Hey there my lovely bloggers,
I hope that everyone is doing fabulously. So, I had an experience recently that really irritated me. On Wednesday I got my hair straightened (3 month trim). On Thursday I stopped by work/lab to do one quick thing, and my boss happened to see me. He said "Shayna, wow you look so professional, I think it's the hair." Okay, at first, I was like yeah, it's straight. Then dropped the subject and moved on to what I had come for. However, as I let that mull around in my mind (that can be dangerous), it really started to piss me off (pardon the hard language, but it really made me mad). So, then I think, professional by whose standards? So here goes the rant (and I acknowledge that when he said this he probably meant no harm). I attended the national black graduate student conference this week, and I would say 90% of the women there (if not more) had natural hair. I found each and every woman regardless of if she was rocking, a huge fro, twa, straight hair, braids, twists, locked hair, or was just about bald to look professional when in her business attire. Since when did professionalism came in the package of straight hair?!?!?! I mean, to me that says, I can go to work looking just about any kind of way with straight hair and look professional, but can go to work wearing a bad business suit and my beautiful natural hair and not look professional. That just doesn't add up in my mind. And let me just put some fuel on that fire, I actually did not look professional as I had on jeans and a collared shirt (cute definitely, professional no). So, even though I know it doesn't seem like it, I'm actually not bothered by it anymore, because I do acknowledge that we are all entitled to our own opinion. However, at the time, it really irritated me to think that a person who is in authority and does hire people placed professionalism in hair. And quick aside, there are three females working in that lab, all of which joined because he said it was okay, and two of them are black and we both have natural hair, so I guess professionalism isn't that important to him. Anyhoo, that's my quick little rant. So, now my questions to you.
Have you had any similar experiences? Do you think the comment would have bothered you? How would you have handled the situation?
So, that's all I have for now, tootles
Love, peace and happiness....
