A Life in Lacefronts
Madison Jamar on wigs, womanhood and the performance of Black femininity.
I.
“I’m sitting here a little differently right now my hair is in corn-rows,” Tyra Banks announces to her studio audience in New York City and to me, sitting on my living room couch in Ohio. “I’m about to let you in on a controversial subject that not a lot of people know about.” Leaning in towards the camera with a smize, she introduces the Tyra Show’s topic of the day: good hair.
When the episode aired in 2009, I was a junior in high school, dealing with the usual mundane horrors of not-a-girl-not-yet-a-womanhood. The aughts brought about a wider push for Black women to reclaim their natural hair. Why do we spend so much time and money straightening our hair? Where do our ideas about “nappy” hair stem from? Questions that have been asked since at least Madame CJ Walker reinvented the hot comb, but at sixteen, I hadn’t much considered the history of oppression associated with hair straightening. Blogs like Curly Nikki and Afrobella that championed natural hair care and wear offered instruction on the upkeep of coils and curls and advice for women transitioning from chemically straightened hair. Despite my interest in lurking in the unknown, I was never brave enough to post on these sites. But I had the reality television Kingdom of Tyra, which included her talk show and groundbreaking series America’s Next Top Model to educate me on fashion and beauty.
The pressure of having kempt hair was always a firm hand on the back of my neck, a necessity that entire paychecks would be sacrificed to.
Over the next forty-five minutes, a dizzying cast of people rotate onto the stage. A panel—two women with relaxers and one woman with locs—argue competing perspectives. Natural hair is unprofessional, lacks refinement and beauty, two of the women claim, while the other denounces relaxers, asserting that no matter the bounce and flow they offer, with them, one’s hair would always be damaged. Two historians discuss how the notions of “good hair” can be traced back to slavery (like most things). Loosely coiled hair and straight hair often meant lighter (i.e., white) skin.
Tyra pauses to ask the audience if any non-Black members have questions. She beckons a white woman to a mic placed on a staircase between the rows of people. “The biggest thing I don’t understand is not washing your hair every day,” the woman says, in what is more of a comment than a question.
In the most wrenching segment, a group of young Black girls, varying in shades and hair texture, are interviewed by one of the show’s producers on their perceptions of hair. A six-year-old holds a shiny, bright blonde Hannah Montana wig that she says makes her feel more beautiful. It is here that I cry, along with Tyra, as her producers project one of Tyra’s baby pictures featuring her in coily afro-puffs onto a screen behind the stage. “I have hair like you…I have a Hannah Montana wig too.”
The thesis of the episode seems to be that Black women’s quest for good hair is rooted in a desire to achieve “European” aesthetics, a sometimes-unconscious response to the atrocities of slavery and Jim Crow. Wanting or feeling the need for chemically altered and straight hair highlights a lack of recognition of our own natural beauty, as demonstrated by the children’s views of coarse hair as ugly or low-class. I am converted. Tyra might return to her signature auburn tresses in the next day’s episode, but I am through with relaxers and weaves.
In the decade prior, before I had much agency in crafting an aesthetic self, quarter-sized patches of bareness cropped up on my scalp. The cause was one linked to my body’s propensity for inflammatory conditions—chronic allergic asthma, chronic eczema, and now alopecia areata. My mother braided what was left of my hair into cornrows that she tucked into the top half of my head instead of down the back towards my nape.
Occasionally, I noticed adults’ confused stares as they tried to determine my gender in hushed whispers. Was I a confused little boy running around the pool in a tankini? Or was I a little girl whose baldness meant a grave sickness, the sort that had befallen the children on the commercials that ran on loop deep into the night? I was less concerned with my appearance, since the girl I wanted to be was already imaginary. She was shopping arm in arm for tiny shirts and short skirts with the girls with a passion for fashion (BRATZ) or prancing around the tartan-saturated world of Clueless, years away from nine-year-old me.
During frequent visits to my dermatologist Dr. K, I sat on a deep red examination table while he dissected my prematurely absent hair line. His first proposed solution was Rogaine, which my mother rubbed along the barren spaces on my scalp before bed. In the morning, my sheets were covered in blood, indicating the start of my period. The next night my mother threw away the Rogaine and my period didn’t return for another two years.
Placing Black women at the center of our investigations into beauty, we find more than agency in creative expression: we find agency in our criticisms.
Next, Dr. K suggested a common treatment for alopecia—shots injected into the scalp. For several Fridays in a row, I was delighted to sleep in as my sister got ready for school, preparing instead for my injection appointments. My mother would smear a greasy ointment around my head that numbed me to the insertion of the syringe. The sensation was uncanny, a cold needle pressing into my scalp, unaccompanied by the typical sting of a shot. My mother and Dr. K’s nurse watched over me intently, one hand over their mouths, the other gripping my hand or my shoulder. Their horror was their own. I giggled during the first injection. I was proud of my indifference to the small procedure. This was one battle with my sensitive body to which I didn’t have to be subservient.
Gradually, my hair grew back. I exchanged soft kinky afro-puffs, slicked back into scrunchies and large braids secured with bobbles, for a creamy chemical relaxer that eased my coils into silky strands. In the summer I sat in shops for hours getting braids—micro, box, Senegalese twists, cornrows, goddess. I tried weaves, like the water-wave sew-in that didn’t properly frame my face, or the glue-in courtesy of a cousin who tacked tracks of curly bundles onto my own plaited hair. But the pressure of having kempt hair was always a firm hand on the back of my neck, a necessity that entire paychecks would often be sacrificed to. The revelation I found on the Tyra Show was an offering of a reprieve I didn’t realize I was seeking—although going natural wouldn’t be an eradication of hair standards, but an embrace of a new set of expectations.
A word search tells me that “hair” appears thirty times so far in this essay. It will appear at least another twenty times, likely more. When thinking about Black women and beauty, the conservation inevitably treads here. Other stops may include homogeneous beauty, (hyper)sexuality/the Jezebel, erasure, (in)visibility, and the term that is probably most overused and under-explained: European features. This is what I’ve gleaned from initial googling, seeking others’ interpretations of Black femininity and performance, a subject of increasing interest since I began wearing wigs in 2019.
Traction alopecia occurs most commonly in Black women. Stress on follicles, often caused by the tension of tight braids, causes breakage, sometimes permanently. Though I hadn’t chemically processed my hair in nearly a decade, more and more I had turned to braiders to relieve me of the burden of daily care for my natural coils. Presumably, the lack of breaks between extensions led to my second bout of hair loss—this time without health insurance or a dermatologist, but with an ideal self to uphold.
My first wig was a short black bob bought for the purpose of my new receptionist job at a law firm. Outside of the office, I attempted to embrace the baldness, pairing it with striking lipsticks. I did an Instagram reveal, with some caption alluding to empowerment. But the flood of glowing responses and heart-eye emojis made me recoil. All those years ago I had made a fuss about embracing my natural self, but I didn’t mean like this.
I’ve often joked that my unofficial diagnosis of traction alopecia was the best thing to ever happen to me. It usually gets a laugh, even if it makes the audience a little uneasy. Men especially like it when I use it as an icebreaker on dates. At parties, I offer up my wigs as a gracious out for people I’ve met who don’t remember me. “My hair changes constantly, almost every day,” I tell them with a diplomatic smile.
The reason it’s funny—alopecia as a gift—is that I’m sort of not joking. As a teen I secretly bought Manic Panic and unsuccessfully dyed my hair blue. When I moved to New York City, I was enthralled by the many choices of brightly colored Kanekalon fibers that lined beauty supply stores’ walls. Not that unnatural hair colors were impossible to find in Ohio but black and 1B were what I was allowed to wear under my mother’s roof. Which is all to say that I’ve long desired and sought physical changes that matched different modes of being and expression. This is not unique.
What may be, however, is that the discovery felt like a wink from the universe, upending my previous self-conception that I was not a woman who wore wigs. Not because of their falsity, no—I had become suspect of misogynistic teachings that preached the superiority of naturalness, and what that could mean in a poisoned world—but because of their reputation as a costly, high maintenance habit. As Tyra had said on her show: “Wigs are a lot of work.”
It is particularly difficult to make wigs look natural and realistic. Scalp action, we call it, when the lace on the frontal melts into your own skin, blended as one. In a wig review, a YouTuber might say, “We don’t want our units looking wiggy” as a criticism or warning. But sometimes I do. I tease the hair from the root, pull my fingers through curls, fluff out the bangs around my face. I want it as big as it can be. I want it blonde. I want it copper red. Sunset orange. Baby pink. I want it fake. I want it beautiful.
II.
A cursory Google search could lead me to believe that I am the first person to ever wonder about performances of Black femininity. An intriguing notion, seeing that I’ve successfully pitched an essay on the subject. Yet, it is more likely that Google seems to merge or equate “femininity” with “woman,” therefore I am shown articles on Black women, more generally and mostly about the challenges we face in terms of how we’re perceived, such as the archetypal embodiment of strength. Those of us who came of age in conjunction with the internet are bent on refusing the monolith, often underscoring instead multiplicities of being and expression. Still, within those multiplicities I see a throughline. Fastening generations are the displays of beauty and style that emphasize the drama of femininity, be it the large Sunday hats worn to church, voluminous ‘fros of the seventies, gold hoops so big they touch the shoulders, or the “fantasy hair” styling of braids and weaves that proliferated in the nineties. The standard is glam—a unique balance of elegance and excess.
Even if a frame of reference points to something usually thought of as white—blonde, Barbie, old Hollywood glam—when viewing Kim and her predecessors and successors alike, the images they produce aren’t echoing whiteness but showcasing, always, a forward-facing Blackness.
I had anticipated a search for “performances of black femininity” to lead me to such images and musings, but the most promisingly titled articles like “Black Women Athletes and the Performance of Hyper-Femininity” and “Black Women and the Performance of Culture” are locked behind academic paywalls. I try tacking on different words in the search bar: “performances of black femininity beauty,” “performances of black femininity style,” “performances of black femininity womanhood.”
Each attempt yields similar results. Articles and studies analyze the otheredness of Black women and the stereotypes by which we are afflicted or how we advocate for our existence. We are, as these scholars and writers remind me, locked out of the tenuous advantages of masculinity sometimes afforded to Black men, nor do we receive the precarious protections of “traditional” (i.e., white) femininity.
Over several days I continue to experiment with the search, clicking through links. Google, it seems, is attempting to better understand by showing me results that weren’t previously given. It offers two new hits: “Vicki Meek: At What Point Do We Disappear?: Black Women’s Obsession with White Femininity” and “Vicki Meek: Vanishing in Real Time: Black Women’s Beauty Dilemma.” In the artist’s statement for “At What Point…” Meek explains her aim to explore the “self-hate” of Black women throughout the diaspora that she finds evident in “long, straight wigs,” hair straightening, and skin bleaching.
Meek’s views aren’t uncommon or unfounded. When I saw bell hooks (who infamously called Beyoncé a terrorist) in conversation with Beverly Guy-Sheftall at the New School in 2015, a similar tone permeated the discussion. Discussing the image of Black women perpetrated by performers like Beyoncé and Nicki “the Harajuku Barbie” Minaj, she spoke to what she saw as their participation in white supremacy through their visuals, rather than a subversion of it; a point she made more in-depth when writing on the blonde wigs of Tina Turner: “[...] it serves as an endorsement of racist aesthetics which see blonde hair as the epitome of beauty.”
It’s not that examining how racism foregrounds beauty isn’t necessary and worthwhile. Certainly, such insights have framed my own thinking. But could it be that really, all of our beauty practices and fashions are styled in resistance against or in assimilation of white supremacy and its resounding history of sexual violence? I think back to the blonde stars that populated my youth—Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Danielle Fishel as Topanga in Boy Meets World. When my sister and I, as children, arranged the necks of t-shirts so the body of the fabric flowed down our backs in folds of straight hair we didn’t have, were we aching to obtain the whiteness of these young women, similar to the young girl on the Tyra Show, clutching her Hannah Montana wig? Maybe at times. But we also had the princesses of hip-hop and R&B like Destiny’s Child, Aaliyah, and TLC that we emulated by attempting their choreography and tying our shirts into crop tops when our mother wasn’t looking.
Most canonically, nestled between the teased blonde hair of Tina and the alter egos of Nicki, is the Queen Bee, Lil’ Kim, whose iconic crouch in a poster for her debut album Hardcore has been replicated multiple times by rising rap and pop stars. An innovator in fashion, Lil’ Kim’s memorable hairstyles range from her signature platinum blonde to lilac purple to cherry red to neon green. Even if a frame of reference points to something usually thought of as white—blonde, Barbie, old Hollywood glam—when viewing Kim and her predecessors and successors alike, the images they produce aren’t echoing whiteness but showcasing, always, a forward-facing Blackness.
III.
Since I began wearing wigs, I’ve noticed a slow uptick in beauty practices. My roommate called it lifestyle creep, describing how the cost of a lifestyle builds as more changes are made to support the initial step (like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, but with nail appointments). Previously, my makeup application included no more than three to four products at a time—lipstick, simple eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara. But with the ever-changing nature of my hair, my usual red lip didn’t always seem right. Perhaps duped by the dewy-faced ads of Glossier, I became intrigued by complexion products ever since a woman at Sephora told me they didn’t have my shade when I was fourteen (ridiculous and false, I now know).
But the most natural pairing to my different hair are different nails, long press-ons that force me to get reacquainted with my hand coordination. Once deemed gaudy, unprofessional and ghetto, acrylics have recently grown in mainstream popularity. As a kid I marveled at the extra-long lengths of nails that protruded from the hands of my cousins and hairstylists, blinged out in intricate decals and art. My desire to return to them was, in part, sparked by watching countless tutorials on YouTube of women laying their lace and styling wigs with a deftness that inspired me to try myself. And once the wigs and nails were paired together, the big falsies were next in line.
Back on Google, I search for “black women acrylic nails.” Several articles and essays recount histories and personal experiences with long nails. The success of the search leads me to try to narrow my queries, using specific items I associate with Black femininity. Hoop earrings, braids, and wigs queue up pieces both about empowerment and appropriation. Another broad attempt: “black women aesthetics,” which brings up several journal articles on Black writing aesthetics that I mentally mark. Many of the hits are articles centered on the representation, or lack thereof, of Black women within certain trends such as “clean girl,” “soft girl” and “cottagecore.”
Returning to my original query, I notice a new or previously overlooked result. In her 2014 essay “Rollersets & Realness: Black Womanhood Defined as Drag Performance,” Shaadi Devereaux describes how Black women are viewed as drag performances. “The assumption is always that Black women are all imitating ‘true women’ with long silky hair, light eyes and a list of features not associated with Blackness,” Devereaux writes. Black women, trans and cis, are often denied the distinction of authenticity by viewers, even when conforming to traditional femininity standards, as I and many others do. This refusal of the stamp of realness can be perilous, especially for trans women. But not being bound by classic distinctions of gendered femininity allows for a fluidity in our performances and enjoyment in its personas.
At first I am resistant to this idea of play, perhaps simply because the word calls to mind children and dress up. And yet while looking at my own images, there are acts of mimicry: it’s giving Mariah, Whitney, Dolly, Pamela (Anderson), Pam (Grier), Doja, somebody’s auntie…
Still, in another aspect, it feels good to look good. And it feels good to be seen as you see yourself. Scrolling through my phone for pictures to use in this essay, a thought comes that has intruded before—how my handheld device would expose my vanity in the event of my sudden death. For every screenshot of a funny conversation or tweet there are a dozen photos of me gazing into the camera or looking down in a faux candid. Between my favorited pictures and rejected outtakes exists the image that is too sexual, the image that is not sexy enough, the image that makes it look like I almost have an ass, the image that says I am deserving of a salaried job, the image that incorrectly says I watch anime, the image that sings along to Doll Parts, the image that is a caregiver, the image that is your friend. Strung together, they make a mold into a quantifiable self.
IV.
In my searches I discover that in academia, “beauty politics” is the obvious stone I should have been turning over and among its early contributors I find Maxine Leeds Craig. In her 2002 book Ain’t I a beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race, she writes that while much important work highlights degrading portrayals of Black women by white racist spectators, “This approach…ignores the ways in which African Americans have seen themselves.” Following Craig’s thinking, it seems less attention is given to how Black women see and understand each other. In the unmaking of the walls that have been constructed around us, attempting to seal us in, the result may be a neglect to view the actual people standing inside.
Much has been said and argued about the (self)sexualization of Black women in hip-hop, for example. Are they in control, dictating the terms of their image, or are they simply recasting themselves in familiar derogatory stereotypes as they cater to a male gaze? But I think that much of these artists’ performances are done for the pleasure and benefit of other women, who both emulate and are emulated by their faves. The girl’s girl who renounces the tradition of women competing for limited seats at a table, in favor of supporting everyone’s come up.
So despite their lyrics, when watching Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B navigate a hall of mirrors of their own sexual fantasies, and Monaleo and Flo Milli sashaying on parallel runway strips, or Ice Spice and PinkPantheress vibing on a subway platform, I can’t help but wonder, what do men have to do with it?
Girls just wanna have fun, these artists often seem to be saying, creating anthems of camaraderie for fans to interpose themselves within. This is examined in the Routledge Beauty Companion, where drawing on the scholarship of Shirley Anne Tate in her chapter on Black women’s embodiment of beauty and hair, Kristin Denise Rowe notes that blonde wigs and weaves “purposefully exaggerate the ‘artifice’ or the artificial—playing with concepts of ‘natural’ and serving as props Black women use to have fun.”
At first I am resistant to this idea of play, perhaps simply because the word calls to mind children and dress up. And yet while looking at my own images, there are acts of mimicry: it’s giving Mariah, Whitney, Dolly, Pamela (Anderson), Pam (Grier), Doja, somebody’s auntie…
I can’t say that being blonde is subversive (though it can be gratifying). It’s tempting to engage a binary that views aesthetic choices as inconsequential or simply as acts of empowered agency, à la you do you. The former can easily trail into misogynistic territory that trivializes the serious impact that beauty, style and performance practices cast over people’s lives, while the latter can easily be swallowed by neoliberal individualism. Placing Black women at the center of our investigations into beauty, we find more than agency in creative expression: we find agency in our criticisms, which can look beyond the impacts of historical oppression and into our own complicity within global capitalism.
Maybe the trouble in specifying Black femininity is the danger of naming Blackness itself, which moves continuously, taking shape in race and culture in different modes, refusing to be formally christened, preferring embodiment over title. The double nature of its visibility and stealthiness is why many mistakenly assume it’s for anyone’s consumption or wear, but to the trained eye the seams are always visible. Because if you know you know. Or as Mikhaela Jennings taught us: the girls that get it, get it.