The struggle is real! I often hear my friends say this when they refer to their natural hair struggles. Before I go on, let me introduce myself. My name is Roxanne and I too have natural hair. But my natural hair, is not the same as my friend Tidi’s natural hair. Unlike mine, hers is very curly almost in coils. It appears soft and is now in locks. She says, there is less maintenance demands that way.

The history

Now that we have that out of the way, let us look on what is termed the struggle with natural hair. Is it actually real? Does the fight also needs to be won mentally? Is the struggle unique to afro textured hair? Let’s unpack that a bit. I know, we can never exhaust this topic but we can at least unpack it, bit by bit .

Looking at where we are coming from, hair has always played a large part in self-expression. In many African cultures, hair was celebrated and often symbolised a person’s status socially, economically, their gender and marital status. So it was never just hair back then, until most of Africa was colonised.

A lot African black people were forced into slavery, some shipped to overseas plantations and others in their own countries. In South Africa, the Apartheid government was instituted whose main purpose was to separate races, tribes and cultures. The African blacks were dehumanized and looked down upon and the idea was to stomp out their cultures to replace them with a more Western one. Actually, wipe out their identity as a people so as to assimilate them into the Western way of living.

It was often implied that to be taken seriously and be respected, one needed to conform to what white people considered normal and proper, to conform to Eurocentric standards. It was expected for everyone to speak English or Afrikaans, dress in Western clothes and look as close to white people as possible.

Eurocentric beauty standards

For a black woman to be considered pretty, she had to look like a white woman with a small, sharp nose, pale skin and, most notably, with straight hair. For years, it has been drilled into women that to be beautiful you have to change yourself to conform to these European beauty standards.

Many black women used damaging relaxers to straighten their hair, bleached their skin to look more pale and have gone under the knife several times just to conform to what they now think beauty is. The apartheid government might be gone now, but the effects are still so very present to this day. Mainstream media is still perpetuating these standards even today. Lead actresses are generally white or light-skinned, and every time you scroll, there’s a new trend emphasizing white features.

Even young children are conditioned to think that their natural, textured hair is a bad thing. Black women who wear natural hairstyles are heavily stereotyped. Their hair is considered messy and unprofessional and often carries negative connotations. Women in workplaces and girls in schools are consistently undermined and underestimated just for how they look.

Do you remember the Pretoria High School for Girls fiasco? The girls held a protest against the racism they were experiencing. Several racist messages had been spread around the student body. The girls were discouraged from speaking their home languages during break time and they were restricted when it came to styling their natural hair.

Many dress codes and company policies are very restrictive for people with African hair, and despite the laws against this, it continues to happen not just in South Africa, but around the world. Black women especially have to fight to be perceived as professional and to be respected by their coworkers, despite being equal to them. There are very few black women in professions like politics, higher education and in roles of leadership because they are so discriminated against.

Psychological effects

Which brings to mind the mental part of the struggle with natural hair for my afro textured sisters. To always fight for space on the table, get noticed for promotions and be taken seriously in the corporate world, is exhausting. It is so much easier to give in and conform. At least pick a struggle, right!

And the people you see in high positions of power and influence somehow shape your ideas of success. So the young girls are also drawn to this weird aspect of what is good hair and self-acceptance, based on what the successful people around them look like. Is it that we always want what we don’t have?

I had an eye opening experience with a little girl about two years ago. I was a leader at a children’s camp, and while we were sitting around the little girl was playing with my hair. I remember her saying, she wished she had straight hair. She had the cutest little braids with purple beads and I thought they were so cool. I tried to tell her that her hair was lovely just the way it was, but she wouldn’t hear me. She kept shrugging it off, insisting that she still wanted smooth, straight hair. Just like mine.

I imagine that little girl, 10 years from now. Will she love her whole self, warts and all or she is going to struggle? I think this where some of the struggles with natural begin.

If you don’t mind standing out, and you have afro hair, you can wear it the way it is. The struggle comes in the expectations between what one wants the hair to do and what it actually does. Because, apparently natural has its own mind. And I think this is across the board. Some are fighting with frizz and others with shrinkage. Yah, that is a struggle for real.

These racist ideas and Eurocentric standards don’t only affect how other people view black women but also how they view themselves. Many women have internalized these ideals, and struggle to see the beauty in their natural features. This can lead to very low confidence, low self-esteem and sometimes feelings of shame surrounding their hair. A study found that African American women are disproportionately insecure about their hair when compared to the insecurities that white women have.

However, African hair is not the only hair that people can perceive as unprofessional. Many people with smoother textures still have to put a lot of work into keeping their hair neat to fit into dress codes. Some people will use heat to style their hair daily, either straightening it or trying to add more volume and waves. This can cause hair to become very brittle and unmanageable. Many ladies also frequently comb their hair back which can exacerbate frizz and ruin natural curl patterns. A different battle, but struggling still.

The natural hair movement

This is why the natural hair movement is so important. It inspires confidence in how women look and empowers them to wear their natural hair the way it is. Without the pressure of the need to conform to what mainstream media is pushing. It destigmatizes textured hair and encourages people to be proud of their hair and ultimately, be proud of their culture and history. There is so much damage that’s been done by colonialism, and the natural hair movement is one of the ways we can fight the injustices that it carried with it. Natural hair should be celebrated!

African women are beautiful, and their hair is too.