soydulcedeleche:thestrals-:midwest-monster:newwavefeminism:onionjulius:
Newwavefeminism:
I’m still in college - a liberal arts one at that, so i’ve never fully experienced the professional world and what pressures women of color face when it comes to the work force. What I do know is that I do hear a lot of women of color…
So interesting, and sad.
really interesting discussion.
i’ve recently done a lot of reading around feminist beauty theories, a lot of which talk about the need to embody and project ‘control’ aesthetically. This includes being seen to be dieting, having a lean, firm figure, having flaw-free skin etc, and this threory could extend as well to hair.
Curly hair is coded in that it’s seen as wild, unkempt, frizzy, uncontrollable etc, especially for WOC. Having very curly hair makes you visible as a woman who is in some way rejecting or ignoring the societal pressure to assimilate to a smooth, controlled image; a ‘rebellion’ and therefore unprofessional.
uhhhh you missed the point that the “controlled”, professional image is the image of a WHITE WOMAN. and the antithesis of that…the “uncontrolled” unprofessional picture of that is a BLACK womans hair.
this “beauty” theory shit. no
this=white supremacy. and its how WOC experience it.
think about that when you butt in to theorize and gloss over the whole point of it, which is that white women (the more nordic the better) are the default acceptable women in society, k?
I’m white, and I have naturally curly hair, and I can say, I do get the impression when I wear my hair curly, it’s not seen as professional. In fact, I never really thought about it before, but I’ve never worn my hair curly to a job interview, probably because I’ve internalized that it comes off as a little “wild.” I always wear it either straightened or pulled back. The exception to this is if you have glossy, controlled curls like this, which most of us with naturally curly hair can’t achieve without straightening our hair and using a ton of de-frizzing product first. (My hair would kink up to its natural curls in about an hour, regardless.)
THAT BEING SAID, I know without a doubt WOC have a much more difficult time with their curls than I do. While they can similarly pull off the glossy, controlled curls like this and still read as professional by most employers/clients, most of the time, any natural hair style will be viewed as unprofessional. Even when it’s short. Even when the curls are glossy. (Some of the things white women can do to mitigate the wildness of their hair.) Women of color are strongly expected to emulate white women’s fashion, hair style, etc. in order to be viewed as professional, because just the fact of being black often subconsciously triggers views in many white employers’/clients’ mind that this person might not be capable of professionalism (as awful as that sounds, it’s completely true.) Professionalism in America is strongly dependent upon the ability to perform a certain sort of whiteness.
I think a big part of why the tight, frizzy, gravity-defying curls of even white women are read as unprofessional or eccentric is specifically because of its associations with black or non-white hair. Loose curls are one thing, but the tight curls…it’s usually seen as being “exotic,” “ethnic” or “other.” On white women, I think it hits the exotic/sexy note (for young, attractive women) or eccentric note (for older women or those who don’t meet conventional beauty standards) precisely because of the otherness of curly hair and the fact that it’s associated with non-white people. While white women can rely on their white skin to help overcome the “weirdness” of their hair, though, women of color can’t.