Under 2% of models are booked with known alopecia, which leaves women feeling isolated, unwomanly and feeling like they have no-one to look up to. I was lucky enough that one of the leading women's alopecia groups in the UK wanted to work with me and through interviewing them I created a photography series based on quotes that I picked up on. From "braving the shave" to "not feeling human anymore" , and then finally "feeling feminine and empowered" .
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ARE YOU DEFINED BY YOUR HAIR?
Empowered women speak out about how not having hair makes them feel in today's society
Your hair is something that you don’t realise you rely on for all your confidence until it’s gone. Your hair is something that you relate to your feminity. Your hair is something that expresses’ your personality, whether that be through wild curls or a bright red mane. So, when I woke up 4 years ago with a near perfect circle of baldness above my left ear, the sheer panic that rushed through my body was indescribable.
Being an overly image obsessed 15-year-old at the time, I thought my life was over. No-one would ever want to be associated with me again, I would just be some hairless weirdo in the corner. Looking back, how stupid does that sound? It’s. Just. Hair. So why did I panic so much? In my situation, my alopecia was a result of stress, so eventually grew back. However, this isn’t the case for many women. Over 147 million women worldwide suffer with alopecia, and over 70% of women get diagnosed with some form of hair loss throughout their life. So why is it one of the most alienating conditions there is?
Alopecia areata is an autoimmune condition – an illness that occurs when the body tissues are attacked by its own immune system. The body’s immune system decides that hair follicles are bad and attacks them, causing the hair to fall out. You literally feel like your own body is turning against you, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Alopecia is one of the most under-represented diseases within the modelling world, with only 2% of models being booked with known alopecia. On top of that 5-6% of women models are bald or have a shaved head through choice, with models and activists like Amber Rose shaving their heads for “female empowerment”. In one respect, this is a massively positive step as any representation matters. However, this infuriates a lot of alopecians as it’s taking the spotlight from those who really need it. ‘When I lost all my hair, there is not one person in the spotlight I could relate to. Not one. Says Jolene Casey, runner of the Panache Group. ‘This was 15 years ago, and I’d like to say it was different now, but the only person I can see is that girl that was on America’s top model to add abit of “diversity” to the show’. Panache are a group of women who are touring the country in order to get the word out there about alopecia whilst empowering women, and have appeared on the likes of This Morning and The Lad Bible. The groups mission, says Jolene ‘Is to make everyone feel beautiful, feminine and confident in their own skin. When we lost our hair, we felt more like creatures, something that didn’t belong to society anymore. To look at how far we have all come is amazing, we walk wig free and have never felt better’.
Whilst talking to the Panache group, a reoccurring topic became apparent. As soon as society sees a bald woman it’s instinct to think that they are receiving chemo or are sick rather than to think they have alopecia. ‘My health is questioned every time I step out the door without a wig’ jokes Natasha, ‘sometimes wearing a wig is just easier as people don’t question you then’. For Hannah, the youngest of the group at 15, this is something that she couldn’t quite get used to when she lost her hair when she was just 7. ‘A lady at the till asked me how my treatment was going. For a 10-year-old who is just getting used to having no hair, that makes you feel extremely bad about yourself’. Something I didn’t realise, is that the majority of the time this question gets asked it’s to bald women and not to bald men. Men being bald is ‘normal’ within society, with a study from Albert E Mannes shows that women find bald men to be ‘13% more dominant, 10% more masculine and 13% stronger’. So how is it fair for men to be deemed as stronger, yet women are presumed to have a life-threatening illness?
When I started to lose bits of my hair 4 years ago, the first thing I thought of was how I was going to cover it up. I went out on a manic headscarf buying spree and constantly wore my hair in a ponytail as I thought that was the best way to cover up my bald patches. The thought of appearing as weak and unfeminine to my peers was too much to comprehend. This is something Nicola Raisbeck has had to deal with since she started losing her hair, but more so when she started her job within the police force. Nicola had been leading a double life, using her real name in her everyday life and a fake name, Nykla Razorbic when discussing her alopecia online. The police force is already a male dominated field, so being a perceived as a weaker woman wasn’t something Nicola wanted to face. This is the first time Nicola has used her real name talking about her alopecia, admitting that her alopecia ‘sucked the life’ out of her. ‘I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror anymore without tears running down my face. I wasn’t me.’ Braving the shave is something that helped Nicola take back her control over alopecia ‘I felt like I was sticking my fingers up at alopecia and saying, “you can’t get me anymore”.
‘I am bald and happy. Also, hairy and happy’ Nicola elaborated. ‘I don’t want to be defined by my hair anymore’. This is something I wish I could’ve told my 15 year old self. We aren’t defined our hair. We are a lot more than what is on top of our heads. We are policewomen, students, mothers, the list is endless. Alopecians actively claiming power back over the disease is a massive F you to society. We don’t care if you deem us to be ‘weaker’ or ‘weird’, it’s got nothing to do with you anyway.