Don’t mock women with hair loss – it’s so traumatic

Hair is such odd stuff. it serves no great physical purpose, and yet it plays a disproportionately important role in the human psyche.

a good blow-dry can make us feel glamorous, powerful, invincible; the right set of highlights can take years off.

Hair can make or break careers: just look at Claudia Winkleman, whose fringe has had more written about it than the woman herself.

Our hair is inextricably linked to our sense of self. Which is why losing it is so traumatic.

My heart went out to actress Helena Bonham Carter when, snapped popping to the shops at the weekend, her hair suddenly looked a little thinner than usual.

it may have just been a trick of the light, of course. But, still, how awful for her. Because i know only too well how it feels to have hair loss brought to your attention.

The first time it happened, i was at school. a classmate observed that my parting was looking very wide.

i remember rushing home and examining it closely in the mirror. She was right: it was too wide. That was the first time i realised there was something wrong with my hair.

Then, in my first week of college, a drunken male student came up to me at a party. ‘You’re quite pretty,’ he said, ‘but has anyone ever told you you’re going bald?’ i remember wishing i could die.

AFEW years later, a boy i liked said he liked me too — but that he couldn’t possibly go out with me. He explained that people would think less of him if he had a girlfriend with thin hair.

it’s a few years since i ‘came out’ as having female pattern hair loss (the combined result of stress, hormonal imbalances and a hereditary predisposition).

in that time i have met and heard from countless other women with the same condition and who have had similar experiences.

all speak of the same feeling of embarrassment and low selfesteem, of feeling inferior to ‘normal’ women, of humiliation and panic attacks.

Some isolate themselves from society, afraid to go out in public; others, like me, are more bullish. if someone were to comment unfavourably on my hair now, they’d better be quick on their feet.

Why? after all, balding men have to put up with jibes about their hair all the time. Why should it be more painful for a woman?

The answer is that while for a man hair loss may be distressing aesthetically, it is not seen as a sign of their failing virility; if anything, men who are bald are often thought to be more macho than those with flowing locks.

for women, the opposite is true. Long, thick hair is considered the essence of femininity; to lose that is to be less of a woman.

it is a kind of biological humiliation, a sign that nature has no more use for you.

and more and more women are encountering it, like i did, at a younger age. But because it’s not life-threatening, doctors and the wider medical establishment don’t tend to take it seriously.

People like myself and Bonham Carter are lucky — we have access to the best possible help.

But i have spoken to so many women who simply can’t afford the cost of treatment or a wig. for them there is no NHS provision whatsoever, no support or sympathy.

Hair loss in women is just as common as it is in men. More than 30 per cent of the female population has some form of hereditary baldness, and half of women going through the menopause experience increased shedding as their hormones taper off.

and while, yes, it’s true that losing your hair is physically harmless, the mental cost is high. it’s time to recognise this, and offer support, not scorn, to sufferers.