A Bald Herstory:

Earliest instances of a shaved head can be found in Ancient Egypt, both men and women shaved their heads due to climate and cleanliness. Egyptian women took hair removal very seriously and removed all hair! So famed beauties such as Nefertiti and Cleopatra would have had shaved heads and worn wigs.

In the 16th century St. Rose of Lima, rather than being famed for her shorn headed beauty like Nefertiti, shaved her head to thwart sexual attention. She also wore a Thorne crown and slept on broken glass. She used head shaving as sexless and selfless act.

One of the most famous sufferers of hair loss was Queen Elizabeth 1, due to a bout of small pox used lead make up to cover her scar which may have also lead to her baldness.

I’m the 20th century we see bald women in many contexts. Nazi sympathisers who fraternised with the enemy had their head shaved and were paraded in the streets.

In the 1970s the skin head was popularised, though originally this subculture was inclusive it become synonymous with aggression. It’s not until the 80s and 90s where we see bald heads on women as a sign of power, beauty and control over ones identity.

Grace Jones and Sinead O’Connor both wore iconic shaved heads. Shaved heads became fashion forward, actresses even shaved their head for movie roles. We even saw Tyra Banks in almost every season on ANTM shave off a budding models hair to give them an edgy look.

By the 2000s a shaved head was a style choice as opposed to a political statement. We saw Amber Rose redefine the video vixen with her platinum blonde hair and a movement of black women doing the “big chop” during the natural hair movement.

Today we see women who are bald by choice, or due to hair loss, reclaiming a space through the rise of social media. We learn daily about the underlying reasons some women are bald and the impact that this has on them.