I read about the Dove CROWN Act the same afternoon as I was squirming while on video because my hair did not sit quite right compared to other that of other women who were on the call. I have long forgotten that my hair was once considered beautiful and I received a lot of compliments for it. That was back in India and ofcourse I was way younger. Adjusted to age, my hair is still nice. I think deep down I understand this to be a fact - it is not such a big surprise, Indian women do have the best hair in the world. So why do I feel so unsettled each time I am on video and something is every so slightly off with my naturally wavy hair that I don't like to use any products on.
I don't want to change anything about it - don't want my hair to look like someone else's hair. I love what I have but each day it brings me some low level of anxiety around other people who don't have my kind of hair. I have a lot of sympathy for any woman whose hair is viewed as distracting. I see mine as a bit of distracting and unprofessional in comparison with the baseline hair that is common in this country's average workplace setting. I expect that others view it the same way and there is a value judgement attached to it. Each time I use a flat iron on my hair, I feel like a sell-out and also ugly. That flat straight conforming hair is not what God intended for me and it simply does not look right. I need to become an uglier version of myself in order to fit better and that has not stopped hurting with over two decades of practice.
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