I’m sure you must have seen the video that went viral late last month of a female pastor preaching to a set of single women in Nigeria about why they must always have their hair covered with wigs, in order to look attractive to find a man. Trust me, it was more cringe than I typed.
I don’t know when exactly it went viral, but I noticed people were just sending me to the clips on Instagram. The first time I saw this, I won’t lie, I was pissed off.
First reason for my being pissed off was the level of ignorance spewed by a supposed “Woman of God” given a platform. Many times, when we are given platforms to speak to people of varying experiences, we have to be careful not to bring our own spectacled perspectives, and lay it out to people as advice
The second reason I was angry was that, “oh no… Not in 2023.” If this were the year 2010, I would have understood the lack of education about how beautiful our hair is. But not in 2023, after many women have finally come to accept the beauty of their God-given hair, one woman with a mic wants to set us back for generations???
It left such a bitter taste in my mouth, that I began to pray to God to wipe out the memory of that video. But alas, my prayers were not answered because people started talking about this issue everywhere, on social media, in mainstream news, I mean everywhere. So I decided to finally lend my voice.
Do you know that at my hair clinic, the leading cause of Traction Alopecia has now shifted from weaves and extensions, and now transited to wigs?
Do you know the kinds of hair many women carry under their wigs?
And here is a woman who says that should be our default outward look?
She explicitly said “Invest in wigs. Don’t carry your natural hair out. Who has natural hair helped?” Like I said, it was more cringe than this
“Excuse me ma, natural hair has helped me, and many other women. In fact, many people don’t even know its my natural hair because of its amazing length (butt length)”
Natural Hair has helped us appreciate that God didn’t make a mistake when He created us
She said “Wear the wigs to attract him, when you get married, you can take off the wigs. By then, you’d have entered the marriage, and you’d have gotten what you wanted.” Like our natural hair is something to be hidden when we want to look beautiful. It was likened to a bad habit to be kept away, only to be revealed when we are now in our comfort zone, sort of how you shouldn’t fart during the dating phase, but you can fart in marriage
No, we will not be ashamed of our hair because of some people’s standards of beauty. In my own opinion, our hair is more beautiful than wigs when it is in its full glory.
If your natural hair doesn’t look good, the focus should be on how to care for it in order to look beautiful, and not shame it, hide it, or tell everyone that the standard for beauty is not natural hair.
If you also want to see the video, if you haven’t seen it, you can search for it with “who natural hair epp pastor.” Just be prepared to get triggered. As for me, I won’t do her the honors of giving her more notoriety.
I will really like to know what you thought or felt about the whole issue and video when you saw it.
Please reply in the comment section below
