Living With Daughters

Straightening naturally curly hair is a long, painful, and difficult procedure. Even so, standards of beauty in pop culture have been trying to convince women to straighten their natural hair for a long time. Someone who knows this well is Gerald Early, an award winning author who is a professor of African American studies. He wrote Living with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant to explain how black women felt when surrounded by mostly white women in pop culture. They were unable to find role models in the media which made it harder to find themselves. It was written for anyone who wanted to understand the oppression black women dealt with. To tap into the real feelings of a woman, Early went to his mother, wife, and daughters. Early would ask his daughters how they felt about their beauty, “I asked her if she would like to have her hair straightened.(539)” He would analyze his daughter’s answers to see how they were reacting to his parenting styles and how their peers treated them. He also references studies done to show that black children prefer a white doll as opposed to a black doll because it is “prettier.” From this he explains how this affects his life through personal narrative. Early’s wife does not buy their children white dolls. This is her defense system against the issues Early is writing about. It seems to work as their children are comfortable with who they are and find things like beauty pageants “silly”. Early’s family always watches beauty pageants and his children find it funny that women would try so hard to be liked. Although his mother believes it is important to have a black women win it to lead as a role model,  Early’s children do not even notice. Instead of getting their hair straightened, Early and his wife decided to give their daughters traditional afros. Although their peers initially made fun of them, they learned to love it and themselves.

Vanessa Williams, the first black beauty pageant winner, surrounded by three white women

source: newsone.com