By Christabel of Chys Curlz
I’ve been thinking of developing this story for a while now. It is the story of how girls were/are made to wear their hair shaved from grade to high school both in Ghana and in Nigeria.
A little back story, I was born Nigerian and grew up in Nigeria until I was 10 years old when we moved to start a new life in Ghana. Since I spent most of my formative years in Ghana, that became more home to me than Nigeria was. There are many similarities between the two countries and one is the rule to have young girls wear a TWA until they graduate from high school.I think the reasoning behind it is the same as there is for wearing uniforms. It ensures homogeneity,also, the girls who could not afford to get their hair braided did not have the pressure to spend the money and thirdly, everyone looked “neat” and “presentable”. Now, that is not to say it was right or wrong, just giving the possible reasons.
As far as I can tell, this practice was mostly the case in public schools. I noticed that many (not all) private schools permitted their female students to wear their hair at whatever length they wanted as long as it was braided up neatly. The only girls who were exempt from this rule (public and private school) were those who were biracial. There weren’t many girls who were biracial, but those who were, got to wear their hair long. Again, as a little girl, you don’t think anything of it. You just knew that their hair was “prettier” and more “manageable” than yours and it wasn’t a big deal. You didn’t read meaning into it (at least not consciously), you just accepted it.
I remember our final year of high school, many girls (me included) will grow their hair out but will tie it down with a scarf overnight to encourage the maximum shrinkage to avoid being punished (spanked) by a teacher. We did this because we knew that once school was out, we were going to get our first relaxers…good times 🙂
That’s me with the bandanna and our senior year of HS 🙂
This practice did not seen like such a big deal to me when I was growing up, but as I get older and upon going natural, I’ve been thinking about how it affected my love or lack thereof of my natural hair. You see, most of my Friends are Nigerian or Ghanaian and most of them – if not all – sport relaxers and will not let go for anything (although I’ve convinced 7 including my mama to BC yay! #teamnatural). But why is this the case though? Why is it that after growing up without relaxers we hold on to it so strongly. Many of the experiences I read on blogs pertaining to natural hair are those of African-American women. They relate how they got their first perm at 4,5,6, or thereabouts. The stories go on to say that since relaxers was the norm for them, they just kept getting them until their decision to either BC or transition.
My question is this, why after having two very different and distinct experiences do African -American and African woman have this reluctance to let go of the relaxer?
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I would also like to add that I think most AAs think that africa and Africans have preserved their culture and it is still pure. That is why they get shocked when they go there. I don’t blame them but what they need to understand is that african cutlure and our mentality has been highly contaminated we have our history of being colonized and even after colonialism we still battle with infusion of western mentality and culture as superior to our own. For instance where I come from in tanzania there are places which have tribes which are highly arabic and indian infused because they have been there for decades so obviously those areas cant have pure african culture or tradition. And later when capitalism was introduced to our country people accepted everything shown on the media from the west as valid only because people from the west seem richer and more educated than us so they must be right, kind of mentality. So we never questioned anything and just imitated everything. In this way we have lost most of our culture and traditions and the only traditions that remain are very few and far apart. Actually when I went to the US and met african americans I was very impressed with their sense of love for africa and african things because in my country especially the city I came from we do not value our way of dressing or any traditions and culture we think it is inferior and therefore bad. For instance I learned of kwanzaa the first time when I was in america. And in our history we are not taught anything about the african american history or their battles someone correct me if Im wrong but I dont think african americans really learn about the african history either. so we know nothing except from what we see shown on the tv which in our case MTV, BET etc and on the other side its CNN etc I guess what I am trying to say is the reason perhaps Africans and African Americans do not understand each other is because we both have different ideas in our head of what the other is all about which is not the reality or is actually false and so because of this realization we become disappointment about each other and actually carry some sort of resentment. While in actuality we both have our own demons we are fighting.
I would actually wager that the practice of having school girls wear their hair short is an outgrowth of the practice of forcing newly enslaved African women to cut their hair. It all comes from colonialism and white supremacy. It was a way to destroy the pride and confidence that the colonists viewed as our arrogance about our crowning glory. It sent a clear message that we were unacceptable and ugly as is, in order to get us in the mindset of changing to suit the oppressor’s taste. Only those who where already acceptable (meaning mixed) were/are exempt. It was NEVER about appearing neat, but we bought it, under the false guise of homogeneity, along with the wearing of uniforms and other European education accouterments.
This is not some huge mystery. We have historical documentation of this in country after country. Why then do we ask if a girl spends all of her primary education years shaving her hair because its bad, why she would be resistant to growing it out later?
Subliminal messages is more extensive than you think. It’s basically everywhere. It’s true that there were 2 different experiences, but yet the message was the same. Afro textured hair is inferior, it’s ugly, and it somehow doesn’t measure up and have to remain hidden. Programming others from an early age is what this system is about. It can be passed on from adults who have been programmed to young ones who are now coming up, and it shapes their views about how they view themselves and what they have and even how they fit in. I remember someone saying years ago that many of us are walking around in a hypnotic state, and it’s true, when we are told things for a long time – even though it’s not true, after a while many people start to believe it although the evidence says otherwise. The mind is an organ that needs to protected, and it can be shaped and molded by others for good and also for bad.
After living in South Africa for almost 6 years, in my personal opinion, most South African women or men for that matter, don’t know how to take care of their hair. This is not an attack, but a fact. My 3 year old son has 4C hair and no one understands why he has long, thick, healthy hair. I had to buy a detangler brush over the Internet in the UK, could not find one here that would not break his hair. In terms of products, same thing, so I had to end up mixing Shea butter and oils in my blender to moisturize his hair and scalp. When I get asked the question ” how is his hair so healthy ? ” believe me, I have been asked many, many times by both men and women, and when I try to explain his daily hair regimen, I can see that puzzled look on their faces thinking, ” what is she talking about !?!?! ” Shea Butter ?, silk head wrap to sleep ?, Co-wash ?, Hair steamer ?, etc, etc They don’t know any better because they just never were told how to take care of their hair, like their mothers and grandmothers didn’t, it’s a generational issue, the knowledge was never passed on to them by a parent. I’m not saying no one in this country knows how to treat their natural hair, but the amount of people that do know is very little. 99% of the women and girls you see have relaxed their hair.
I traveled to Senegal(West Africa) a few years ago. I was baffled by the effect our culture has on the young women there. YouTube and their own version of BET aided their quest to emulate what we do in America.
The great trade relationships between China and many African countries explained their source of low priced weave. Everywhere in the bigger cities, near half the young women had the $9.99 hot red/jet black weave sets.
I thought I was back in the hood.
It had me asking the same question though. Why?
The article is very interesting. “…why after having two very different and distinct experiences do African -American and African woman have this reluctance to let go of the relaxer?” It can be hard to break ANY habit as a human being, no matter where you’re from. After having had something most of your life (or even just a fraction of it), *to me* it’s understandable that separating from it can be difficult. Even if you’ve desired something for a long time and finally got it, I can understand the difficulty in letting go then too. Also, it could be a subconscious desire to fit in to the European standard of beauty, etc…It could be ANYTHING! Either way, changing starts in the mind.
SN: It’s interesting how a lot of topics on this site birth heated discussions/debates. What happened to coming in, getting and SHARING some knowledge/entertainment/enlightenment and talking to other sisters who share a common thread?
Amo, amo Make Up ai esta um pouquinho do gosto de fazer!!!
I foud this article extremely intriguing . Im Canadian but my moms from south africa and my dads jamaican , now my mom is white so I have curly long hair. But growing up my mom had no clue how to do my hair, she never permed it or anything however she did take me to hair dressers both “african” and “carribean” and they always wanted to perm my hair or texturize it, my mom refused however I did get it straightened a lot and as a result my hair broke off and ended up to a bit shorter then shoulder length as I grew up I learnt how to take care of my hair, but I had to discover this on my own. From my experiences from my dads side of the family who were black they didn’t know how to take care of their hair properly and damaged it immensly. When it comes to having natural hair I’m definitly all about it but I can admit growing up it was hard because my mom always had long straight hair which I saw as better then mine, although she always told me I had beautiful hair and she was “jealous” of it. In my personal opinion I think that black/african women grow up believing that straight hair is beautiful. I just wish that they could understand that some people would kill to have curly hair or hair like ours! My mom made me realize this! I think that more education and more appreciation should be given towards the awesomness of black hair! And I believe that when a black women has healthy hair that they are the most lucky , I mean their hair is so strong and so different I sometimes evny women who are of full black decent because my hairs very fragile eventhough it is healthy! Black women weather they be from africa,america,canada,UK or whereever should embrace what they have ! Its a gift not a burden and should be seen as such!
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TO SUM IT UP. ALTHOUGH WE ARE IN DIFFERENT PLACES WE ENCOUNTER THE SAME STIGMAS AND NEGATIVITY. SO TO ARGUE ABOUT THIS IS INSANITY SEEING AS TO HOW WE ALL EXPERIENCE THE SAME STUFF. SOME WOMEN TAKE CARE OF THEIR HAIR , SOME DONT SOME LIKE THE COLOR GREEN SOME DON’T ETC ETC…… TO GET A TRUE SOLUTION YOU MUST TRUTHFULLY FACE THE PROBLEM. BRAIN WASHING.
Agree Black is Black!… However, “You cant really compare Africans and African American hair practices without understanding the history, the current state of the societies and the people”… I am African: Dad is senegalese and mauritanian/arabic, mom is ivorian, malian and French…
Grew up in Ivory Coast…I can say that it is not a generality that africans dont value their hair… Actually I would say that most would love to have long/healthy hair but dont know how to properly take care of the hair, and may have never seeing their natural hair healthy(so they may believe black dont have long hair)… After all, there is not as much research done on it in Africa( this is mostly due to our lack of dependence from the colonizators, yes in 2011 it is even worst), and to the fact that most hair dressers dont have access to as much education…Good news is we are waking up and fighting with our lives to build countries that will have their own infrastructures! If water and electricity are distributed by a french company, who do you think will educate on hair??? So I am very disturbed that someone that lived in senegal will make such statements?!?Also, lower income african women cannot afford more than braiding hair with Threads…
And let’s try to understand each other…Let’s not forget that each one of us decided to go natural for multiple reasons after doing some reasearch and understanding the benefit!
Last but not least a lot of African Am woman damage their hair on youtube, or in salons everyday.. but we cant generalize on that…
FYI: Butthe only time i saw girl cutting their in school was when they were going to catholic sisters school or when parents could not afford to take care of it…mixed girls were not exampt… but your experience is strange…sorry about that…
i think the practice of keeping hair very short til after high school is practised everywhere in Africa save for the international schools because i come from Uganda and it’s the same story here. when i graduated high school, i was so eager to relax my hair though i met a lot of resistance from my relatives because all of them are natural. for me the pressure to relax my hair came from from my friends who felt it was cool to have relaxed hair and not otherwise. In Africa i would say people relax hair their hair mainly because those who don’t are seen as broke (can’t afford to look good) or villagers(hope you get what i mean) so if someone wants to look modern they will either relax their hair or resort to weaves. recently i decided to go natural after realising that chemicals had sucked all the life out of my hair and i wish i had not succumbed to that pressure 6years ago. funny thing is most men encourage us to stay natural because they say relaxed hair is usually too oily for them to touch. the people who are tight on their relaxers probably are still believing in the fallacy that African hair is bad and should not be left in it’s natural form. but i believe in both groups (Africans and African-Americans) there are lots of women who have decided to go natural, so i don’t think many of us are really holding tight onto our relaxers…..
It could be for many reasons. My mom never put a blow dryer to my hair till I was 10. I never got a relaxer. I also used a hot comb or a straightener. As an Black person, I love wearing my hair curly and straight. I frequently go back and forth between the two. I agree that there is a large number of Black women who do not know how to take care of it, I am still learning myself. I think the reason why, in my opinion, why Black women want straight hair is because of media and how our history of Black women. I mean the way I look at that, all our lives we see that straight is beautiful, because it grows long and its easier to take care of. If you are constantly seeing that, then of course you want to fit in or do the latest fashion. I wish instead of relaxing, they would just use heat, because its better than a relaxer and less damaging.
I have never thought of the differences of hair care between African women and African American women. I myself, was born and raised here in America. From a young age, my mom relaxed my hair & I never questioned it because that was just what I knew? It wasn’t until I got older & started to HATE relaxers & I did research that I realized that their are other alternatives. I was so happy to discover that I could just keep my hair natural & it will grow very happily. People look at me with crazy looks because of the length (which can be false because of shrinkage). But not everyone supports a black woman (either she be African or African American), not everyone supports the natural look. I think either way it has a lot to do with how your were raised & what your peers see as beautiful. I see BEAUTY, from the inside and the outside, not just straight hair or curly hair. I see BEAUTY in all things, now that I am natural I am proud of my hair & proud of my heritage, I’m proud of my own BEAUTY! 🙂
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I grew up in Kenya before moving to the US. Here is what i remember.
All through kindergarten and upto 2nd grade, me and my cousin had mid-back non relaxed hair. The regiment was that it was washed every weekend and hot combed or braided. One day when we were in 2nd grade, about halfway through the year, a school assembly was called grades 1-8. The principal then proceeded to call out all the girlw with long hair to the front. Wee were told that the PTA or something to that effect had decided that our displays of long hair were distracting to the other students. This was also likely due to the economic divide ( our parents all had professional jobs ( teachers, nurses etc) while the other kids came mostly from farmer ran households. We were told we had to go home and either cut our hair or transfer to another school. Well you can guess what the parents did. We went home and called mom who was a high school teacher and she came home and said we were not missing school because of hair and she proceeded to cut it all with scissors ( it was not the norm for girls to be sent to the barber shop). Well the scissors left the track marks on the head and we went back to school for afternoon classes. So for the next 6 years, it was all TWA until high school when i started growing my hair again.
The writer was correct in saying that she thought it was meant to equalize everybody in the school.
One can simply say that It’s about what we learn is beautiful. Some women are raised to believe that straight hair is “good hair” & only straight hair is beautiful. I’m glad that my mother didn’t raise me with a negative outlook about my hair. Since I’ve gone natural I’ve inspired two of my sisters to do the same. Being natural & loving your kinky hair requires a certain level of confidence.
I went thorough the same thing while in boarding school in Uganda. I had grown up in Nairobi where having hair at school was allowed. Then we moved to Uganda when I was 14 and was promptly informed I had to shave my head for the next 4 years. As daunting and traumatic as this was, I had no choice.
Upon arriving in New York City at the 19 years old, I had relaxed hair and hated it. One thing I did know is that I did not want to go natural. I changed hairstyles all the time, I had the slick back short look, the micro braids, the coloured short bob – and everything in between.
Then one day I met a girl on the subway who had the most magnificent afro – I wondered how I could get one just like it! This was in 2007, I toyed with the idea of going natural but upon requesting advice from my mum, all she said was, “How dare you even think about it?”. She said having natural hair was a sign of poverty and I would look like I just came fresh off the boat. The next Sunday, before heading off to church, I felt a presence and a need to chop it all off. I borrowed my mum’s scissors, headed to the bathroom and gave myself the worst haircut on earth. I have never felt more liberated! My mum was mortified.
I cared what people thought of my hair, I thought it was a reflection of me as a person. The outside had to be prim and proper, permed hair seemed to achieve that. I was wrong – false admiration is all I got, people who thought I fit it in because at least my hair, resembled theirs. I was tired of fitting in.
This article brought back so many memories of my childhood, adulthood and the continued objection and sometimes acceptance of my hair. It is a journey I am glad I embarked on – I only wish it was sooner. My mum accepts my hair, it took her 4 years but she finally conceded.
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you’re so pretty.
I liked the article a lot. I’m Ghanaian British. I find African hairdressers and those from the Caribbean have a huge love of false hair. I would say the weave is queen here and relaxer comes a close second. The desired look seems to be length or bulk. I just got braids put in for the winter and still think they used too much hair. I also find these sisters seems to care less about the condition of their natural hair, I’m not saying all just the ones I’m coming across in salons and on the street. I’m not sure if the lack of natural hair sported by African women is to do with not loving their hair and more about finding a way to fit into the European standard of appearance. I think a weave says you’ve made it for some people. When I was in Ghana I quite admired that so many of the girls had short hair, I thought it freed them from the good hair trauma so many of us faced in the UK. However, I see too many young teens ruining their healthy hair with weaves in the UK. So until natural afro hair is embraced and afforded the same beauty status as long and straight hair things may not change.
because both cultures require a homogeneity that supresses one’s love and acceptance of their own hair. the culture that the OP speaks of requires girls to shave their hair low so they all look the same, unless they are of mixed decent and maybe have “more manageable” hair. here in the states, although it is not mandatory, it cannot go unnoticed that a sense of homogeneity amongst black girls is attained by most getting relaxers, unless they have “good hair”. the experiences are one in the same, so the outcomes are that as well.
Very interesting story. I had no idea that Nigerian girls had to keep their hair cut short during their school years. I often wondered why most of the African women I know or see in the streets are always wearing weaves (just in my circle of the world but I still find it profound as beleive it or not RI/MA has a good size African community)
With relaxers in the U.S. I think we all have been conditioned to an extent to love straight not kinky hair…even caucasian girls with very curly hair are conditioned to love straight hair and definitely long.
I think because the relaxer plays into the European aesthetics that we have adopted as our own, mostly out of the oppression that we have all faced by the european culture.
Um, this argument makes me roll my eyes because a lot of people ignore the class issue involved. There are a shitload of African women, working class and middle class who have always been natural, whether for religious or cultural reasons. The current trend of embracing natural hair, is all well and good (shoot I like it, so I don’t have to explain my hair to anyone)but it makes me roll my eyes that these women that have been natural all their lives are ignored. I feel that there is a certain way natural hair has to look in the west for it to be palatable, back home there are many many other options, maybe that’s why these women are overlooked? Their reasons for cutting their hair or keeping their hair natural might not be the same as yours but these women exist . Anyhoo as a whole, I find that a lot of African women I have met are less attached to their hair than the Westerners (African American & Black Brits)I have met.
Wow this is a very interesting conversation! I thought it was going to be about the differences of hair care techniques between African and African-American girls but I like this too! 🙂 I never knew that about Nigeria and Ghana so that’s very interesting! I actually kinda like the idea of everyone having to wear their hair short because it also discourages comparisons between young girls which we are plagued with here in this country.
But I wonder though if the reason why so many African girls who end up with a relaxer hold onto it so much is because they are not taught to love their natural hair as we all should. In America-it’s the same. Only now with this new rush of women wearing and loving their natural hair are African American girls learning to love it. When I was growing up, I wasn’t allowed to have a relaxer so my first one was in college and for the years I was in college-I swore by my relaxer. Although my whole life I was natural…but I didn’t “love” my natural hair. I tolerated it. And so maybe that is what the problem is. We need to teach both our African and African-American girls to truly LOVE their hair in it’s beautiful natural state. 🙂 Great post!
interesting! i always wondered why so many women had TWA’s in Africa.
do you think that holding on to the relaxer so tightly (for African women) is possibly … a subconscious rebellion? for so long [all of their school years] they were 1) told they absolutely could not grow their hair out, 2) no option of a relaxer [or so it seems], and 3) the biracial children were [at least when it comes to hair] treated better – they could do what they wanted with their hair.