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CHICAGO
— On the cold, winter night that Sharon Coleman shaved
off all her hair, she sat surrounded by other
African-American women who were grinning and applauding
as the clippers hummed.
And when
every strand of her shoulder-length, straight hair was
on the floor, Coleman stood from her seat, and fell into
the arms of the women circled around her. The room was
filled with strangers who had come to witness the new
hair ritual, show support and find courage to do the
same, Coleman said.
“All
the women just embraced me and were very encouraging,”
she said as she recalled the event. “Everyone was
complimenting me: ‘I like the way you look. I love
your hair.’”
For
African-American women, hair is often a battle ground
for how beauty is defined. For one group of black women,
shaving their hair to a close-cropped, boyish style has
become a way of empowering themselves, rejecting
mainstream standards of beauty and shedding their
obsession with extensive, daily hair rituals.
Earlier
this month, Emon Fowler launched her Chicago-based
“Harriet Experiment,” in which she is asking black
women to abandon weaves, wigs and chemical relaxers and
spend a new year with new hair. She wants the women to
start with the “big chop,” in which they shave off
their processed hair completely and start anew.
Fowler,
30, has organized gatherings to take place throughout
the year for women to cut their hair while surrounded by
cheerleaders who have done the same. She has been
recruiting women on Facebook, stopping them in grocery
stores and making appearances at fairs and festivals to
promote her cause.
“This
is all about breaking free from that hair bondage,”
said Fowler, a hair stylist. She says her project
isn’t about building a clientele, but changing
mind-sets. “When a woman decides to cut all her hair,
she discovers something underneath that is liberating.
It can be therapeutic because you have to let go of the
idea that you need these superficial extras to feel
beautiful. It says, ‘I’ve accepted me.’”
Fowler
said she was inspired to start her movement after
reflecting on the life of Harriet Tubman, the iconic
hero who risked her life to free hundreds of slaves. She
sees her mission as helping to free African-American
women from the emotional and psychological baggage
associated with their hair.
There are
varying opinions in the black community about the
meaning of straight hair, but some think it’s an
attempt to imitate the white standard of beauty. Fowler
said she wants to reinforce to African-American women
that they don’t have to change their hair to feel
pretty or accepted.
For
African-American women, shaving off all their hair is
nothing new. In the 1970s, thousands of black women wore
their hair short and close-cropped as a symbol of racial
pride and consciousness, said Lanita Jacobs, an
associate professor of anthropology at the University of
Southern California.
But in
Fowler’s project, the women who decide to undergo the
big chop do it publicly, and with a built-in support
system of cheerleaders, Jacobs said.
That
support can help ease what can be a shock to black
women’s psyche, one expert said.
“Black
women have been conditioned to believe that our hair, in
its natural state, is not beautiful, not professional
and not manageable,” said Chris-Tia Donaldson, a
Chicago-based author who wrote a book about the topic.
“When you go to hair that is short, it can take a toll
on your self-esteem. You have to learn how to work it
and own it.”
There is
a growing trend toward wearing hair more naturally,
which some believe means a change in the definition of
what beauty is for the next generation of
African-Americans, Jacobs said.
“There
has been a radical shift in black people’s minds on
what can be beautiful,” she said. “Increasingly,
black men are making room for non-straightened and
non-long hair as a qualifier for beauty. More
African-American celebrities are experimenting with
natural hair.
“What
black women do with their hair has always created
questions: Who are you? Who are you trying to be? What
does this mean?”
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When any
woman shaves her hair close to the scalp, it can unearth
feelings of vulnerability, said Jacobs. For those
African-American women who have straightened their hair
for much of their lives, it can be particularly
stirring.
“You
are in some cases stepping away from something that you
know and into new, unknown territory,” Jacobs said.
“When you do the big chop, people come up and ask
questions. It can complicate your appeal to the opposite
sex, it can complicate your job searching endeavors, it
can complicate your family relationships. Your family
may ask, who are you?”
Because
her hero, Harriet Tubman freed an estimated 700 slaves,
Fowler has an ambitious mission to find 700 black women
willing to undergo the big chop this year, she said. So
far, she’s only gotten a couple dozen to join her on
the journey. But her project isn’t just about numbers,
she said. It’s about making a statement.
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The
project actually comes at a time when more
African-American women are abandoning the mainstream
weaves and relaxers and making peace with their natural
textures, statistics show.
The
number of black women who said they do not use chemicals
to straighten their hair jumped to 36 percent in 2011
from 25 percent in 2010, according to a report by Mintel,
a consumer spending and market research firm. Sales of
hair relaxer boxed kits dropped 17 percent between 2006
and 2011, Mintel’s report showed.
In
addition, there has been a recent flood of blogs,
websites, meet-up groups and YouTube video postings
devoted to demonstrating to women how to transition to
natural textures and how to style their new hair,
Donaldson said.
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Antinique
Bearden-Nunes said she’d been thinking about leaving
her straight hair behind for a year, but she was afraid
of how she would look. When she saw other women at
Fowler’s launch celebrating the cut, she stepped up to
do the same.
“I feel
like I can do anything now,” said Bearden-Nunes, 24,
who was still giddy about her haircut days after it was
done. “I finally can care less about what others
think. I have three young children, and I can’t let
them see any shadow of low self-esteem.”
Bearden-Nunes
said she’s been so pleased with her decision that
she’s been oblivious to the reaction of her friends
and strangers on the street. Her fiance wasn’t at all
thrilled when she came home with less than an inch of
hair.
“I told
him, ‘I’m still me, I’m still beautiful,’” she
said.
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After
years of contemplating the bold step, Coleman, 55,
decided that she would cut all of her processed hair
off. For Coleman, it was a break away from what she
called an unhealthy obsession and lifestyle.
“I’ve
had chemicals in my hair since I was 14 or 15 years
old,” she said. “It was like a vicious cycle. I was
using chemicals monthly to get a touch up or a perm. I
had to blow my hair out, use the curling iron. I’ve
gone through so much over the last three years with hair
pieces and wigs and such. I’m done with it.”
The day
she arrived at work with her short cropped cut, Coleman
said she noticed some of her colleagues paused and
looked at her. Her manager, in particular, smiled and
celebrated her new look.
But some
of her friends have been less enthused when they see her
hair, Coleman said. Some shake their heads and say they
would have never done it.
“When
you make a drastic change of this nature, you have to
own it and that’s what I’m doing. I walk with
confidence,” she said. “This is the new me.”
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