White Men and Wig Obsessions

I don’t think I have ever worked somewhere where my hair was a topic of discussion as much as it has been since working for this company. I somewhat blame myself. I allowed myself to be open enough that, somehow, my honesty about a wig has turned into a frequent question about what is on my head.

My director informed me yesterday that the owner of the company asked about my hair. Apparently, he was unable to tell if my real hair was a wig or not. Keep in mind all of my wigs come from Amazon, and they are definitely the cheaper ones. But what I found even odder about the conversation was that he has never had a problem commenting on my hair before to my face, so why the change? But the time he asked, I was rocking my natural hair.

The director then proceeded to tell me that he asked if the other black woman in the office was wearing a wig. The director said, “Oh yea.”

On another note, I do find it interesting that when she started working here, her hair was natural and out. But about a week in, she has worn a wig with no natural hair to be revealed since. There is no judgment, but given that there are only two black women in this company, I wonder if her choice to conceal her natural hair is a conscious one or just a matter of convenience.

Back to me…

What is crazy to me is that the people who have the most comments about my hair are the white men in the office. The IT guy, who comes in once a week, makes a comment every time he sees me, even going as far as to tell me he prefers my real hair.

While I appreciate working for a company that hasn’t tried to punish me for my hair choices (because, let’s be for real, the biases are still real in the corporate world), I am over the fascination. It has taken me years to reach a point where I can leave my house with my natural hair, not in “ideal” curls but in the various levels of curl and puff with confidence. A confidence that comes after years of Eurocentric hair ideals messing with my psyche.

Even with this unwanted spotlight on my hair, I keep my head high, and I own every hairdo I rock to work. But I don’t like the feeling of my relative openness to talk about my hair is starting to make me feel like the star of some sort of freak show.