GOING BOLD BY GOING BALD
Whether by choice or circumstance, women redefining beauty standards
‘This has been a huge statement in owning my beauty and telling the little girl inside of me that she’s beautiful. … The only way to discover your braveness is to just do it.’ Jotina Buck, second-grade teacher
Jotina Buck didn’t just wake up one day and shave off her hair.
It was a gradual process that, in a way, had been formulating since she was a little girl. The second-grade teacher at North Belt Elementary in Humble had always struggled with her hair, which was naturally “kinky” and deemed “bad” in certain societal constructs.
She had her first hair relaxer at age 5 and had been wearing hair extensions and weaves since the first grade.
“All I wanted was to go to school with straight hair, so as an adult, investing in hair weaves and spending an absurd amount of money on hair was my validation,” she said.
The 34-year-old would spend up to $2,000 every three months on hair weaves, coloring and styling, but shaving off her hair completely in late 2011 gave her a financial and emotional freedom that she had never known.
Buck, who is also an author and a soughtafter empowerment speaker, has fully embraced her bald beauty. Last year, she was the keynote
speaker for her school district’s “No Place for Hate” week, which celebrates kindness, anti-bullying and empowerment.
She and several other Houston women — a hair-salon owner, a corporate trainer and a critical-care nurse — who are bald, by choice or circumstance, are helping to expand, maybe even redefine, what it means to be beautiful.
It’s a concept that’s even more magnified with the recent blockbuster Marvel movie “Black Panther,” in which the black female warriors are all bald. At one point, General Okoye, played by Danai Gurira, wears a wig as a disguise. She calls it a disgrace and flings it off the moment she has to fight the bad guys.
The movie comes at a time when more black women are forgoing chemical relaxers amid health concerns, as well as hair breakage and loss. Instead, they are wearing Afros, locks and other natural hairstyles. Celebrities such as Lupita Nyong’o and Viola Davis are helping to fuel the natural-hair movement in Hollywood.
The bald look, which requires more skin care than anything, seems to run counter to society’s overall obsession with hair. Women nationally are spending more and more on hair products. According to the NPD Group, a market-research firm, women in the U.S. spent nearly $487 million in 2017 on hair-care products, including shampoo, conditioner and styling products, at department and beautyspecialty stores. It’s a 15 percent increase over 2016.
For Hahleemah Wright Ellison, 38, who has been bald for 16 years, seeing shaved heads and natural hairstyles in “Black Panther” gave her a sense of overwhelming pride.
“It was beautiful to see the representation (of bald beauty) finally being brought to the forefront,” said the hairstylist and owner of The Way of Life Natural Hair Salon in Pearland. “When I was watching the movie, inevitably I saw myself. I felt like I am them and, in my own way, I fight like they fight, I lead like they lead, and I move the way that they move.”
Buck’s bald head was an adjustment for both students and administrators, many of whom assumed she was ill.
“I got everything from, ‘Are you OK, Ms. Buck?’ to, ‘You look like a boy,’ ” she said. “Some students even said I was ugly. Kids are very frank, and so many of them were fixated on me looking like a boy that it didn’t matter why I did it.”
‘What did I do?!’
It took weeks for the classroom chatter about Buck’s bald head to quiet down and for her to fully accept her new look. She wore head wraps at first to ease into the style.
“There were moments when I held my head high and shoulders back, but I was shriveling up inside,” she said. “I felt this duality that even though I was trying to affirm that I was beautiful, I was like, ‘What did I do?!’ ”
Now, her students tell her that her bald head is beautiful. Their parents tell her she’s brave.
“This has been a huge statement in owning my beauty and telling the little girl inside of me that she’s beautiful,” Buck said. “Bravery grew on me. It took some time for me to be able to walk into H-E-B with a bald head and just earrings. But we are only as brave as we are willing to be, and the only way to discover your braveness is to just do it.”
Like Buck, Wright Ellison is often stopped by strangers, particularly women, who express their admiration for her baldness and, moreover, her boldness to wear it that way.
She hadn’t thought about being bold when she cut off her long hair in her early 20s to shed negativity in her life.
“I needed to start new and fresh,” she said. “It was a way of cleansing. I didn’t plan to stay bald, but it just stuck and worked for me. I feel beautiful and desirable, so this was a selfish act. I did this for me.”
At the time, Wright Ellison didn’t know one woman who was bald. Her father even told her that “no man wants a woman with hair shorter than him.” But it didn’t deter her.
“I believe people feed off the energy you give,” she said. “I was extremely confident when I cut my hair. I knew I needed to do it. I was firm and grounded in my decision. I walked like you couldn’t tell me anything.”
With time, her father came around, and, last year, Wright Ellison married Brian Ellison, who is also bald. They have a double bathroom vanity and shave their heads together.
“I feel like going bald was me being me. There’s definitely a feeling of being exposed, vulnerable and naked when you are bald. But in that, there’s also a level of beauty, uniqueness and authenticity,” she said.
According to a recent University of Pennsylvania study, men with shaved heads were rated as more dominant and even perceived as being attractive. There are a variety of studies on baldness and how men are perceived. But studies about perceptions of female baldness are hard to find.
According to the American Hair Loss Association, 40 percent of people in the United States with hair loss are female, but many women are too embarrassed to discuss it.
Wig weary
Until last July, Rhonda Robeaux hid her thinning hair by wearing wigs and weaves. The 48-year-old corporate trainer who lives in Dayton said it started in her 20s.
She eventually reached a point when she was done with trying to find the right wig. It had become a chore, so Robeaux shaved her head.
“I had a wig on the day I shaved my head. I figured the worst-case scenario was that I would have to put the wig back on,” she said. “My brother told me to just throw my shoulders back and keep it moving.”
That’s what Robeaux did, but she was still concerned with how her baldness would go over in the workplace.
“I flew to New York for a corporate meeting and walked into the conference room bald,” she said. “Of course, the initial response was, ‘Are you OK?’ Then everyone started with compliments and telling me how bold I am.”
Robeaux said shaving her head opened the door to other changes in her life.
“I started to purge things that didn’t bring value to my life,” she said. “That included furniture, clothes and, yes, some people. I had worn wigs and weaves for so long, I got to a point I wanted to divorce myself from it all and be free. We all hide behind so many different masks. In order to wear a bald or shaved head, you actually have to have a certain level of power and confidence to be able to pull the look off and risk what society or people may say about you.”
Baldness also has given Robeaux freedom to do things she’s never been able to do — including swim.
“The moment I was able to dive into a pool and come up straight out of the water and not worry that anything (a hair weave) had come loose. That was amazing. That was freedom.”
For some women, such as Simone Dobbs, 42, of Richmond, a bald head is a symbol of her battle with cancer.
Dobbs went bald as a result of chemotherapy treatment after a cancer diagnosis in November. The critical-care nurse at Memorial Herman Hospital said her hair fell out in patches after the first treatment. But instead of wearing wigs, she had a barber cut off her remaining hair. It was a bold move that gave Dobbs strength to continue to fight the disease.
“I’m bald because of cancer,” she said. “It was scary at first, but I’ve embraced it. I never wanted to wear wigs or anything. I’ve gotten so many compliments, and I think that helps build your confidence.”
Dobbs plans to keep the bald look after her treatment is done. It’s easy to maintain, but it’s also her new symbol of beauty.
“I think more than anything it’s about feeling beautiful on the inside,” she said. “This wasn’t a personal choice for me, but now it is. I will be rocking my bald head.”