Why Do We Care About Hair | Naomi Abigail | Tedxbadinh

My name is Naomi, a vegan I'm here to talk about hair Friday life. We try to change our identity, we try to find out who we are try to shape it and change it, and for me, one way of doing that was through my hair. This was me a year ago, regular brown, hair, nothing special China, which then quickly faded into ginger for many years, see for all the changes I every time felt different and when I got here in Hanoi, I wanted to blend in with the locals. So I ate spring rolls played badminton in the park and even got me Tamizh, but throughout all these stages. But the most important thing was is that I realized every different aspect of my identity and even as a young girl is always changing. My hair and I quickly learned that mud is not a great way of coloring her hair, so we try to portray a certain message with hair think about someone with dreadlocks. We immediately feel that we know something about that person or think about an angel buckle. Her hair and does an angel have hair, has different beading and because of that, hair has been used to oppress people. The Mongolian warrior Genghis Khan understood this when he established the Mongol Empire in India. One of the first rules that he implemented West for his soldiers to cut the women's brains to take out their head. I dye and cover the hair with dust the first centuries the shaving of the head has been used to oppress and identify slaves, and even today, in North Korea, only a select amount of hairstyles are allowed, which must make the live of hairdressers a lot easier. But because here has different cultural meanings, we have to understand them and realize them so that we can embrace them and use them for good. The ancient Greeks understood the concept of hair in different colors, and they use stereotypes as well in their plays. Actors were different. Color, wigs to portray different types of characters, blond wigs were used for the heroes black wings were portrayed to portray a rich and and red bricks were used to portray a clown. So there's something inherently that we understand with hair color, especially in the West. I feel so when you look and think of an angel angel has a probably blond hair and that's actually quite understandable from illusionary perspective, see when we are younger Caucasian people. We grew up with lighter colored hair, which then gradually becomes darker. This blonde hair is associated with youth and also innocence, and because youth is associated with fertility, we are more. Men are more attracted to blonde women. Moreover, pregnant women also become have get darker hair when they get pregnant, does signaling that they're no longer on the market and even blonde women report to feel more attracted to men with darker hair, because darker hair is associated with an older age and older age means More mature and more likely to provide so if we realized this, we now know what hair color you have to wear to look more attractive, or maybe men to look more mature. But we can also use this to look at identity and realize why our blondes were attractive, and we see this in the media as well. A research looking at media from 1950 to 1980 found in America that there were significantly an over-representation of blonde women because blonde were more attractive right and sex sells. So when we realize this, and we realize that they're different stereotypes, we can also use this to our benefit blonde women they can, they can utilize. This and research shows that blonde women are also more successful in fundraising, presumably because they're more attractive, but it also hurts them see because when they did a research and they showed the same job applicant but with different pictures with different hair colors, the brunettes were picked. The first, because they looked more intelligent and blondes were picked last and so realizing this power and the meaning that hair plays in our society. We can use it for our own good. I use my hair to to identify different aspects of myself and to play around with it have fun after all, hair does grow back. Thankfully, maybe it's the one thing that God gave us that we can just experiment with it's the one thing that we can chop off and it will grow back. But more importantly, when we look at ourselves in a mirror - and we find there's different aspects of herself when we change it, we can think about it. I think who is this thing? Who I want to be right? Think about it. You go to the hairdresser. You sit in a chair, you look through a book and then you change you change. Your identity has changed your perception and that's what I did too so I I had enough of the fake. It lasts it for about a week now, there's a Vietnamese woman with the same haircut as me, but with a bigger wallet and I didn't want to have the fake hair. I wanted to feel true and authentic wanting to feel who I really am, because the problem is, is that when in our society are so focused on appearance, we tend to forget what we really are drink through tend to lose ourselves. And it's important to realize who we really are? What really matters, of course, our inner character, but when we are surrounded by images of beautiful people, we cannot help but strive to look like them. We cannot help to try to look beautiful the change the way we feel and look. So what can we do about it right? We know this. We know that the hair plays an important part of identity. We know that hair is used to oppress people, that we know that it is also used to give power and give meaning. My opinion is, is that maybe we can bring a little bit of change, see every time you give someone a compliment. You thought. Oh, you look so beautiful you're also kind of hurting them, because you're saying is what the most important thing about them is: is their beauty you're making their outer appearance the most important aspect of their identity? That'S the only thing that you're recognizing, and so when we only hear for the people that we love. You look so beautiful and I love your hair because the most important thing. So I have pledged for myself to try and find opportunities to tell the people that I love the most to tell them how much I value them for their character for their inside for their efforts not just for the hair or their face, or their looks, and Maybe that today it's the single most important thing that I can give to you have fun with your hair experiment with it feel great love yourself and don't forget to tell the people around you who they really are and give them a compliment for that. Thank you.