Like many women, most of my life I’ve had the pleasure of pretty privilege. This isn’t something I say with pride but it is my truth. While I wasn’t dependent on my looks to get me any specific thing or anywhere in life having “a pretty face” made being a fat girl in rural Georgia a little easier. As I grew and begin to understand life I intentionally focused on being smart because I didn’t want to be just a pretty face. Despite my desire to be more, I still can honestly say I bought into society’s beauty standards in a major way.
Societal ideals about hair had me in a chokehold for a long time because God forbid I be fat with nappy hair. For years, I slapped creamy crack on my beautiful thick 4C hair in an effort to meet those standards. There was a point in my life in which I relaxed my hair by weekly just to feel my hair looked as others said it should. Even after I made the decision to transition my hair back to its natural state, I still wasn’t unapologetic about that decision, so I hid my natural hair with wigs and weaves that gave me the bone straight hair that was pretty. In hindsight, there is nothing logical about any of this but that normally the order of operation; you do something dumb, you gain greater knowledge from your mistakes and then you shake your head at yourself. However, the fact is conversations around hair have haunted Black women since the beginning of time and I wasn’t any different. According to the good book, a woman hair was her glory and shouldn’t be cut. Then only fast women colored their hair, if your hair was too short you were lesbian and locs were a hell no for women who were classy, feminine, ladylike or professional.
Influence is defined as the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something. Personally I believe everyone has influence in some manner although there are those of us who profit from our influence which in some was amplifies its importance to others. To be honest I’m not sure who influenced the surge in women transitioning to locs. I can only speak for myself in saying I was tired of conforming to meet standards that would only find me further away from who I truly was and still not fully embraced. Maybe the credit goes to was celebrities like Halle & Chloe, Ava DuVernay, Willow Smith, and Ledisi. Perhaps the change happened when locticians became more creative with loc styles. Maybe The CROWN Act, helped women make the transition because it allowed them freedom from workplace discrimination. Or maybe they took a page from my book and said f$&k society and its beauty standards. No matter the cause, our minds have matured (like some 1-year-old starter locs), and I love that for us. Locs are beautiful, there offer an array of style options, most of all the make a statement about the individuals that rock them.
I embarked on my loc journey 5 years ago during a very critical time in my life. I was in the midst of physical, emotional and spiritual journeys and it was apart of my healing process. I was growing in in ways I never thought possible and I felt that growth should include my hair growing freely into itself. I definitely credit my loc journey with influencing my heightened sense of self, positive energy, and mental and emotional growth.
1 Corinthians 11:15 (But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering) may have influenced one of society’s most problematic beauty standards to date. However, women with locs are no longer buying into that notion, we choosing to do whatever we are moved to do with our hair including starting locs, cutting our locs to start a new set if they feel their journey has been compromised. In my opinion, this shows how profound the relationship between locs and the women who choose to take the journey, especially when considering society’s beauty standards regarding a woman’s hair.
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