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Women's Health

(PS13-A16) She Wears It How? Hair Texture Dissatisfaction Relates to Racism and Colorism in Black Women

Sunday, November 19, 2023
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM PST
Location: Regency Ballroom, Level 7
In 2020, Black women earned only 64 cents for every White man’s $1.00 – a form of discrimination in employment that may cause Black women to deny racial identity and subscribe to the White beauty standard. Specifically, they may use toxic chemical hair relaxants to force curlier hair to be straighter. The social forces of racism and colorism may play a role in this form of hair texture dissatisfaction. A Qualtrics survey of Black women (N = 316; 91.8% African American, 8.2% Multiracial/Biracial) on Prolific examined how perceived racism and colorism were associated with hair dissatisfaction. Over half (55%) reported chemically relaxing their hair a few times a year. Developed for this study, hair texture discrepancy (HTD) is a novel body image scale including visuals of straight hair (to the left) and progressively curlier hair (to the right). Women rated their current and ideal hair texture and a discrepancy score (HTD) was calculated. Another perceived hair texture dissatisfaction (HTDSS) scale was also used. Both were statistically related to racism (HTD r = .12, p < .05; HTDSS r = .13, p < .01) and colorism (HTD r = .14, p < .05; HTDSS r = .19, p < .001). Linear regression with hair texture dissatisfaction (HTDSS) as the outcome found that only perceived colorism (B = 0.17, p = .003) but not racism (B = 0.09, p = .132) was a predictor when colorism and racism were entered together (R2 = .045). Results suggest that these prejudicial social forces, especially how the importance of lighter versus darker skin tones are perceived within the Black community, affect how Black women feel about their hair. These body image metrics of hair texture dissatisfaction deserve more attention in future research since hair texture dissatisfaction appears to affect Black women personally and potentially professionally.