IngentaConnect The Decline and Fall of the Conk; or, How to Read a Process

Author: Craig, Maxine

Source: Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, Volume 1, Number 4, November 1997 , pp. 399-419(21)

Abstract:

In the forties and fifties, most black women straightened their hair; some black men conked theirs. While straightened hair was socially respectable, conks were the opposite. Straightening hair is an African American practice that developed within the context of a national culture saturated with imagery that celebrated long, straight hair as an essential to femininity. Advocates for Black Pride equated hair straightening with being ashamed of race. Craig argues that expression of identification with a white hair aesthetic is too simplistic a view for the meaning of processed hair within African American communities. The article contends that women are judged more severely than men when they ignore or fail to meet norms of attractiveness. Celebrations of Blackness did not directly challenge constructions of masculinity and femininity; as a result it was much harder for a black woman to wear natural than it was for a black man. Craig concludes that an ideology of black consciousness reframed the meaning of practices with respect to racial codes. These cultural shifts occurred when it was easy to think racially and harder to think of gender differences. The pleasure of transgressing racial boundaries was more difficult for women who at the same time transgressed gender norms that were only beginning to be questioned by the women's movement.

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