Hair today, gone tomorrow

Going back to dress codes, I see that school pupils are still being told to change their "unacceptable" hairstyles, and can face expulsion if their refuse.

So I'm pleased that the equality body, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has just advised schools not to penalise pupils with afros because that's a form of racism.

Unfortunately the guidance only applies to afros and not to other hairstyles. And it says nothing about workplaces, which might also be picky about hairstyles.

I've never understood why schools and workplaces are so censorious about someone's hairstyle, if in most cases their hairstyle makes no difference to anything. I accept that a hairstyle may be objected to if it's a safety hazard, like long hair if you're using dangerous machinery, but otherwise, why all the fuss?

A pupil's unusual hairstyle won't stop them learning, and an employee's odd hairstyle won't stop them doing their job.

Strangely enough, neither me nor any other boy at my two schools were ever ticked off for unacceptable hairstyles. That was partly because in those days most boys opted for an unadventurous "short back and sides". They didn't have long hair as that only became popular after I left school in 1965. And they didn't dye their hair as that was seen as effeminate. But even those boys with a slicked back Elvis hairstyle were never told off. Hair just wasn't controversial.

Of course beards are never in contention for schoolboys as you can only grow a beard from around the age of 18. But there are still workplaces that ban them as "unprofessional". As a bookseller, my hairstyle was never questioned. If I had had hair down to my ankles nobody would have objected, though they might have wondered how on earth I washed it.

Hair talk

Hair. Something that spawns a hundred opinions. Compli-mentary, censorious, shocked, delighted. People are seldom emotionally neutral about a hairstyle, either their own or someone else's.

So let me share some of my own opinions about hair:

• I've only had three hairstyles in 72 years. As a kid I had a parting, as a twenty something I had a long hair and a beard, and now the parting (and the beard) is long gone.
• A lot of people with curly hair would prefer straight hair (my own is straight), but I love curly hair. Especially wild Jewish and Afro hair. I'm baffled by the prejudice against natural Afro hair.
• I'm also baffled by the prejudice against ginger hair. I love it.
• I love dreadlocks and corn rows.
• I like dyed hair, but I also like natural grey hair.
• I love short haired women. And short hair is so much easier to look after.
• Some people have hairstyles that totally don't suit them. But you can't say so.
• Hair that droops over someone's eyes is rather ridiculous.
• I'd hate to be bald. But I don't fancy a wig.
• Comb-overs are absurd. You'll never catch me with one.
• Why is the simplest woman's haircut twice the price of a man's?
• Men's hairstyles are odd right now. Undercut, Caesar cut, buzz cut, Mohawk. Strange mixtures of long hair and short hair.
• I'm wary of men with buzz cuts. Are they drug dealers or paramilitaries? Or both?
• I don't have any fancy shampoos. I just buy the cheapest I can find.
• I tried not washing my hair for a while, as supposedly hair is self-cleaning. I just ended up with stinky hair.

Basically I prefer women's hairstyles to men's. They're more imaginative and they don't look like a prison cut. And they're nicer to fondle. But jeez they're a lot more fuss and bother.

Afro massive

And now for something completely different. Once upon a time Aevin Dugas, a 36 year old social worker from New Orleans, decided she was fed up with "chemically relaxing" her hair, i.e. artificially straightening it to satisfy the white folks.

So she went back to a natural afro, and just let it grow. And grow. And grow. And now, 12 years later, she has the biggest afro in the world, with a circumference of 4 feet 4 inches.

"I love it. I would never go back to chemically relaxed hair" she says.

Big hair like that is not without its problems though. Of course everyone wants to touch it, often without asking, as Los Angelista also found out when she went natural. It annoys her but she allows touching as long as people don't pull it or "smash" it.

It catches in things like doors and trees. It picks up straws from people's drinks. She can't see properly when she's driving. In the summer heat, her hair gets so hot it starts steaming, and sometimes she thinks she's going to pass out.

So she doesn't wear her hair loose all the time. Often she bundles it up into a doughnut or a braid. She says wearing it loose all the time would damage it because it would get too tangled.

And when she washes it she uses up to five conditioners at once to keep it looking good.

But she doesn't seem too bothered by all these little glitches and snags. If anything she seems to find them amusing and intriguing. She certainly isn't tempted to go back to a "normal" hairstyle.

Good for her. She's a cool cookie. And afros rock!

PS: I always loved Angela Davis's afro. She was one of my sixties heroes.

Pic: Aevin Dugas

Watch an interview with Aevin here.