Society Beauty Stigmas: How I Overcame Them

Okay, so the title is a bit pretentious. I can’t sit here and honestly say I’ve won the battle of societal beauty stigmas in on fell swoop after being subjected to them for well over thirty years. I can say, however, that with each inch of new growth, my confidence in and acceptance of my authentic self is increasing. I mean, I not a very cosmetic person to begin with, but when it came to my hair, I was deeply locked into the stereotypes attached to what’s considered our “crowing glory”. Straight was where “it” was at, and nappy was crappy. Far be it for me to buck the system, so when I first began transitioning, there was not a moment when I was in the public eye that I did not have something done to my hair, or at least have it covered. I just wasn’t up to dealing with the stares and the comments I was sure would accompany me. Hey… I lived in Detroit, the hair captial of the world and honestly… natural hair is not as much as the cat’s meow there as one would think.

But what’s funny is, the only reason I anticipated that type of feedback was because it was truly what I’d been “trained” to believe myself. Even though I’d committed myself to taking this journey, I still held certain negative views about the whole thing. Without relaxers to smooth my thick and wavies, I honestly didn’t feel beautiful. This belief was so deep that even when I was home, around my children and the man I’d been married to for eight years, I kept my hair covered because I was that ashamed of it in its natural state. At the time there was no one in my circle who could relate, since every last one of my friends were as hooked on relaxers as I had been. I’d joined Nappturality.com but was too intimidated by the members who had fully embraced their nappiness, because it made me feel like a faker just going through the motions. So I mainly just lurked without reaching out to other members who might have played mentor to what I was going through.

As you can see, I had a lot of anxiety to work through in order to get the the point where I am now. The first step was to seriously assess why I’d made the decision to transition in the first place. Honestly, it was because Penzi requested (more like passively demanded *lol*) that I stopped perming my hair, but he’d made some very convincing arguments that got me to consider how much healthier going natural was for my hair,so I was easily swayed. I liked the idea of hair that wasn’t brittle and didn’t break off because it was weak. In addition to that, because I’m Neo-Pagan, going natural seemed like an outward expression of my inner faith, honouring my walk as a nature based witch, just as the Lord and Lady made me. So I had my reasons, which realistically had nothing to do with whether or not society accepted my choice or not.

The next step was reacquainting myself with my hair; learning what it liked and didn’t like; becoming accustomed to its look and feel. I came to learn that despite my worst fears, my natural hair grade was not as coiled as I’d previously thought, and didn’t take much to maintain. As I began to see it grow and take shape after several trims, I began to develop a newfound respect for my natural hair and for how beautiful it really is. This is turn helped to change my idea about myself in the aspect that if my hair is beautiful, and it is attached to my head, then I must be beautiful too. Of course I got a lot of encouragement from Penzi in that area, because even with as good as I was beginning to feel about the process, I still would not go out in public without having my hair wrapped up. *lol*

I think what really got me on the “screw society’s standards” bandwagon was last month, after I picked my hair out for the first time and braved a walk to the store sans my security wrap. It was late at night, so there wasn’t any fear of negative feedback from a large amount of people. But it was a big step for me because I knew someone other than me, my children, and Penzi would be privy to my heavily guarded secret. Much to my relief, the experience was no different than the other time I’ve been to the store, and this gave me confidence to take more and more trips with my hair out… all of which have been positive experiences, thankfully. Well, unless you count today when I was walking into Sally’s and some woman exclaimed, “Damn! Yeah she really needs to go in there. An Afro? She needs to do something with that!” *smdh* There’s always one, right? I just went on about my beauty supply business as my natural hair idol sang “Hate on Me” in my head

I guess the thing I had to learn is, it does not matter what anyone else thinks about me and my decision to give up conforming to who I was told I should be. What matters is who I know I AM, and who I AM is a woman who’s learning to love herself from the inside out. Nothing shows that more than accepting myself from the soles of my feet, to the tips of my natural hair. As I said in the beginning, I’m not completely recovered from the snow job the media and modern society have done to me when it comes to misconceptions of what is beauty. There are days when I look in the mirror and I question my decision because my hair doesn’t lay like every one else’s and I can not longer wear the styles I used to rock. There are days when I catch myself making mental statements towards other natural sistah and their styles of choice, like the one hurled at me today. But, all in all, I’m working on that part of the process, and making headway with each passing second by telling myself that the hair I was born with is the hair I was meant to have… and that it is way more beautiful than anything society can try to convince me of, or sell to me in a chemically based kit.

Blessed Be…

Idadi