Part of the answer is scientific, according to Dutch neuro-scientists who released a study this past month.  The study showed that the part of our brain that is involved in cognitive decision making – the medial orbitofrontal cortex – lights up each time we see a celebrity of the same sex displaying eye-catching clothing or accessories!

Part two of the answer to our question lies in the enticing glamour, fabulous fame, and the elite social statuses of celebrities.  We may not realize it, but we imitate them in the hopes to capture some of that essence for ourselves.

Fashion icons have been influencing the way we dress for decades.  From Marilyn Monroe’s iconic white dress to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ impeccable fashion taste that spread like wildfire throughout the country – or even all the way to Sarah Jessica Parker’s inspirational shoe collection as Carrie in the Sex & the City empire, celebrities consistently create style trends.  Fashion conscious stars such as Katie Holmes have the ability to sum up a mood of the season by just a few paparazzi snapshots.

We all remember the acid washed jeans and shoulder pads of the 80’s, made popular by icons such as Cory Heart, Billy Idol, and Madonna.  However, while many of us would like to forget much (or all!) of our 1980’s wardrobe, it appears that celebrities are still hungry for clothing that represents that era, such as leggings and off-the-shoulder tees.  That style has made a huge comeback this past year due to such celebrity enthusiasts like Hillary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, Heidi Klum and Victoria Beckham. Suddenly, leggings are everywhere and off-the-shoulder looks are the hot new trend!  This is no surprise, though.  History has shown us time and time again that Hollywood stars have an undeniable ability to influence the style of the masses.  Some of these looks are manufactured by stylists, however others are truly spontaneous.  Shopping for an outfit reminiscent of the one you have seen your favorite star wear has been a socially accepted practice in our culture for decades, and it is also an exciting and pleasurable experience.

But what happens when women who used to enjoy such activities are suddenly thrown a fashion curve ball when they experience a drastic appearance change due to medical hair loss or any other abrupt deviation from what our society considers “the norm”? Former admiration for beautiful and healthy celebrities is transformed into a very personal desire to feel attractive again.  Women who experience sudden appearance change often disconnect from their normal life.  They tend to feel alienated from fashion and fame.  Whether or not we care to admit it, for women, our appearance DOES matter to us, and when fighting a battle against any disease, changes in appearance (such as hair loss) can be mentally devastating.  It is important to realize that times like those are the most important to know how to love oneself.

Women confronting drastic appearance changes yearn for normalcy.  I know when I lost my own hair, I was never  more acutely aware of images of women with hair and how I lost my ability to relate.  My sense of style remained, however none of my outfits or accessories looked the same without my crowning glory!

I’ve yet to find a fashion magazine  that highlights women without hair when portraying the season’s latest trends.  I’m  patiently waiting  for Hollywood to pick up the slack with its fictional female characters undergoing chemotherapy.  From Murphy’s cancer battle on Murphy Brown, to Lynette of Desperate Housewives, and Samantha from Sex & the City – television has been a prime venue for Hollywood to portray a woman suffering from medical hair loss.  Two current examples of Hollywood depicting medical hair loss are found in the series “Brothers & Sisters” and, more recently, “General Hospital.”  As our former blogs on these depictions stated, the female bald characters were forced to wear a variety of unattractive and unfeminine head covering options.

Example one: In “Brothers & Sisters,” character Kitty Walker is portrayed as a successful, bold and defiant woman with solid conservative beliefs.  When she loses her hair during her cancer treatment, her head wear options do not reflect at all upon her character’s steadfast outlook on life.  Rather, the lumpy turbans she adorns call to mind  the head wear of bearded Middle Eastern men!

Example two: In “General Hospital,” character Shirley Smith, a kind and classy older woman suffering from brain cancer, is thrown into the General Hospital cast to mix things up at the hospital with her frank and down-to-earth cool temper.  Yet, what do they adorn her baldness with but a childish arts and crafts-esque get up!

Hollywood continues to further stigmatize women with hair loss by portraying them in  old fashioned and outdated head wear.  Women still want to fit in with society when they lose their hair.  They do not desire to stand out as different or sick.  When Hollywood portrays female cancer patients in century-old turbans and lumpy head wraps, it seems as if writers and stylists don’t think their storyline would be supported without such typical head coverings.  It almost seems as if the chosen head wear is meant to emphasize their illness.  Don’t they get that woman can lose her hair and STILL remain fashionable and stylish?  Don’t they get that when women are sick it is even MORE important to try and not draw attention to their baldness? Instead, the continued portrayal in unflattering head wraps causes the pubic to shudder at the possibility that if they were to be diagnosed with cancer and lose their hair, those outdated ugly turbans would be their only options.

The opportunity to help empower us through positive imagery is one that should never be passed up.

Calling all Hollywood stylists!  You still have a chance to redeem yourself in the eyes of the bald and the beautiful.  We’ve seen too many of these outdated options – it’s time to show us something feminine, flowing and fashionable.  There are plenty of scarf options to choose from.  Get with it and keep in mind;  we’ll be watching!

General Hospital possesses access to an enormous platform.  I received a phone call from a cancer survivor who lost her own hair to chemotherapy and she was indignant that Hollywood continues to portray their characters in unflattering head wraps.  Why not portray this character in a pretty head scarf that will enhance her beauty and compliment her character.

Please General Hospital – give Shirley some style and help women realize that just because they have lost their hair does not mean they have lost their style!

Susan Beausang

4women.com

According to a poll cited by The Today Show, women in the U.S. spend $7.5 billion/year on hair care products alone, and according to a British survey, the average woman spends 2.5 years of her life trussing, mussing and fussing with her hair. Clearly, these are astonishing statistics that provide evidence of our obsession with our hair, but is that really the whole story of who we are as women and what priorities guide us?

As I watched my television screen, I became more and more offended. There they were, three media faces,two VH1 television hosts and the editor-in-chief of Glamour Magazine, attempting to represent all of us with their voices and hair obsessions. Missing were all those women who do not have a personal make-up and hair styling crew, who head off to a job each morning that does not include appearing on 10’s or 100’s of thousands of televisions screens across the U.S. and/or globe in hopes of selling a magazine, a TV show, stocks in the corporately owned television stations, or beauty products. Missing were the business owners, moms, school teachers, grandmothers, dentists, soccer coaches, grocery story cashiers, marathon runners, political activists, scientists, doctors, etc, etc, etc that we are. So since The Today Show left us out, I thought I’d bring us into the discussion as I believe WE are the majority.

I would be the last woman to argue that a woman’s hair is not hugely significant to her identity or that how a woman wears her hair does not play an important role in how she projects herself to others. Having lost all of my hair to Alopecia Universalis, I know better than most what contribution my hair previously made to my overall sense of femininity, beauty, and self-confidence. I talk about it and write about it all the time. But even as a woman who faces the lifelong challenge of feeling “normal,” feminine, and beautiful without hair, I have to challenge the total lack of balance and shallowness that these women portrayed with the  preposterous notion that they were representing all of us.  Here are just a few examples…

“Nothing says more about a woman than the way she wears her hair…” said a NYC male hair stylist interviewed for The Today Show piece.”Oh really?” I loudly responded to the television screen.How shallow that this male stylist could state that a women’s hair speaks greater volumes  to her personality than her role in society as a mother, daughter, doctor, or judge? Does hair convey more than the car she drives – Hummer vs. Prius? More than the dreams she holds for herself and her family? More than her religious beliefs?  Do people really believe that more than anything else, it’s how we wear our hair!?

According to one Ms. VH1 Host, hair is a woman’s shorthand way of telling the world what type of woman we are, whether we are an individual, wash-and-go, empowered, etc. In other words, you can’t be wash-and-go and still be individual or empowered. Apparently empowerment is having a hair styling crew and spending $7.5 billion on hair care products, all of which include an endless blend of carcinogens and health-damaging toxins. Is it really possible to believe that it is not through personal achievement, but  by endlessly copying celebrity images that we become empowered, that we discover our individual worth? Wow. These ladies had quite the manicured hairdo’s, but I’m glad I don’t live in their world. They might look at Lady Gaga and see “creative” or “happy,” but I see a mask and stage costume. Of course Lady Gaga is a real person with blood, a heart, a brain, and human stories I could identify with, such as – once a little girl, wishes to be loved, now speaking openly with Larry King about an autoimmune disease like Lupus running in her family. If I want to know what type of person someone is, I don’t look to their hair, I look to their heart. I feel sorry for those who think it’s all in the hair or more generally, on the outside. I wonder if true friendship and human connection is something they ever get to experience.

I had to laugh when Meredith Vieira made the statement “hair makes a political statement.” After each of her previous statements, her three representatives would immediately burst with an endless string of statements reinforcing ten times over how “we women equal our hair” and, my personal favorite,  “our hair is us”. As for “political statements,” I did hear a speechless breath from one of her representatives. Unfortunately, not one of them had a word to add so Meredith had to fill in her own response. That said it all, these women may equal their hair and they may define other women by their hair, but I am thankful to report that there’s a whole lot more going on both outside and inside the rest of us.

It will be interesting to watch the remaining segments of “Hair Obsession”.   Thank goodness I don’t live life in front of a camera.

Susan M. Beausang

4women.com

It surprised me to learn that the fact that we have two brows may be the remnants of our evolutionary ancestors.  Full facial hair slowly gave way to two bushy brows that evolved for a degree of protection from shielding our eyes from rain, dirt  and sweat irritation.  Of course, our eyebrows play a very important role in facial recognition and as a means of communication.

Today, our tweezed, plucked, waxed, trimmed, pierced and painted brows are clearly associated with beauty.  Even men are trimming away fly away brow hairs for a neater appearance.  My research enlightened me to the fact that 18th century women believed that full and bushy eyebrows were quite attractive. Women would go through great lengths to enhance their existing brows by securing bushy hair attachments to their wispy brows.  Today the benchmark for fashionable brows seems to be a thin high arched line, quiet different from the 18th century bushy variety!

We can express our feelings with our facial expressions but it is our eyebrows that can relay specific moods or emotions.  Eyebrow movement can express fear, surprise, aggression, astonishment or even sadness to name a few. Raised eyebrows can express an acceptance or un-acceptance for social behavior, or may indicate confusion.  Lowered eyebrows can express annoyance or displeasure or even deception.  It’s amazing the level of non-verbal communication power held by a 2 inch strip of hair!

Another role for our brows is aiding in facial recognition amongst a wide diversity of faces. One can usually discriminate between male or female by just looking at one’s brows!   So what does all of this mean to those of us who are “eyebrow deficient”?  Personally, I think eyebrows are over rated!  I’ve lived without them for 9 years and I will challenge anyone  with brows to a non-verbal communication contest on any given day. With a brush of a stroke, I can draw angry brows, sad brows, condemning brows, happy brows – depends on my mood – or I can go sans brows and remain anonymous.  I have options – I can have thick brows – I can have pencil thin brows.  I don’t require any tweezing, plucking or waxing.  I’m brow maintenance free!  The brow has sometimes been referred to as the “face’s forgotten feature”.  I’ve truly forgotten what it feels like to have normal brows but it’s really okay! Either way it is an interesting topic.

Susan M. Beausang

President, 4Women.com

This year Mothers Day has been designated as “Women’s Health and Cancer Awareness Day”! Individuals, teams, organizations and communities everywhere are using this day to advocate for the well-being of Mothers.  Mothers Day has also become a time to get out and get moving in solidarity, in memory of loved ones and in an effort to raise the funds that will enable us to defeat cancer.

Ten years ago, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. I traveled to NYC on Mothers Day weekend to join her team in the Revlon Run/Walk for Women, a premier event to raise money for the fight against women’s cancer. I began this race with a heavy heart as this was my second sister to be diagnosed with breast cancer.  It was quite an emotional event for me to see so many thousands of participants with a common mission – to support a mother, sister, aunt or just a friend in the battle against women’s cancer. I was enveloped in a massive sea of strangers, all deeply connected by a determination to beat cancer.  This event opened my eyes to the empowering and inspiring roles these events play in our collective experiences with cancer.

This massive movement to raise awareness through athletic endeavors has been steadily growing over the past decade as well as the notion that moderate exercise during cancer therapy is not only safe and possible, but it can actually improve physical functioning and quality of life!  Many cancer care teams are now urging their patients to be as physically active as possible during their treatment.   Participating in a cancer awareness event may be just what you need to transform exercise into a source of fun, stress relief, hope and a sense of solidarity and empowerment.  Time to get moving to “unite and fight” and together we can do our part to try and banish cancer from our lives and those of our children.

Some premier events worth noting:

Yoga Unites for Living Beyond Breast Cancer, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, Walk to Empower (held in 10 Cities), Mother’s Day Classic (Australia), Susan G Komen Mother’s Day Race for the Cure – held in many cities!

Susan M. Beausang

4women.com

The science of the use of colors to affect physical and psychological states is called “Chromotherapy”. This concept attempts to explain the emotional connection we have to colors and perhaps explain how we come to have “favorite colors” and why. For example, bright pops of color usually illustrate enjoyable and happy moods, while darker colors are often associated with melancholy atmospheres. It has been shown that colors we see every day, such as those in advertising campaigns, films, magazines, and even food packaging, actually do affect the way we feel.

Aside from the scientific aspect of light, energy and electromagnetic radiation, there is no doubt that colors play a huge part in how we interpret different experiences and environments. Perhaps one of the most important times to remember this is when dealing with a debilitating illness or tragedy. Lifting your spirits during such times can help enormously with the coping process. Take a look at the chromotherapy based interpretations, and see if any analogies arise between these interpretations and the actual way these colors make you feel!

Red: Brings warmth, energy and stimulation, therefore good for energy, fatigue, colds, chilly and passive people.

Orange: Warm, cheering, non-constricting. Orange has a freeing action upon the body and mind, relieving repressions.

Yellow: Helps strengthen the nerves and the mind. It helps awaken mental inspiration and stimulates higher mentality.

Green: The color of nature and the earth! Green is balance and harmony in essence and possesses a soothing influence upon both mind and body.

Blue: Cooling, electric, astringent and brings tranquility.

Indigo: A great purifier of the bloodstream and also benefits mental problems.

Violet/Purple: Colors of transformation – bring spiritual insights and renewal.

White: The perfect color as it is all colors – perfect balance and harmony.

Magenta: Strengthens contact with your life purpose, stimulates adrenaline and heart activity.

Pink: Heals grief and sadness, restores youthfulness, brings you in contact with your feelings.

Turquoise: Increases intuition and sensitivity, tones the general system, builds the skin, relaxes sensations of stress.

Just color me happy, please!

Susan M. Beausang

TAKE THIS SHORT SURVEY!

Help us to help others!  I receive daily testimonials from around the world about the way in which our beaubeau™ scarves make a huge difference for women faced with medical hair loss. I am thanked for providing a fashionable option that allows women to maintain their dignity and style during this process. Many of you participated in our last survey regarding the emotional impact of medical hair loss. Your valuable input helped us to foster a better understanding of the emotional consequences of hair loss among the public and especially among the medical professionals.  I am determined to have our fears and emotions recognized!

4Women.com is conducting a second brief survey in an effort to identify existing cancer support strategies and programs that empower women to turn their anxiety about chemo-induced hair loss into proactive action, as well as to identify unmet needs for such support.  Few of life’s obstacles challenge us physically and emotionally as does a cancer diagnosis and treatment.Many of our loved ones reach out and want to help us cope with our disease.  But what  we want to do more than just cope?  Anxiety can be mentally and emotionally paralyzing, but turning that anxiety into proactive action aimed at increasing our sense of control over the changes taking place in our body can help us to remember we are living life, not just coping.

Anticipatory coping is the process of anticipation and preparation for a major change. In the context of chemo-induced hair loss, anticipatory coping may play a key role in helping women to not just cope, but to rise above the drastic assault to their self-esteem posed by sudden hair loss.  Providing women with the information and resources they need to turn anticipation of hair loss into proactive action is key.

I ask and encourage each of you to take this anonymous, 5-question survey and share as much as you can regarding your medical hair loss experience.  By doing so, you will help me to get the word out so that those  women and  girls who follow in our footsteps will have access to cancer care designed to both cure the cancer and heal the person.  Thank you for your participation!

Warm Regards,

Susan M. Beausang, President 4women.com ]]> http://cancerdirectory.com/cancer-blogs/4womencom/hair-loss-anticipatory-coping-survey/feed/ 0 http://cancerdirectory.com/cancer-blogs/4womencom/katie-suri-holmes-headscarf/ http://cancerdirectory.com/cancer-blogs/4womencom/katie-suri-holmes-headscarf/#comments Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:22:54 +0000 BeauBeau http://cancerdirectory.com/?p=8574

At four years of age the majority of kids have conquered some of life’s most important skills: talking, walking, potty training and maybe even a bit of reading and writing!  If your parents are Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, however, your four year old skills may include a keen fashion sense which has reportedly fueled the collection of a pint-sized wardrobe valued at over 3 million dollars! There has been considerable backlash from the Hollywood community over Suri’s amassed wardrobe and  other daring moves in the name of fashion, such as Suri’s new high heeled shoes.  Homes and Cruise’s publicist deny the multi-million dollar wardrobe claims.  Apparently Suri loves dressing up and anyone that has encountered the will of a 4year old knows how confrontational choosing the days outfits can become. The budding fashionista has also helped her beautiful Mom get dressed in designer duds as well.  Already at 4, Sure is a highly publicized female fashion icon. The Cruise family is constantly hounded by paparazzi and discussion of their wardrobes can make daily headlines. In 2009 they were named one of the best dressed families in Hollywood.

Katie  is viewed in our society as a model of beauty, grace, style and self-confidence and  pages of  magazines and fashion web sites have been adorned with pictures of Holmes wearing a wide variety of beautiful head scarves. Her love of head scarves did not go unnoticed  by 4Women.com, as surely it did not go unnoticed by the millions of women with medical hair loss all over the world.    We all know the importance of role models in teaching us to love and accept ourselves and at  no time is such love of self more important than while battling cancer and experiencing medical hair loss.  We got to thinking that Katie’s love of head scarves could possibly provide women without hair an important role model.  As women, we tend to do a lot of comparing.  We evaluate our appearance, our clothing, our professional achievements largely depending on how they measure up to those of the women around us, often our peers, or to the images we see in the media.

So,  several months ago, we sent Katie and Suri matching Black and Bloom beaubeaus™ (our signature scarf) and matching transitional scarves with a promise from her publicist that the scarves would be delivered.  We tried to convey to Katie the impact she could have on women and girls with medical hair loss by simply wearing one of our favorite head scarves!   Women are constantly barraged by a plethora of visual messages about how we should look and celebrities often provide women with fashion role models, as we try and emulate their style and manner of dress.

But is it possible that a fashionista such as Katie Holmes (and even little Suri!)wearing a simple  head scarf can really offer confidence to the follically impaired?    Celebrities in headscarves may think they are just stylishly covering up a bad hair day, but in fact, their public display of head coverings is helping the millions of women who suffer medical hair loss rebuild the self esteem they lost. So by Halle Barry simply covering her head before a trip to the spa, or Katie Holmes sporting a beautiful silk headscarf by the pool, women without hair see that there is a fashionable and comfortable option that is not viewed as a medical necessity!

Head scarves have historically been viewed as a fashionable accessory that can add style and character  to any outfit and seems to be eternally in vogue! Look at the influence that Jackie Kennedy had on women and fashion as she donned her infamous kerchief scarf and large sunglasses.  50 years ago, Kennedy changed fashions with her classic pill box hat and made wearing the kerchief an acceptable head covering for church.  It is definitely not too far fetched to believe that one person can make a difference!   Today,  Katie Holmes is not the only celeb to flaunt the use of head scarves.  Nicole Ritchie is often photographed wearing a headband scarf as well as Rhinanna, Jennifer Lopez, Halle Barry, Victoria Beckman and yes even Keith Richards!

Katie, if you are reading this, please grab your Black and Bloom beaubeau™ the next time you are thinking of wearing a head scarf.  We ask that you use  your status as a fashion role model to reunite countless bald girls and women with the world of feminine fashion and become a true BeauDiva!!! We will continue to scour the pages of InStyle Magazine and other fashion outlets for a glimpse of Mom and Suri in their matching beaubeaus™!

Susan Beausang

Ever look in an empty cocoon as a most glorious butterfly leaves it? I’ll bet there’s a mirror in it.

When a woman loses her hair, which for her has been a safe haven and the only part of her body she truly believes is spectacular, she desperately wants to trust that her husband loves her for who she is, not for the dead protein on the top of her head. But when rage replaces reason, no soft whisper or kiss at the back of her now hairless neck is going to convince her that she is anything but a ghost of the woman she was.

Grief is inglorious. My mirror offered only heartache. The refection lied; the face I saw was a stranger’s. I had no passion in me for my husband’s touch. I wanted intimacy only with my fantasies, which were rich with beauty and wild hair and flirting, and being irresistible to any man who saw me. I ached for an embrace in our darkened bedroom to comfort me, but I wouldn’t allow it. I turned away from the one person I needed the most.
My husband continually encouraged me to remember “Terese” and learn to embrace me again as changed, but not absent from life. It took years but slowly I woke to the possibility of discovering who I was under all that hair. My security lay firmly in the strong hands of the man I’d vowed to love until my death. He carried me over many lost days. I healed.

Ironically, sadly, as the mirror stopped watching me and I began looking back, as I emerged from my cocoon to fly, I lost something. My husband left me. I listened shakily as he assured me that his decision to end our twenty years together had nothing to do with alopecia, but he admitted that my struggle with hair loss had drained him more than he’d let on. As I write this, I am still reeling and scared to pieces, (changes again), but I know as surely as anything that I will never forget all the hits he took for me as I railed at the world, pounded my fists and wondered why me, why me.

Now, I am what my darling man always called me – a cute bald chick – and the rest of my life is waiting.

As poignantly expressed in the above vignette, a woman’s hair loss can put significant stress on all of our social relationships, but especially our most intimate relationships. In the midst of a drastic and stressful change in our appearance, how many of us possess the strength to consider the impact of our hair loss on those who love us? In some cases, it is only with hindsight that we realize that we are not alone with our hair loss or our emotions.

Imagine for just a moment – you are a woman who has recently lost all of your hair. You don’t recognize the person staring back at you in the mirror. You feel you have lost an import part of yourself and with it, your identity, your femininity, your self-esteem. You lose all interest in being social because doing so means either hiding the new you or exposing yourself to public stares, thoughtless comments, or prying questions. At least you have your significant other, the one person you are safe to be the true you around and still feel loved and accepted.

Now imagine – what if your significant other instead tells you they can’t accept the sight of your bald head? What if the person you’ve slept next to night after night through so many of life’s up’s and down’s now tells you they need you to wear a wig to bed to be acceptable in your sleep? What if you’ve finally come to terms with your hair loss, you’ve learned to love your bald self, but your partner just can’t handle the sight or reality of your baldness? You wouldn’t be alone.

Imagine yet another possible scenario, you’ve lost your hair seemingly overnight. You are devastated. Your partner hardly seems to notice and insists you are loved for you, not your hair, that you remain beautiful, that after all, it is just hair. Try as he might to support you, his lack of reaction leaves you feeling alone, isolated, as if your emotions are not valid, angry at everyone, including the one person you trust most.

We’d all like to believe that the feelings our significant others have for us are based on who we are inside and out. No one’s appearance freezes in time on the day we fall in love, and ideally, love is far more permanent than our looks. Sometimes it is a dramatic change in our appearance that ultimately reveals the true colors of our significant others and their feelings for us. It’s the ultimate insult to the emotional assault of hair loss.
Just as each woman responds somewhat differently to her hair loss and a sudden, drastic appearance change, each of our life partners will also respond in their own way. In the end, some relationships will be strengthened by the storm, while others ultimately may not weather the storm.

4Women.com conducted two surveys exploring the emotional side of medical hair loss for women – one among women losing or having lost hair due to chemotherapy and in the context of fighting cancer, and the other among women who have lost their hair due to other conditions – Alopecia (autoimmune), genetics, or the many, many women experiencing hair loss with no clear explanation. The survey responses revealed many similarities and many differences in women’s experiences with medical hair loss. They also provided insights into the similarities and differences in how our significant others react to our hair loss or sudden baldness and what their reactions mean to us. As always, there is so much we can learn from those who have walked the path before us.

In the context of chemo, hair loss is temporary, whereas Alopecia and many other medical hair loss conditions are permanent conditions. Women who lose their hair during chemo are fearing for their lives, but are often reminded by others that their hair will grow back. Loved one’s sometimes have an especially difficult time witnessing a woman’s chemo-induced hair loss because it is such a visible reminder that their loved one is battling cancer.

Women with other medical hair loss conditions are often reminded by others that at least they’re healthy, even if their condition means lifelong baldness (as if this is insignificant). If a woman is completely bald (though healthy), she is often assumed to have cancer. If she simply has severe thinning, many of her peers and loved one’s will claim not to notice, leaving her feeling as if she’s obsessing over something less than real.
What unifies all of these experiences is that for women, hair loss has a major negative impact on their body images, self esteem, and quality of life.

I learned a great deal from our survey respondents about how our partners respond to our hair loss, our emotions, and how their responses might vary. There are those significant others who are confident and complete enough in their own bodies, lives and relationships to see and feel far beyond the loss of their partner’s hair or any major appearance change. There are also those significant others who have unacknowledged, unexplored, and unresolved issues with themselves, their pasts, and/or their individual life experiences. As a result, they cannot handle changes that challenge their sense of control over life or force them to confront their own fears and insecurities. In reacting to their partner’s hair loss, they may be reacting to their own fears – fears of mortality, fears of being alone, fears of aging, fears of change, and so on. At least this is how I’ve made sense of the heart-breaking number of survey accounts of husbands who insisted their wives (more often than not, women battling cancer) wear wigs at all times, including to bed, and even made demeaning comments about their wives’ appearances as bald women.

More often than not, our partners seem much less impacted by our hair loss than we are. On the surface this is helpful, but the difference in perception brings its own challenges. Our partners may remind us that we are still the same person, we are more than our hair, or they love us, not our hair. This might be reassuring, but many of us will still feel insecure and wonder whether they still find us attractive. Too much reassurance can even be a source of frustration, indicating that our partners simply don’t get it, don’t understand why it’s such a big deal, don’t understand what it feels like to be a bald woman in our extremely appearance-conscious society. Rather than feeling supported, it may feel like our support-person is running, not truly listening, or even invalidating our feelings.

Let’s face it, change isn’t easy for most of us. Major appearance changes require that we all adjust, and we’re likely to each do so in our own way and in our own time. As for those of us going through the major appearance change, what we most need is for our partners to try to understand what we are experiencing, not to criticize us or attempt to sweep the whole issue under the rug and make it disappear. We are grieving a loss. By simply acknowledging our pain, listening to us and validating our feelings, you can help us adjust.

We are not alone. We bald or balding women need to remember that our emotional stress impacts those who love us and that if we shut them out or refuse to let them adjust because we have not, we run the risk of alienating them to the point that they are forced to move on without us. Our double challenge is to let them know that they are not alone either, that our love for them did not disappear with our hair.
Susan Beausang