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ABSTRACT
Hair is an essential element in Black women’s socialization. Too frequently, featuring natural hair undermines Black women’s possibilities of occupying high-paying professions. The result has been the naturalization of weaves and relaxers, while natural hair stands of a symbol of revolution, a reason for being marginalized or not taken seriously. In this context, Butler’s theory of performative femininity is linked to urban spaces, for relaxing one’s hair is read as a way of performing the urban and assimilating into mainstream urban social patterns of style and behaviour. This paper explores Michelle Obama’s hairstyling decisions becoming literally political in a context in which she is collectively imagined as an embodiment of aspirational Black urban femininity. The focus is on representations of M. Obama’s hair, and of her embodying Black womanhood. I analyse Obama being granted political influence and her burden of representing and performing Black urban femininity. The analysis is based on fashion magazine articles discussing M. Obama’s hairstyles. Such articles underline the idea that the Obamas would not be politically trusted if M. Obama featured natural hairstyles. Hence, relaxed hair is read as a performative strategy fulfiling social expectations and contributing to achieve political goals as the US First Lady.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. By natural hair I refer to hair that has not been treated with chemical products to alter its original texture.
2. A weave is a hairstyle in which hair attachments, either synthetic or natural, are added to someone’s hair. It consists of sewing hair extensions onto someone’s hair after it has been braided, or onto a net covering the hair.
3. Here it must be considered that, very frequently, the so-called ‘good’ hair, and lighter skin, were traits associated with offsprings of plantation masters, which could also justify the preferent treatment certain slaves received.
4. For further information on hair practices among female slaves regarding the utilitarian and cultural functions of hairstyles and bandanas see Shane and Graham White’s ‘Slave Hair and African American Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’ (1995). For a deeper insight into hair straightening practices among slaves related to the use of lye, potatoes, butter, kerosene, and coffee straightening products see Byrd and Tharps’s Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America (Byrd and Tharps Citation[2001] 2014).
5. See Hooks (Citation1988) for more information on ‘the beauty parlor [as] a space of consciousness raising, [and] a space where black women shared life stories – hardship, trials, gossip; a place where one could be comforted and one’s spirit renewed’ (Citation1988, 34).
6. Relaxing one’s hair consists on applying a creamy product to chemically alter its naturally kinky status. Changing its texture and appearance, the so-called ‘relaxers’ create straight styles. Lye is an essential chemical component used when manufacturing these products. As a result, applying the relaxer frequently entails burning one’s scalp during the process, as well as hair loss and breakage.
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Cristina Cruz-Gutiérrez
Cristina Cruz-Gutiérrez has a MA in Modern Languages and Literatures from the University of the Balearic Islands, and she is currently enrolled in its PhD Philology and Philosophy programme. She is also a member of the research project “The politics, aesthetics and marketing of literary formulae in popular women’s fiction: History, Exoticism and Romance” (HER). Her research focuses on the field of African literatures and Gender Studies, and she is especially interested in contemporary Nigerian female writing. Within this field, she has published articles on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Noo Saro-Wiwa, and Chika Unigwe.