BIG BITCH MANIFESTO

CLARKISHA KENT ON GENDERED HAIR, FATPHOBIA AND MYSOGYNOIR

PHOTO CHEYENNE EWULU

"This bullshit rule about ‘feminine’ hair applied doubly because of my dark skin”

Hair has always been a Big Deal™ to me and for me. It was a battle ground in my uber-conservative, Nigerian home growing up. And no kid in that house could escape it or opt out of it. Both my mother and father were very strict about how all of their kids were expected to keep up with their hair. They were aggressive gender (binary) essentialists. In their mind, masculine = boy = short hair. And feminine = girl = long hair.

My parents absolutely deplored the possibility of any of my brothers walking about with long hair. It was true. And they didn’t mind traumatising them in order to enforce this “concern” of theirs. They made that abundantly clear when they shaved my youngest brother Tommy’s hair when he was about to turn three.

Tommy was super young then. Practically still a baby. And though he didn’t have the language at the time to properly object, I remember my father bringing him back home from the barber shop one day and he was sobbing. Boohooing, honestly. And over the course of the next week or so, I’d observe him sitting in front of his toys, not playing with them at all. Instead, he’d be touching his head absently. Staring off into space. Probably wondering where his hair went. And if it might ever grow back.