I cut my hair
new edgy looks
OMG! I did it! I cut my hair! I have wanted to do this for a while actually but I didn't trust the barber shops oversees so when I came home, I made sure I'd do it before I leave.
But why exactly did I want to do this you might ask. Well, simply because I wanted to 😂. More so, because I wanted to experience how it feels like to liberate myself from body image expectations. In Tanzania, people make concrete judgments of character based on people's hairstyles or styles of dressing. I have lived my whole life following these societal imposed definitions of appropriate dress but I am finally choosing to liberate myself from them. I can have my hair like this and not be a hooligan...because I am not a hooligan. I am just a girl whose edges got damaged and is trying to regrow the sides of her hair. When they grow back, I will have my hair shaved evenly. In the mean time, I would like to experiment with styles. Is that too much to ask?
It is my life long goal to liberate and decolonize myself. In line with this goal, I am choosing to unlearn shame this year...and I am starting with the hair. I like shaving my hair like this and I would love to do it without having someone think I am a hooligan. We always find ways to tie negative connotations to a woman's body and I feel like living inside a woman’s body shouldn’t be a humiliating affair. These are the only bodies we have, and I am choosing to be comfortable in mine. Even if it means looking like a hooligan in the process.
