Hair loss is common in men and ladies, especially with age – for instance, affects androgenetic alopecia (or pattern baldness). 80% male and 40% female. For probably the most part, this will be physically unnecessary.
Despite this, hair loss is frowned upon in modern society. Watch as news stories speculate about whether ten-year-old Prince George and his younger brother Louis will inherit their father's throne. “The Baldness Gene”.
There is potential for market value in hair restoration procedures. £10 billion By 2026. You can even buy wigs for kids that declare to make children up to 3 years old. “more attractive”.
It wasn't all the time this manner. Baldness has been revered in lots of cultures and periods of history, from ancient Egypt to the 18th-century Asini (modern-day Ghana). Shaved and bald heads can represent purity, rejection of superficiality, and might be ritualized through day by day shaving.
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Bald heads have also been positively related to divinity. Includes medieval and Christian art bald pictures of jesus And Madonna.. Today Buddhist monks, nuns and Other political and religious groups Shave your head as usual.
Baldness also began to be celebrated within the West within the nineteenth century. But for religious reasons, it was for pseudo-scientific people attached to harmful ideas about intelligence and race. This set a precedent for the Eurocentric bias in hair loss research that continues to this present day.
Eugenicists and hair loss
Ten years after Charles Darwin published his famous evolutionary treatise “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, his cousin Francis Galton expanded on it by suggesting that some groups of humans More advanced than others. Galton and others used any observable differences in humans, including differences in skin color and hair, as “evidence” of various human races, a few of which were superior to others.
Black people specifically were pseudoscientifically described as having different hair and being evolutionarily inferior to white people. Victorian eugenicists Black people mistook the hair for animal skins, arguing that they were the identical “black-skinned, woolly-headed animals”.[s] For the last 2000 years.”
Related to eugenics was the pseudoscience of phrenology, which attempted to predict traits resembling personality and morality from physical characteristics. These included the form, color and amount of hair on an individual's head. Phrenology, which has been thoroughly discredited, was used to take care of Scientific racismthe concept race is biological and that some races are superior to others.
Victorian creator Henry Frith wrote in his 1891 book, How to read character in features, shapes and faces: “Men without hair are wise: both their mental and physical strength are remarkable … Mind dominates matter in the bald”.
Such ideas were combined with a false belief in the prevalence and intelligence of white men over other “hairy” races. Frith wrote: “There are white and relatively hairless races.[e] Dominance in the world [over the] strong, wild, hairy species”
American medical students was taught “That slaves, Indians, women, and donkeys are never bald because of their small and undeveloped brains.” In 1902, medical doctor David Walsh wrote A book on diseases of the hair through which he said: “Baldness is practically unknown among savages.”
Shockingly, such eugenicist logic was not challenged until the late twentieth century. In 1966, dermatologist Ian Martin Scott concluded: “Baldness is a rarity among the colored races and almost unknown in many semi-civilized communities”.
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Diversity is vital in hair loss.
Today, such false beliefs are thankfully rare in science. However, as in lots of areas of medical research, Studies and clinical trials in hair loss Focusing totally on white people, ignoring or excluding other ethnic groups.
Social psychologist Hannah Frith (no relation) and myself Recently reviewed psychological studies. Who researched greater than 10,000 bald men in total. We found that just about all research participants were European or Asian, with only one% from South America or Africa.
Meanwhile, dermatologists and other hair loss practitioners routinely read medical textbooks that only include pictures of them. White scalp and straight textured hair.
This is an issue because, as recent (and limited) research shows, hair loss is common in all racial and ethnic groups. A 2022 the study reviewed data from almost 200,000 UK men (aged 38–73). The researchers found that 68 percent of white men reported hair loss in comparison with 64 percent of South Asian men and 59 percent of black men. (The relatively small difference is partly explained by the proven fact that the white men within the study were older).
There are also types of hair loss which might be more common in people of color. For example, it’s more prone to occur in Asian women. Areas of alopeciaan autoimmune condition that causes hair loss.
Black persons are more prone to develop. Traction alopecia, a form of hair loss related to the constant pulling of hair follicles, including tight hairstyles. This condition highlights the results of a racist society on hair.
In particular, black people may feel compelled to cover their African-textured hair (stereotypically unattractive) through weaves, braids, and chemical relaxers. All of those exercises might be physically damaging, including to the hair follicles.
Genetically Involved Alopecia Resources (via Center for Evidence-Based Dermatology) help dermatologists make more realistic recommendations that place people's hair problems of their social and cultural context.
A greater understanding of the ethnography of hair loss research is important. It reminds us that the feel, color, or amount of an individual's hair doesn't tell us anything meaningful about them, evolutionary or otherwise.