Translator: Amanda Sany Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
When we meet a person,
it only takes a second for us to form a mental image
of who that person is.
It's what you did when I walked onto the stage.
It's what I did when I looked around the room to get a sense of who you are.
Identifying and categorizing people, it's part of human nature.
From categorizing people into black and white,
men and women, to adults and children.
But when it comes to aspects
such as intelligence, attractiveness or confidence,
we rely on much more subtle cues,
such as hair.
The power of first impressions is such that
if I show you the image of a person for only a second,
you will not only be able to tell me that this is a young woman of color,
you will have also formed an impression of how open-minded a person she is.
The psychologically really intriguing thing
is that your impression would have been very different,
had you seen this image instead?
One woman, two hairstyles,
two very different impressions of who that woman is.
These are the findings of a study conducted by Marianne LaFrance at Yale,
and in their study, they showed people images of three men and three women.
Each of them were depicted with five different hairstyles
People were then asked to rate each person on 10 different scales,
including confidence, intelligence, attractiveness and self-centeredness.
And while you might expect results to look something like this,
the truth is that our impression of the woman's intelligence,
it's very much dependent upon her hairstyle.
And the effect is even more pronounced
if we look at it ratings for attractiveness.
So hair matters, and it matters to all of us,
because it is a form of non-verbal communication.
But it also matters because
when you meet a person in the street, at work, at an event,
you make a judgment about whether to talk to that person,
whether to hire that person, whether to promote that person,
or whether to go on a date with that person.
For me, as a social psychologist
who studies identity and inter-group behavior,
I was not only interested in understanding how hair matters to all of us,
but how it matters differently for women of color.
And so for the past four years
I have studied hair salons and hair events,
and I have traveled between England and Germany
to listen to women of color's hair stories.
Today, I will tell you some of these stories
to illustrate how hair matters differently
for women of color.
Now, we have a term for a day when everything seems to be going wrong,
and your hair just doesn't want to look the way you want it to look like.
That is when you're having a "bad hair day."
But the idea is that you're having a bad hair day now,
and it is going to pass.
For women of color, it is not about a "bad hair day,"
but it's about prevailing standards of beauty, race and gender
that have us think of long, straight and wavy hair as good and beautiful hair,
and kinky or curly hair as bad and ugly.
As one woman told me,
"I've gone as far as calling in sick to do my hair.
Like I said, 'I'm taking the day off
and gone to the hairdresser to make sure I've been able to have a weave.'"
So hair matters differently for women of color
because when you've made it this far in your job,
you might take a look around the room
and realize that there aren't many people that look like you.
As women of color, you are part of at least two groups
that are generally underrepresented in the workforce
and marginalized in society:
women and people of color.
Of the Fortune 500 companies, 32 were led by women last year.
Of the 32 women, only two were of color,
and none was black.
Now, we may not all aspire to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies,
but as the "Good Hair" study published by the Perception Institute has shown,
people - and this is true across races and genders -
are biased towards natural afro-textured hair.
They find it less attractive,
less beautiful
and less professional.
And so women of color may have a very good reason
to emulate a straight-hair look
by using a chemical relaxer to break the texture of their hair,
by covering their hair with a wig,
or by wearing a weave,
which means to have artificial or human hair extensions
sown or glued into your hair.
And yet you might argue,
Is straightening your hair or wearing a weave
really this different from people of all shades and color
dyeing their hair to cover gray strands?
After all, we not only live in societies that value whiteness,
but that also values youth.
Now, I would argue there's another reason
why hair matters differently for women of color.
Because we're not just biased towards the natural texture of afro-hair,
but we have also formed usually negative stereotypes
around hairstyles that are particularly suitable
and less damaging to natural afro-textured hair.
I want to name two.
The first hairstyle is the Afro,
which some of you may remember from women like Angela Davis,
fighting for the rights of women of color in the 1960s and 1970s.
Because of its history, the Afro for some of us is a political statement,
a reminder of the US civil rights movement
and people of color's struggle for recognition.
For others, the Afro is a fashion statement,
a cool, hip and trendy style.
And so what do you see
when you see a woman of color with an Afro?
Do you see an activist?
A troublemaker?
A radical, black feminist, maybe?
Or do you see a woman interested in fashion,
enjoying and expressing herself through her hair?
Do you see both?
And more importantly,
to what extent are your impressions of her
going to shape the way that you will interact with her?
Let's talk about another hairstyle: dreadlocks.
The person probably more famous for wearing dreadlocks is Bob Marley.
And again we have formed very different understandings of what dreadlocks mean.
For some of us, seeing a person with dreadlocks
means seeing a person who's asserting her cultural or religious roots.
But for others, it means seeing a criminal
or a person who smokes marijuana.
And so I ask you again,
What do you see when you see a woman with dreadlocks?
What images and ideas do come to mind?
Are they positive, negative or are they prejudiced?
And most importantly,
to what extent are your impressions of her
going to shape the way that you will interact with her?
The fact that stereotypes like,
"She wears an Afro so she must be a political activist"
exist around certain hairstyles,
can have profound implications
for the lived experience of women of color,
as illustrated by this story from a woman from Germany.
She told me about how she was talking to one of her relatives
about having a lot of problems in Germany with racism.
So she's told,
"If you already have so many problems with your skin color,
then don't make it worse because of your hair."
But she also said that
"I knew that if I wanted to work in this area,
it would be difficult with dreadlocks,
and so I agreed with him, and I simply cut them off."
The two stories that I have told you so far are similar
in that they're both about impression management.
Because the wonderful thing about hair is that we can alter it.
We can cut it, we can dye it, we can straighten it, we can cover it.
And so knowing that your hair is going to shape the way other people look at you,
many women of color will alter their appearance
to influence the thoughts and feelings that others have about them.
It's something that we actually all do every day,
from telling a friend that you're fine, even though you're very sad and lonely,
to dyeing you hair blonde to be seen as "sexy."
We are all, every day, some way or another,
managing other people's impressions of us.
And yet you could argue the Afro and dreadlocks are particular hairstyles.
And we are equally prejudiced with regards to hairstyles such as the Mohawk
or women with short hair.
That´s a fair point.
So let me tell you another story
of why hair matters differently for women of color.
I'm talking to them, and they're like,
"When did you get here?"
and I'm like, "I was born here."
So my hair does relate to my identity, but not just my hair -
my hair, my skin, my whole appearance -
because it indicates to people that,
okay, I'm here, I'm talking to you in a British accent,
but my origins are other.
I come from somewhere else. I have a story.
For me, this was really one of the most intriguing findings doing this research:
the way in which our bodies and our hair are memory devices;
the way in which our hair tells us something about people moving
and being moved around the world.
And this is true for all of us
because we have a tendency to place people geographically,
to assume that because a person looks a certain way,
she must come from a certain place.
And so oftentimes we feel tempted to ask a question like,
"When did you get here?" or, my personal favorite,
"Where are you actually from?"
But psychologically, such questions can be really threatening to your identity.
Because if you were born in England or Germany,
how do you answer a questions like,
"When are you going back home?"
"Where to? The town I was born at?"
And so hair matters differently for women of color
because it allows us to place them
within the histories of slavery and colonialism
and within contemporary stories of migration and belonging.
But it not only allows us to place them, it also allows us to misplace them,
to assume that they must come from someplace else.
And so some women in Germany told me
that for them, straightening their hair and dyeing it blonde
was not just about managing a marginalized identity
in terms of gender or beauty,
but about asserting their place and identity in the German society.
And so this really brings me to my next point,
which is that hair not only shapes how other people see us,
but it also shapes how we see ourselves.
And yet, who we are is who we are in the eyes of others.
Our self-image - mine, yours, yours, yours -
it's very much dependent upon the images that other people have formed about us.
And so for women of color, being told over and over again
by society, media, your families, friends
that your hair - the way it grows out of their head -
is not beautiful, not attractive, not feminine enough, not professional.
Some women will take a look into the mirror and ask,
"Is it true? Is my hair not beautiful? Am I not feminine enough?"
And so one woman in England told me about how she started to internalize
the images and ideas that she saw around gender and beauty.
She said, "I've always had this dream of not having afro-textured hair,
of having the kind of long, silky, European hair that blows in the wind.
And I think this really is something that society kind of like pushes forward
in terms of women's appearances.
Having long hair is seen as something really - a sign.
She's a woman.
That's really feminine.
It's not that afro-textured hair doesn't grow long,
but because of its curl pattern, it shrinks.
And so if you live in a society that has a thing
of long, straight hair as very feminine,
what is at stake is women of color's ability to be seen as women.
As Sojourner Truth asked over 150 years ago,
"Ain't I a woman?"
And so straightening your hair and wearing a weave or wig,
for women of color it's also about asserting their womanhood
and finding a sense of femininity.
Now, given how much I know about how your impression of me
is shaped by biases and stereotypes around the texture of my hair,
you might wonder why it is
that I spent an hour defining the curls of my hair this morning
rather than straightening it.
Like many women, there was a time when I was very conscious about my hair,
and there was a fear around other people commenting on it.
I was 15 years old and enrolled at university.
And when you are that young,
and you don't look anything like the majority,
you do not want to stand out even more because of the texture of your hair.
And so I would usually tie it back,
and from time to time I would straighten it with a hot iron.
And then I was invited to a summer school.
And in the first few days, I would get up very early in the morning,
and I would shower and dry my hair,
and I would tie it back, and no one could really see the texture of my hair.
But then one morning -
as it is for summer schools, you don't get much sleep, so I overslept -
I only had time to shower and there was no time to dry my hair.
So my only choice was to let it dry on the air,
and naturally, it started curling up like it did this morning,
like it is right now.
And for the whole morning I was very conscious of myself
and anxiously waiting for that moment when someone would make a funny comment.
But nothing happened.
In fact, people started telling me how much it suited me,
how much they liked my curls.
And so for the first time, I started to feel really accepted
as the girl who had been to university since she was 15
and as the girl with curly hair.
And so for me, this summer school really became a turning point,
after which I no longer felt the need to hide the natural texture of my hair
and to actually embrace and be happy with my curls.
In fact, most of the times when I have something really important,
like today, standing here on this stage, I will curl my hair.
Because this is when I feel most confident and most true to myself.
During my research, many women have told me about their turning points,
from being pregnant and no longer wanting to use chemicals on your body
to seeing old hair break off,
leaving you with no other choice than to shave your head.
From finding love and being told by your partner
that you don't need to hide or cover your hair
to be seen as beautiful or attractive
to questioning why it is that women of color put chemicals on their hair
to adhere to Euro-centric beauty standards.
But for many women of color, it was seeing an ever-growing number
of women of color with natural afro-textured hair
in the streets, at work, on social media.
And so for these women, the natural hair movement
has really paved the way to redefine not only what it means to be of color,
but also what it means to be a woman,
for themselves and for others.
So where does this leave us?
It leaves us with the understanding that hair matters.
And it matters to all of us because when you meet a person,
you're going to form a mental image of who that person is,
and hair plays a big part of that.
But it also leaves us with the understanding
that hair matters differently for women of color.
Because for women of color, hairstyling - from chemically relaxing your hair,
to covering your hair with a wig, or deliberately wearing it in an Afro -
it's about managing a marginalized identity.
It is styling your hair with the understanding
that you are not just judged by what is in your control,
whether you're a good person, whether you're well read,
but you are judged by physical attributes given to you at birth
such as the color of your skin or the texture of your hair.
And while hair is a form of non-verbal communication for all of us,
women of color are having a different conversation.
For women of color, hair is part of a conversation
about the history of slavery and colonialism.
It is part of a conversation about the legacies of sexism and racism.
And it is part of a conversation
about contemporary stories of migration and belonging.
And yet, we can alter hair, we can change it, we can manipulate it.
And because of this, it allows us to tell a different story
and to engage in a different conversation every day.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)