Straight Hair, Donut Care

In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison brings up how women tend to “worry about the edges of [one’s] hair, and how they spend countless hours every year straightening their hair in order to conform to beauty standards. Characters in the novel, such as Pauline, are looked down upon when they don’t straighten their hair to make it resemble Caucasian hair. During our discussion in class, I found this topic incredibly un-relatable. I have stick straight hair—you could say it’s an Asian thing. Ever since I can remember, I’ve always wanted anything but stick straight hair. I dug out my mother’s archaic curling iron the day I learned of such a tool, and even got a perm in seventh grade. So you can imagine my surprise when I started hearing about and seeing girls show up to school with their hair looking very similar to mine, but obviously straightened. I didn’t understand why girls would put effort and sacrifice precious sleep in order to make their hair blander and less individualistic. Now that I better understand the desire to conform to society and the danger of individuality, I understand why girls and women worry about the edges of their hair. But then…why do women curl their hair? It’s alright boys, I don’t understand women either.