WOMEN AND ALOPECIA AND SOCIETAL OPPRESSION AND DISCRIMINATION. PART 1.

Now, there is this fable about Sampson and Delia, of how Samson was made weak by the cutting of his hair. In contemporary societies, it is probably only Sikh men who hold their hair in such esteem, with it becoming a matter of a ritualistic display of their faith and their connection with their god.

Orthodox Sikh men not cutting their hair or beard is an article of their faith, although I do not know if they attribute the same kind of reverence with which Samson's hair has been purported to have had.

In contemporary societies, men having long hair and beards can either be a display of their religious faiths, their culture, fashion, or their personal preferences.

However, it is not with vain men and their hair which this post is primarily about. My concern is about women and their hair. It seems to be the general or 'normal' disposition of society, to invest great importance in the stature of their women's hair. 

Up to the closing decade of the 20th Century, having long blond hair was seen as the idealised hair-type for women to aspire towards. Long blond hair, white or pale skin, as we know, were only some of the racial features of the type of humans which Hitler wanted to be the sole inhabitants of his intended 1000 year Reich.

Rather surprisingly, long straight hair and pale skin are still seen as very desirable features for which many peoples in the southern hemisphere aspire to achieve.

By now, you might be thinking that I am going to enunciate my views about Black and 'dark skinned' people in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia whitening or de-melaminating their skins and straightening their hair to look more like White Europeans and Americans. But, no; that is not what this is about. 

What this post is about, is the profound distress which many women, of all races and ethnic groups, have to endure, when they begin to lose or have lost their hair, due to alopecia. Vain men can always shave their heads when they are going bald, if they could only forego their vanity. But what of women?

To be continued.