pink Lady Schick razor each time I stepped foot in the shower. However, these bonds can easily revert to their original positions once exposed to water through humidity or washing, for example. However, as mentioned before, hair straighteners and relaxers do not change the shape of the hair follicle itself, so new hair will still grow out in its natural texture. admin Long, beautiful and healthy hair isn’t just Trad and Feminine, it is “a glory’ – it is God’s special gift for displaying the softness, femininity, and tenderness of a woman. Madonna, Mo’Nique, Beyonce, Drew Barrymore, and Britney Spears have all been dragged through the mud for sporting some body hair. And while community bonding is important, a quick dive into the science of hair straightening will show why this particular shared experience is so dangerous to our health. Here are 6 of the Best…, Thinking About Getting a Pet In Lockdown? Even when we see the tightly coiled 4c texture (which is incredibly rare! Long hair tends to be among the Tertiary Sexual Characteristics used to establish a character as female. The world has claimed what being feminine means and twisted it into ways that are thoroughly unrecognizable from the Biblical view of femininity . (2013). Required fields are marked *. I began to rock my pit puffs, occasional leg hair, and a neatly trimmed bikini area with abandon. The relationship between black women and hair relaxers provides a large-scale case study for the intersections of femininity, beauty standards, and health. The idea of “[insert name] with the good hair” goes far beyond a cheeky line in Beyoncé’s “Sorry.” Rather, it’s a pervasive and systematic idea that has been forced on and marketed to black women for centuries, telling us that our kinks and curls are not “good,” professional, manageable, or desirable enough. And where social parameters of beauty or “professionalism” are not the issue, lack of options for haircare may force black women to choose the seemingly easier route of relaxed hair anyway, as the hair industry hardly caters to hair that is not already deemed desirable. The natural hair movement, and the large-scale shift toward embracing our natural textures has been hugely important in getting black women to reject hair relaxers, but this is only one side of the issue. In fact, I’m quite aware of what the general public thinks when it comes to women and body hair, if the hyperfocused lens on celebrity is any indication. If you google femininity or something similar, most of what you come across is a jumble of feminist propaganda, goddess earth worship, and how to be a seductive woman. Long hair was traditionally regarded as a sign of femininity. I’ll continue to wear my femme clothes and allow these subversive hairs to poke through, doing my small part in changing up the idea of what it means to be feminine. These Tips Will Help, These 6 Office Items Make the Workday So Much More Comfortable. Seeing Julia Roberts with pit puffs of her own while on the red carpet of the Oscars in 1999 was revolutionary to my teen self, and definitely helped normalize body hair for me. Tall, short, dark hair, light hair, dark skin, light skin, freckles or no freckles, dark eyes, light eyes, big-breasted or small breasted (yes it’s true, you don’t … Here’s What You Should Do, How to Squeeze a Workout into Your Work Day, Celebrities You Probably Didn’t Know Were Dating, Celebrity Scandals That We Will Never Forget, These Celeb Couples Have Pretty Huge Age Gaps Between Them, The Best Sleepwear for Keeping Your Dry If You Have Nightsweats, How to Transition Your Wardrobe From Summer to Fall, 5 Best Undies To Wear Under Short Dresses This Summer, The Cutest Slinky Dresses To Layer Until Summer, These 10 Minimal Jewelry Pieces Go with Everything, The Easiest Dressings to Make to Spruce Up Your Salads, Managing Mental Health Medication: 4 Tips for Success, 4 Fat-Burning Fruits To Help Your Weight Loss, Top NYC Restaurants that Truly Sell the Perfect Slice of Pizza, How Having Rituals Can Relieve Your Anxiety, Planning a Scary Movie Night? Channel Islands). Furthermore, the strong chemicals found in hair relaxers can also cause scalp irritation or even chemical burns if left on for too long, and this problem can be aggravated by using alcoholic hair products, causing long-term scalp damage or bald spots. While awareness of the health risks associated with hair relaxers will help women make informed decisions about using them, these decisions will almost always be affected by societal pressures until there is a radical change in the way our society thinks about beauty and femininity. In fact, many of these salon workers have complained about developing work-related health complications of their own, ranging from respiratory difficulties to dermatitis and other forms of skin irritation. It’s just hair.”. These women are uplifted as the standard of femininity and how a woman should present herself. How you can create a more feminine look thru feminization Male feminization is a term that refers to the process of a male becoming feminized through changing their physical image. Femininity Hair & Beauty, Reading, England. How dare these women leave their homes without adhering to every single standard of western beauty ideals (which, should be noted, included body hair for women until fashion changed in the 1920’s).We have such set, prescribed notions of what it means to be feminine and beautiful, that anyone who strays from it is immediately branded as controversial or weird. I’m not really one for makeup, but between my Audrey Hepburn-inspired sunglasses and a bit of tinted gloss, I know I look fierce. For women, long hair is associated with femininity. Having said this, feminine beauty comes in many forms. The first thing that jumps to mind is female/woman and I probably associate it with th… Clothing: this is one thing you can play with when you have short hair. A woman who has a more attractive body physically (wider hips, narrower waist, softer and smoother skin, thicker lips and eye brows, moderate height etc..) will likely come across as more feminine. ), it is usually extremely long. Noting the "political complexities of African-American hair and beauty culture," West quotes the sociologist Ingrid Banks, who interviewed more than fifty black girls and women between 1996 and 1998 for her book Hair Matters (2000) and who concluded that "hair … Here’s What You Should…, 6 Common Household Items You Should Regularly Replace, pit puffs of her own while on the red carpet of the Oscars in 1999, Beyonce, Drew Barrymore, and Britney Spears, China Has a Whole Holiday Called “Singles’ Day”, 24 Ways You Never Thought to Use Baking Soda as a Beauty Product, Planning a Scary Movie Night? Femininity in men (heterosexy), as masculinity in women, is often considered to be negative due to its contradiction of traditional roles. But the often-ignored reality is that regardless of the number of products and services used, “ideal” femininity and beauty can never truly be reached, at least not for very long. Femininity (also called womanliness or girlishness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls.Although femininity is socially constructed, research indicates that some behaviors considered feminine are biologically influenced. Here’s What You Should Consider, Need to Slow Down and Enjoy Life More? Long, luscious hair is regarded as an archetypal feminine trait in quite a few cultures and commonly … So, shave I did. But I also think of words like meticulous and hardworking, as many of the crafts traditionally associated with femininity (sewing, cooking, etc) take a lot of time and effort.” (Katie, 24, African American, USA) “I’m not exactly sure how I’d define femininity. For some women, this may manifest through continuous cosmetic surgeries. International Journal of Cosmetic Science,36 (1), 2-11. doi:10.1111/ics.12093, Shetty, V. H., Shetty, N. J., & Nair, D. G. (2013). Significance of Hair Length for Women. Clearly, the health risks associated with hair relaxers are not contained to just the person having their hair relaxed. Jan 19, 2021 - Male femininity is so wonderfully beautiful, powerful and natural. In May 2017, a 16-year-old high school student in Florida was told that her natural hair violated the school’s dress code, which requires that hair is “neat” and clean.” Her story and the countless other stories of work and school policies that disproportionately target and police black hair show just one of the many reasons why hair relaxers remain such a tempting option for many black women and girls. Although the importance of accepting oneself cannot be overstated, women will always be pushed towards unhealthy solutions like hair relaxers if we feel like the rest of the world does not accept us. Women’s body hair routines are as idiosyncratic as the women themselves. She was part of the Chemical Entanglements Undergraduate Group in Spring 2017. Occasionally I would get stares, and very rarely a comment or two. Femininity, Hair Relaxers, and the Impact of Beauty Standards on Black Women’s Health, hair relaxers can have undesired effects on the hair itself, Chemical Entanglements Undergraduate Group, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-fight-to-rid-black-womens-hair-salons-of-toxic-chemicals/433386/, https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/mmg/mmg.asp?id=246&tid=45, César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Lab, V. G. (2015, November 13). “Femininity is a social construct after all. Words like delicate, soft, and pretty are a few of them. Sure, it was “just hair,” but I knew that she removed hers. Lye-based relaxers, which contain the caustic alkaline agent sodium hydroxide, can cause severe burns to the skin as well as irritation to the nose, throat, and respiratory tract. However, unlike a 24-inch waist or longer legs, science has made this feminine ideal easily attainable for us, packaged in colourful boxes lining the shelves of countless stores and hair salons. Lack of body hair is part of an ideal of femininity that many strive for, influenced by movies, advertisements, and pornography, which sometimes manipulate images to digitally remove hair. While some feminine men and boys are meant to be (or become) female—to fully and truly live as women and girls, there are many whose embodiment of the feminine is found within their maleness. Here are our tips on how to look feminine with short hair, and how to look feminine with pixie cut. My armpit hair grew in soft and light and I found that I actually liked that part of my body so much more with hair than without. Unfortunately, society has attached words like “difficult” and “ugly” to kinky hair, and “soft, beautiful and feminine” to straight hair. And it wasn’t just Julia. The problem of hair relaxers is a complicated and multi-faceted one that cannot simply be fixed by telling black women about the health risks they face in their search for straight hair. Accessible Spaces: A Fragrance-Free Toolkit, Research Excellence Award for UCLA Associate Professors, Black Feminism Initiative Graduate Fellowships, Jean Stone Dissertation Research Fellowship, Penny Kanner Dissertation Research Fellowship, IJS Fund for International and Undocumented Graduate Students, Elizabeth Blackwell, MD, Undergraduate Award, Survey: Fragranced Products on the UCLA Campus, Faculty and Graduate Student Working Group, Thinking Gender 2019: Feminists Confronting the Carceral State, Thinking Gender 2020: Sexual Violence as Structural Violence…, Policy Brief: Addressing Sexual Violence, Reshaping Institutions, Achieving Justice: Shelter, Intersectionality, and Sexual Harassment Policy, BFI Faculty-Graduate Working Group Members, Dishing: Food, Feminism, and the Way We Eat, Edible Feminisms: On Discard, Waste, and Metabolism, Feminism + the Senses: Breaking the Silence on Hooking Up, Feminism + the Senses: Weaving Generations Together, Women’s Social Movement Activities in Los Angeles, Thinking Gender 2021: Care, Mutual Aid, and Reproductive Labor in a Time of Crisis, Reports on Equity at UCLA and in Academia, Co-authorship and Collaboration: Resources for Feminist Scholars, Studying Gender and Sexuality at Other Institutions. Yet I continued shaving all throughout junior high and high school, just … because. And thinner hair may not be ideal, but at least it gets us jobs. 325 likes. I was quite androgynous-looking, with short hair, ugly glasses, and wearing very plain clothes. Regular shaving was a pain, took more time than I was willing to set aside for it, and I found that I actually didn’t mind what my legs looked like with hair — though I couldn’t stand the in-between prickly phase. There is … http://doi.org/10.4103/0974-7753.114710, Toxic Substances Portal – Sodium Hydroxide. Everything about me screams ultra femme. I never got in touch with my sweet and … Then I entered college and discovered that it didn’t really have to be that way. Clearly hair removal mattered. Because it was what everyone else was doing and it was expected of me. My feet will sport some strappy sandal or a tall wedge. “You’re too young. Your email address will not be published. I saw all different types of women — not just the hippie granola stereotype — proudly showing off their body hair. A few days before I left for overnight camp, I played my last card, my last desperate attempt at finally having hair-free legs. I soon grew more confident and would wear a t-shirt or skirt and see what would happen. Please let me do this.” My mother, exasperation written all over her face, finally caved. Enjoy your stay :). But my mother wouldn’t budge. Moisturize and practice regular skincare techniques to maintain blemish-free skin. • Femininity: History shows that hair is a symbol of femininity. Here are 6 of the Best Horror Movies to Binge, Thinking About Getting a Pet In Lockdown? For users of both lye and no-lye relaxers, there is a high risk of dermal absorption of the toxic chemicals in these relaxers because of the scalp lesions and burns that often form during treatment. They say the "short hair removes obvious femininity and replaces it with style", but you need to know how to make that happen. Because despite how comfortable I am with my own diverse body hair choices, I also know I’m outside the norm. And for too many black women, this exposure continues regularly for decades. Because your hair … 50 were here. Unrealistic standards of beauty and femininity have always forced women to put themselves through potentially harmful processes, and the prevalence of hair relaxer amongst black women is just another manifestation of this norm. It is well known that hair relaxers can have undesired effects on the hair itself, such as making hair lighter over time, making hair more prone to breakage, and causing hair thinning or even hair loss. The flowers and cream lace of the dress indicate femininity and delicacy. During the civil war when women weren’t to battle, hundreds of women soldiers disguised themselves as men by cutting off their hair, … And then, I discovered that when it came to other aspects of body hair — namely “down there” — I preferred a much more groomed look. For many black women, our unattainable marker of femininity is related to the long, flowing hair that we see everywhere but in the mirror; the sassy hair flip that doesn’t come in your feminine package when your hair … Nail Enhancements. As a land grant institution, UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin, So. Here are some interesting links for you! A: Being feminine is a character-trait; definitely not dictated by the length of your hair. The paradoxical societal constraints of gender often rears it’s head when conversations about body hair occur. My armpit hair grew in soft and light and I found that I actually liked that part of my body so much more with hair than without. Chemical Hair Relaxers Have Adverse Effects a Myth or Reality.International Journal of Trichology, 5(1), 26–28. As a result, chemical burns on our scalps have almost become a ubiquitous part of the black female experience, something we can all bond over. Sometimes, I just can’t help but flaunt it. I was 11-years-old and ready for this next step into womanhood, or so I thought. While it is easy to read off a list of health problems caused by relaxers, this does little to address the deep-seated issue at hand. An overview of chemical straightening of human hair: technical aspects, potential risks to hair fibre and health and legal issues. Find a skincare … I started experimenting, letting my leg and armpit hair grow over the winter when nobody would really see it anyway. “If you don’t let me do it now, I’ll just do it at camp, and then I’ll probably do it wrong or hurt myself. Long hair is an indicator of youth, in part, because long hair … They start wearing their hair short and forget about jewelry or other things that make them feminine … I was already rocking a training bra — itchy, tight, white cotton that covered my barely budding breasts — so why couldn’t I do something about the hair on my legs? It’s a good idea for a pixie haircut to boost the effect from layers with an undercut, … In this article Marcy discusses some male feminization steps that can be used to create a more convincing feminine … Because of the temporary nature of heat straightening, other methods are necessary for women who desire permanently straight hair, and this is where hair relaxers come in. (2014, October 21). 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