Straight or Curly

I have had naturally curly hair since puberty, basically. I feel a lot of my identity, or who I am comes from the fact that I have curly hair. I have noticed in TV and movies, the only women who have curly hair are considered clueless, out there and just eccentric.

For example, in the movie The Women, in the beginning of the movie, she has GORGEOUS curly hair, but she is a space cadet and just very eccentric in her style and clueless about what is really going on in her life. To not spoil the movie, at the end when she gets things heading in the right direction, her hair is PIN straight.

Another example, Jennifer Hudson. When Jennifer Hudson first appeared on American Idol (the only season I watched) and she had the glorious fro that I actually WISH I could have. After each week she continued on the show, slowly there was transformation and the first thing to go was her CURLY FRO.

What I take from this is that society wants everyone with curly hair to go along with social norms and have straight hair.

Ever see that show on Bravo called Millionaire Matchmaker? Oh ya, she OUTRIGHT said that when she is casting women to see if millionaires want to date them that if the women have curly hair they HAVE to get their hair blown out straight.

All of this is an affront to who I am, I am proud of my curly locks. The last time I straightened my hair I was told by a guy that I liked that I looked like Trailer Trash. I have nothing wrong with STRAIGHT HAIR, it is just the bad rap I think curly hair gets.

I was in South Boston last weekend for the St. Patrick's day parade and two of my friends went to this restayrant/sandwich place called the Amsterdam and my guy friend mentioned that a girl who walked in was hot - and then she was followed by this tall, professional looking woman with curly hair and I said to my guy friend, "Now, SHE is pretty" and he said, "He couldn't date a girl with curly hair!" Um, what? So, now curly hair is just not attractive?

So, I want to do some sort of research regarding respect and curly/straight hair. I don't know how I am going to do this, but I am going to spend some time figuring it out. Maybe I will change a profile picture somewhere to be me with straight hair (which would mean I would have to straighten my hair which takes up to 2 hours).

I am just frustrated by hearing this because I pride myself in my glorious curly hair and now I am hearing otherwise.