My hair is big, and that’s the way I like it. A curly bushel of afro fuzz that extends both horizontally and vertically, casting a shadow over my face. It’s Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, and Pam Grier big, coming in the door before I do.
So when my boyfriend at the time remarked that he would like it if I weren’t so “extra,” I thought about it. Changing my hair was no biggie, I wore it straight sometimes, curly most of the time, and I loved accentuating my hair with colored pieces. When I’m lazy I wear wigs. I think I went through 10 hairstyles within a month of meeting him. I could have just written him off and refused to straighten my hair, but I remembered that I had asked him to grow out his facial hair because I loved the feel of it on my face and between my fingers. I flat-ironed my hair and it blew in my face getting stuck in my lip gloss when the car window was open. So I went back to curly.
And that was when the power wars began. It started simply enough: he would remark about other women’s hair saying that they looked like domestics or revolutionaries with no war. He even got on a tirade about how women had recently let themselves go. He commented on how he didn’t feel attracted to me when I wore my hair a certain way. I wasn’t wearing my hair any kind of way, I just took out my weave and was combing out my ‘fro.
I believed then that it was my boyfriend’s right to have a preference on what he liked and didn’t like, as did I. I loved when he had a five o’clock shadow and disliked it bare, but liked his face nonetheless. So I mistakenly took it as voicing his opinion. It was when he told me that he found my hair unattractive and began to withhold his affection that I realized there was a much bigger issue. He refused to touch my hair, the hair that naturally grew out of my scalp. I understand that society is conditioned to desire hair that blows in the wind. Personally I find that annoying, but what hurt was that the only times I received compliments was when I blew out my hair or wore straight weave. The kicker was that I had to duck and dodge fingers from random men and women clamoring to put their hands in my natural hair. I would get walk-by touches and people would comment on how soft my hair was or how wonderful it smelled. But I couldn’t get the man I was in a relationship with to run his fingers through my hair.
The moment of clarity arrived on a day when we were in a store and a man came over to compliment on my hair. He stood there and held out his hands touching the air as if to imagine what my hair might feel like. “Do people ask you to touch it often?” he asked. “It’s just so pretty all I want to do is touch it.” Right there I realized the level of intimacy I was missing.
After this event I questioned how a man with similar hair as mine could hate the look of my natural hair so much. How could he accept his hair without accepting mine? I tried to imagine being married to him and having a daughter with the same hair and the negative words that would be bestowed upon her impressionable head.
He didn’t accept me.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that men are visual and at times they see their women as an extension of themselves, a trophy. I’m finding that a lot of relationships nowadays start off with a man who says that he wants no drama and a woman who is real and comfortable with herself, but then what it comes down to is a bunch of superficial qualifications and hypocrisy. It’s like some men are saying that they can love you only as long as you are just as you are right now. God forbid if you gained a pound or got a haircut, yet the woman is expected to be understanding if that same man lost his hair or attained a beer belly. Relationships have to be more than a list of traits and qualities people want to see laying next to them.
Our relationship did not end because of my hair, but instead because of his belief that he should be allowed to control my appearance. If his love for me was based on how my hair was styled, that wasn’t love. If I bent to change everything about me with each relationship what of me would be left? I could meet a guy who didn’t like my eye color so I’d get contacts, then meet a man who didn’t like my skin and I’d go to bed with makeup on, and then the next man who wanted me to go under the knife for breast implants because my small bust just wasn’t enough.
As a woman you have to find peace within yourself and recognize what you have and accept it. You must refuse to spend your time and energy conforming to some man’s unrealistic expectations of you, when he gets to be himself all day every day.