Recently, I had a conversation with a Black woman about “hair” — yet we quickly realised that what we were discussing was never just hair, but the intersection of body, identity, race, beauty standards, and intergenerational trauma.
The interviewee mentioned that within many Black communities, “straight hair is still seen as beautiful” — a perception not rooted in Black culture itself, but heavily shaped by colonial, Eurocentric beauty ideals. Historically and today, racialised aesthetics have labelled Black women’s natural Afro-textured hair as “messy,” “unprofessional,” or “hard to manage”, pushing many women to straighten or suppress their natural curls in order to fit into white-dominated workplace and social standards.
Although the “natural hair movement” in recent years has encouraged more Black women to embrace Afros, braids, locs, and protective styles, the interviewee noted that the desire for smoothness and sleekness still lingers within the community, reflecting the ongoing influence of these internalised beauty norms.
During our conversation, she further shared that in some contexts, wider hips among Black women are considered “not attractive” or “not feminine enough.” This belief may sound absurd, yet it is deeply rooted in history — specifically, the internalisation of a white, slender, delicate ideal of femininity.
Colonial discourses have long demonised and objectified Black women’s bodies — sexualising them on the one hand, while de-feminising them on the other, attaching labels such as “strong,” “masculine,” or “too big.” In the white gaze, wider hips and a stronger physique have been perceived as deviating from femininity, a perception that has gradually become internalised as self-surveillance and self-doubt within Black communities.
Ahmed (2004) argues that the body becomes “oriented” toward certain social ideals through cultural conditioning, continually adjusting itself to meet norms and expectations. Within this system of discipline, hair and the body become two key arenas where women learn to “correct” themselves.
This conversation made me realise that although the embodied experiences of Black and East Asian women stem from distinct historical trajectories, both are shaped by powerful mechanisms of social regulation.
In Chinese culture, Confucian ethics — such as the belief that “our body, hair, and skin are given by our parents and must not be harmed” — constructed a moral framework around women’s appearance, requiring them to present a body that is “orderly, modest, and obedient” to signal filial piety and virtue. Later, Japanese, Korean, and Western beauty standards layered onto this foundation, producing a modern ideal of the “fair, youthful, slim, and delicate” woman. Chinese women, too, are socialised to manage their posture, control their body shape, and style their hair according to socially accepted aesthetics.
The paths of regulation differ:
- Black women: assimilation pressures rooted in colonial histories and white aesthetic dominance
- Chinese women: Confucian bodily ethics reinforced by contemporary media-driven beauty standards
Yet the outcome is strikingly similar — women learn to view their own bodies as something that must be corrected.
Hair and the body are not simply matters of “personal choice”; they are projections of power structures. When women begin to embrace their natural hair textures and recognise their inherent bodily features, it is more than an aesthetic shift — it is a political act, a form of decolonisation, and a reclaiming of narrative power.
Reference：
Banks, I. (2000) Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women’s Consciousness. New York: New York University Press.
Ahmed, S. (2004) The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
DeLongoria, M. (2018) ‘Misogynoir: Black Hair, Identity Politics, and Multiple Black Realities’, Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, 12(8), pp. 39–49.
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