Benedict Elizabeth - Me, My Hair, and I

and I

Edited by

ELIZABETH BENEDICT

ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL 2015

also by ELIZABETH BENEDICT

The Practice of Deceit

Almost

Safe Conduct

The Beginners Book of Dreams

Slow Dancing

The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers

Editor

What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-one Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most

Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives

For Nancy, James, Emily, and Julia

To be born woman is to know

Although they do not talk of it at school

That we must labour to be beautiful.

W. B. YEATS , Adams Curse

Wouldnt they be surprised when one day I woke out of my black ugly dream, and my real hair, which was long and blond, would take the place of the kinky mass that Momma wouldnt let me straighten?

MAYA ANGELOU , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Its like the medical field. Aside from people being born and dying, women will spend their last dime to get their hair done, so Ill always have a job.

SAHARA , a student at the Beauty Schools of America, Miami Beach, Florida, on why shes chosen to be a hairstylist

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, I am indebted to Gail Hochman and Marianne Merola for their steady, serious devotion to the work of fostering authors and books, in this case my own. Andra Miller is a writers dream of an editor, and Algonquin a writers dream of a publisher. I offer my heartfelt gratitude to everyone there who has worked on What My Mother Gave Me and Me, My Hair, and I. Outside the publishing world, I want to acknowledge Thea Piltzecker, who put me in touch with one of the contributors.

Its impossible to sufficiently thank the writers whove shared their deepest feelings about their families, their spouses, their children, their cultures, their religions, their illnesses, and, oh, yes, their hair! in these scintillating essays. I hope this is just the start of a long public conversation about what we all talk about when we talk about hairbecause we talk about everything: politics, passion, motherhood, mortality, vanity, self-doubt, self-loathing, self-esteem, rebirth, regeneration, and, occasionally, the deep pleasure of a really great haircut.

Hairwise and otherwise, Im grateful to my sister, Nancy Neiditz, who once delivered a comic lecture at a posh New York restaurantpointing out women around the dining roomon the immutable desirability of straight hair, which had everyone at our table doubled over in laughter, especially those with curly hair. Her devotion to her own hair puts me to shame. Im immensely grateful for the company and inspiration of my niece Julia Smith, who wears her hair very short and no longer bright green; to my stepdaughter, Emily Daggett Smith, who wears her long hair with style and elegance; and to my husband, James Smith, who puts up with my tangled, sometimes Phyllis Dillerlike tresses with great good humor. Best of all, on those occasions when I get my hair done, he notices.

INTRODUCTION

ASK A WOMAN about her hair, and she just might tell you the story of her life.

Ask a whole bunch of women, and if Me, My Hair, and I is any indication, you could get a history of the world: reflections and revelations about family, race, religion, ritual, culture, politics, celebrity, what goes on in African American kitchens and at Hindu Bengali weddings in Calcutta, alongside stories about the influence of Jackie Kennedy, Angela Davis, Lena Horne, Madonna, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley Temple, Sandra Dee, Joan Baez, Farrah Fawcett, Kelly McGillis, Judith Butler, the Grateful Dead, and Botticellis Venus.

Whats abundantly clear in all these personal stories is that hair matters. Many other facts of life matter too, oftentimes more than hair (illness, poverty, war, famine, flood, and sometimes shoes and makeup), but hair can be counted on to matter just about every day, at least to a high percentage of womenand to more than a few men, at least back in the day. The Beatles long hair, when it first shimmied and shook on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, in time to I Want to Hold Your Hand, changed the course of social history. Way before that, the Old Testaments Samson believed that his hair, seven braids worth, was the source of his strength, and his enemies hired the temptress Delilah to cut if off.

As I read and reflect on these essays, Im struck by just how much hair matters to so many of us, and by the tangled intricacies of why. Why so much? And why with this intensity?

A womans hair is her glory, Maya Angelou explains in Good Hair, Chris Rocks documentary about African American women and their hair. But long before it has a chance to acquire glory in our lives, it demands attention and care. Its an early life lesson in basic grooming, a public window into the private household. In social science terms, hair is a signifier. One of the earliest signals it transmits, when were kids, is whether we are being looked after properly. A childs unkempt hair invites scrutiny, condemnation, and, if its really a mess day after day, maybe a visit from Child Protective Services. As girls grow up and learn to groom their own hair, they learn to take care of themselves. When they have daughters, they groom them too, and so the cycle continues. Along the way, we learn that the hair choices we make for ourselves and others reveal who we are, the worlds we live in, and how we want to be perceived.

For women, hair is an entire library of information, about status, class, self-image, desire, sexuality, values, and even mental health. For many of the years I lived in Washington, DC, in the 1980s, I remember frequently seeing a woman with gnarled, matted hair that stood a foot off her scalp. She was protestingI think it was nuclear waron the sidewalk outside the White House. While I shared her views on nuclear war, the state of her hair told me that she was not entirely well. I can summon her face vividly, but I know the reason I always noticed her was the house of hair atop her head.

Hair matters because its always around, framing our faces, growing in, falling out, getting frizzy, changing colorsin short, demanding our attention: Comb me! Wash me! Relax me! Color me! Its always there, conveying messages about who we are and what we want. Invite me to the prom! Love me! Hire me! Sleep with me! Dont even think about sleeping with me! Take me seriously! Marry me! Mistake meplease!for a much-younger woman!

Its always there, unless its gone or its hiddenand those absences tell stories too. A common one involves the ravages of chemotherapy; missing hair is evidence of illness. Then there are cultures where women shave off their hair and cover their heads, and other cultures where women may keep their hair, but their heads must be shrouded in veils, sometimes with only slits or screens through which to see. Why the shaved heads? Why the draperies? There are many reasons and many interpretations, depending on ones relationship to the veils. Covering the hair signifies membership, to insiders and outsiders, in a specific group; its a quick self-identifier. It may remind members of the group how to worship and to behave. It focuses attention on the face, not the secondary characteristics. And shaving or hiding the hair fundamentally nullifies hairs ornamental, aesthetic, and sexual properties, thereby sending unambiguous messages about the womens availability and independence. Finally, theres the hair thats almost always hidden from viewbut that has crept into public conversations in the past two decades, as Brazilian waxes, dyes, bleaches, and other grooming gimmicks have made achieving childlike genitals the new normal.