In Defense of Men Who Hate Wigs

Men have a right to not like wigs, no matter how badly that hurts your feelings.

Meek’s tweet about lace fronts being wack made me feel bad.

Now my default reaction to something like that would usually be indifference. I simply don’t possess enough emotional energy to give a fuck about every negative opinion men have about women’s bodies. None of us do.

But this comment got to me. Maybe because I had just gelled a lace frontal to my forehead before I read it and was feeling particularly sensitive. But mostly, it’s because I kind of agreed with him.

Yeah, I really did like the long, brown wig still adhering to my hairline. It made me feel pretty and sexy in a way that was fun and noncommittal. But if I’m being honest with myself, I wouldn’t be rocking 18 inches of some anonymous Indian babe’s hair if I had that much of my own.

Why would men feel any differently? Just as with other body parts, designer clothes, or literally anything else, why would you prefer an artificial imitation over the real thing?

No, men’s preference to real hair is natural and entirely reasonable. And therefore, women with real hair’s place at the top of the desirability hierarchy is too, no matter how much that may hurt my feelings. Simply put, there is nothing like a full, natural head of God given hair.

As long as it’s not nappy, of course. Yeah, I’m sorry, allow me to clarify: there’s nothing like a full, natural head of straight God given hair. And that’s where Black women are left with few choices. Because God forbid men accept the natural, nappy texture that grows out of our heads, no, don’t be ridiculous. We can either wear fake, straight hair and be mocked, or risk the health of our hair by burning it into submission.

That was the option I chose for my hair before mine fell out.

Now 15 years ago, before the shaved head and the diagnosis of irreversible chronic hair loss, I was a unicorn: a black girl with long hair. And not just any black girl, but a brown skin black girl. Not a light skin girl who’s soft, curly hair you’d expect to have length. But a brown skin girl who’s coarse 4C strands had to survive biweekly encounters with toxic chemicals and 400 degree metal to reach past her shoulders. For light skin girls, long hair was standard. For brown skin girls, long hair was a feat.

And that’s the way men treated me. More than just like I was attractive, it was as if I had accomplished something by having long hair. The attention I got from it was notable and obvious compared to the girls who wore weave or who’s real hair only hung to their necks. It was attention that I enjoyed in that it made me feel, what I can describe in no other way than, better. Having long hair made me feel better than the girls with short or fake hair and it’s that feeling of superiority, that feeling of special, of status, that I’m ashamed to say, I still miss, sometimes more than the hair itself.

So I guess I am deserving of that nagging feeling of inadequacy now that I wear wigs. I’ll continue to wear them despite how it declasses me in the eyes of some hetero men and how it subconsciously may declass me to myself. That bothers me, and it bothers me that it bothers me, but the confidence the wigs give ultimately outweigh any insecurities.

As for Meek, and other men who don’t like lace fronts, its not your preference for real hair that’s the issue, or even your aversion to wigs. Its the blatant and vocal shaming of women who wear them when you can easily just…not.

So, in my opinion, fine, have at it fellas. Aggressively and exclusively pursue women who don’t wear lace fronts.

But you don’t have to be unkind to those of us that do.