Beauty Demands

I’ve gone on quite a journey with my hair. From having afro hair down to my back in my university days, to several straightening perms, reverting to my natural hair, losing most of it to alopecia after various traumatic events, and eventually shaving off what was left of it.   Each phase of my hair journey has been closely accompanied by a state of mind of its own. From feeling invincible about my hair, as I could chop it all off and in a few weeks have a full head of hair again, to hopelessly peering in the mirror every morning to see if any hair follicles had resurrected overnight or if any new strand of hair had come up for air! Hair is a great part of a woman’s identity. As I continue on my hair journey, I seek to understand why women (in general, as I am sure there are a few exceptions) feel incomplete if their hair is not the way they would love it to be. The confidence a woman exudes (especially for the African woman) when she has just had her hair done, is not the same as w...

The very term ‘Protestant femininity' could be considered a misnomer: ‘Protestant’ covers a wide spectrum of traditions; and Christian traditions tend not to theorise over constructed femininities, preferring – particularly those of a more conservative leaning – to understand woman as a stable concept with only one model.   Nonetheless, I argue that there has emerged from the more conservative Protestant churches in Western culture, a construction of ‘ideal femininity’. In my research with Christian women who have suffered from anorexia, it has become apparent that this ideal’s expectations have contributed to their illness. Two memoirs of eating disorders offer a perspective on the Protestant feminine ideal and its relation to weight and food: Jo Ind writes of her compulsive eating disorder ( Fat is a Spiritual Issue) and Emma Scrivener recounts her experience of anorexia ( A New Name). Both women express the difficulty they had surrounding their own identity, the expectatio...

Major influences on children’s development of self-concept include communication from others about the self, comparisons they make with others in their immediate environment and the role assigned to them by the community 1 . The face is a key component of many adults’ self-identity and to the developing child, the face provides an early and continuing source of information about a persons’ personal identity 2 . If the face is so important, should we let children have cosmetic surgery? The Nuffield Council on Bioethics defines cosmetic surgery as surgery which will alter a person’s appearance, and which has a primarily aesthetic rather than functional aim. Their 2017 report identified specific ethical concerns for teenagers in particular as sensitive to peer pressures, and at a vulnerable stage of development with respect to their sense of their own identity. A survey by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons found 55% of surgeons said patients now seek...

T he impact of clothing Despite the known impact of clothing on social identity and self-expression, the impact of hospital clothing on patient wellbeing has been widely overlooked. In the UK a 'one size fits all', backless gown, held together with ties at the back, is commonly used to provide access to medical professionals for examination and medical investigations.   We were interested in exploring the impact of wearing this gown on patient wellbeing during a time of medical vulnerability.   We led this work in collaboration with Dr Georgiadis, Sports and Exercise Psychologist, University of Suffolk. Using a multi-method approach, consisting of two studies, we considered the impact of the hospital gown on wellbeing among adults with and without chronic health conditions. The first study consisted of conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews (n = 10) with adults living with a lifelong chronic health condition (Congenital Heart Disease). The second study was ...