Read on Twitter
SMA, this is actually *exactly* why you read the comments. Let me explain why this was a disappointment: https://twitter.com/16thSMA/status/1354195573960794115
With the preface that this is the step in the right direction. Great job, truly.
It would have been an even greater job still and an excellent legacy to leave behind/example to set for those above and to your left and right, to go even further. Because if we're trying to enact progress, just do it. Let the normalization follow.
Give us ponytails. I was in the office at 0745 this morning and my scalp was already in pain. This is an all day thing. And this, I assume, is a separate experience from white women. I'm not sure what the composition of your voting panel was in terms of race but my hair, SMA--
is slightly coiled and slightly kinky at the roots. You've given black women the leeway to do new hairstyles, etc. Great! That's exactly what we needed to happen immediately. But you took nearly 7 months to make this change. And there are those of us with nearly hip length hair.
It is curly, it is kinky, it is HEAVY. This more than likely sounds like complaining to you and your peers, I get that. I would say the same actually. But a lesson I'm learning these days, is empathy. I struggle with empathy a lot. I'd say all of miltwitter agrees.
Make our days a little bit easier. Let me work without a headache every single day. Give a shit about my hair. I am also a Hindu Tamilian woman. In south India, hair has agency in culture and religion. There are holy days for children where they will be shaved. Women wash their--
hair immediately when someone dies to rid our bodies of "soonyam". I don't know how to translate that and capture the heft of its importance in our religion. We have to keep our hair braided in temples. We shave our heads during certain occasions.
All this to say that hair is a big part of our lives in India. How does this tie into the Army, you say? Our hair is important and part of our identity. I'm happy to comply, but just imagine having all this hair as an Indian woman in a bun all day.
Hair is also prominent in African cultures, in many similar ways to Indian culture. 4a/b/c hair types, I can't even begin to imagine how bad that must be to keep in a bun. But let me stay on par. There was once when I was in a chopper and my hair was completely tore up.
Guess who got chewed out for it? Leadership failure? Yeah for sure, that NCO didn't need to do that but whatever I took it. I still do, people know me for my flyaways/fucked up bun in general. I cannot contain all this so whatever no big deal. But that rhetoric even exists bc--
of a regulation that doesn't need to. I've been at my desk all morning, than I'm off to do inventories in the motorpool. Do I really need to keep my hair in a bun? Nah.
SMA, there's really nothing you can't come back and say, well that's not really a *necessity*. And sure, I agree. But can we not just do something cuz it would be nice to have, for once? A woman will have your job one day. It would be pretty nice for her do it without a headache.
Y'all took all that time and still came back and said no, despite all this information, the majority of us saying yes please we really want that. I sat down with my dinner full of hope that this headache would be a thing of the past last night, and damn man I was so disappointed.
And then I had to see all these fucking men complain about beards when the time and energy poured by women for women was disregarded and peppered with 'females'. I got long hair, man. A lot of us do. I promise you, it will not reduce the lethality of a desk bitch.
Anyway. If you're not gonna give us ponytails, get your hand out of pocket.
Wow this is so full of bad grammar and spelling mistakes. My bad y’all.
