Chris Rock’s Alopecia Joke Was My Worst Nightmare

Sadly, the most famous moment at this year’s Oscars was when Will Smith walked onto the stage and assaulted Chris Rock for joking about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair. As Smith himself has acknowledged in a public apology to Rock, “Violence in all forms is poisonous and destructive.” The incident was confusing to many observers, but it was not about a haircut. Jada Pinkett Smith suffers from the autoimmune condition alopecia areata. While mocking people’s appearance and bodies is always in poor taste and Rock may well not have known about Smith’s condition, there is something strange and dark about the way women’s hair loss is treated in society.

While other celebrities are reported to have suffered from hair loss, what sets Jada Pinkett Smith apart is her courage to speak openly about her battle with the condition. In the past she has described it as “terrifying.” Her haircut (which, objectively, looks amazing) is not a straightforward choice—it’s a styling decision elicited by an illness.

Her condition, alopecia areata, is one of a cluster of autoimmune conditions that can afflict men and women of any age. Areata involves the loss of patches of hair on the head and is often linked to stress and hormonal changes in the body. The patches can grow so that the conditions develops into alopecia totalis (loss of hair on the scalp) or, more rarely, alopecia universalis (the whole body). Other forms of medical hair loss include the genetic condition androgenic alopecia or age-related hair loss, which can start when a patient is in their early twenties.

While there is no shortage of expensive supplements, shampoos, topical ointments like minoxidil, and internet marketed snake oil that claim to regrow hair, they are almost always ineffective. More successful options include steroid injections into the scalp (which, take it from me, is quite uncomfortable) and oral steroids. A new slate of JAK inhibitors (immune suppressing medications) are currently in various stages of study at Columbia, Yale, and Mount Sinai. Dr. Emma Guttmann, head of dermatology at Mount Sinai, is currently trialing the eczema drug Dupilimab with great success. None of these new treatments are for the faint hearted: JAK inhibitors carry an increased risk of cancer and sometimes produce temporary results. Dupilimab, while safer, is injected subcutaneously on a weekly basis. Then there’s the expense: these drugs are currently used off-label to treat alopecia and, thus, are not covered by insurance.

This might all seem like a lot for hair. As insurance companies cruelly argue when refusing to cover cranial prosthetics--i.e. wigs--for alopecia sufferers, this is just “cosmetic.” Who would raise their risk of cancer just to regrow hair? Well, to be honest, I did. I have wrestled with alopecia for years and I have tried many of these treatments with varying degrees of success. I am struck by the ways that alopecia affects me differently than other my medical conditions. I have written about the fact that I had a kidney transplant that—in the words of one insensitive TSA agent—made me “deformed” but I am proud of my scars. But with alopecia, it’s different. I’m comfortable with my condition now but I have cried more desperate tears over my hair than I have the life-threatening illness that made me vulnerable to covid, leaves me in chronic pain, eliminated my chance of having biological children, and will shorten my life. That’s messed up.

You might think, wow, she’s just really vain. In my case you may have a point, but I am also not alone. For women in particular hair loss feels shameful. Social media has created the opportunity for members of the hair loss community to come together and share stories and it’s clear that this is something that lots of people deal with in secret for years. Instagram users like bellamabella have spoken about being made “to feel less of a person” and told by former partners that “no one wants a bald woman.” Others, like sheeridanruth, express that hair isn’t “just your appearance, it is your identity.” Many others talk about feeling ugly, undesirable, less like a woman, and less worthy of love. The fear of being ‘found out’ keeps women with hair loss from swimming and participating in certain physical activities. There’s a wonderful hair loss community out there in which advocates like Kim, Holly and Georgia, the founders of Lusta Hair, and Australian journalist Kellie (hairlossboss) speak about their experiences, give advice, and support others. And there are icons like Ayanna Pressley and Jada Pinkett Smith who are open about their feelings and journeys, but it remains hard and isolating.

In my own case I kept silent because, as Prof. Francesca Stavrakopoulou has written in The Guardian, female academics are judged for caring about their appearance. In the past, many academic colleagues have felt that it was appropriate to comment on and judge my appearance. At least one brilliant female academic, whom I have never actually met and is a self-described feminist, has openly criticized me for dyeing my hair and wearing it long. When my hair fell out, I only told a few close friends because I did not want to be mocked. I did not want anything to amplify the inappropriate dissection of my body in a corner of the world that is supposed to be above this sort of thing. So, instead, I obsessed about hairlines and hair loss alone.

For African American women the situation is especially difficult. As Nellcoleman writes on Instagram: “Damn near 49% of black women face alopecia at some time in their lives.” The stigmatization of Black hair and the painful cosmetic processes that exist to change it into supposedly “better” long straight hair are part of deeply racialized gender standards that harm all women, but black women in particular. Much of this is discussed in the 2009 documentary Good Hair that, ironically, was made by Chris Rock. Add to this that many treatments to style tighter hair textures can actually contribute to hair loss (known as traction alopecia) and Black women find themselves in a vicious painful cycle driven by gendered and racist cultural politics. The story of Black women’s experiences of hair loss and social pressure is not mine to tell, but I know this: things are worse for women of color.

The historian in me knows that the stigmatization of women’s hair loss has a long history. Women’s hair has been synonymous with beauty for millennia. As Molly Myerowitz Levine has written, the idea that hair is synonymous with our identity goes back to the Romans. Male and female baldness were not the same: male baldness was a sign of virility, female baldness was a sign of moral degeneration.

In his Amores the Roman poet Ovid recounts how his girlfriend (presumably Corinna) had lost her hair because of ancient curling irons. He unsympathetically remarks that he had told her to leave it alone and now that she has ruined her hair she has to forget about her appearance altogether. If she is a victim, it is only of fashion. The idea that it is women’s vanity that is to blame for her condition is everywhere. Seneca the Younger writes in one letter that women who drink, gorge themselves at meals, are sexually proactive, and otherwise behave like men “end up gout ridden and bald.” It’s their own fault: when women engage in these “vices, [they] have forfeited the privileges of their sex; they have spurned their womanly natures and are therefore condemned to suffer the diseases of men.” Even the Bible gets in on the act: 1 Corinthians 11:15 says that a woman’s hair is her glory. If a woman is so immodest as to uncover her hair in public, then it is the same as if she had her hair shorn.

In an exquisite article on hair published in the Classical Journal, Nadini Pandey explores the ways in which hair is a symbol for domination as well as beauty. “Hair,” she writes, “more than any other body part visibly expresses gender, ethnicity, and even sexual availability.” The Germans were famous for shearing their hair when conquered, making it and shorn hair a symbol of their own defeat. While some have doubted if this hair formed part of the ancient hair-trade, there were wig shops in ancient Rome where wealthy women purchased the coveted blonde locks of the “barbarians.” The women who participated in this kind of consumerism were also trapped in a destructive loop: blonde hair dye imported from Germany could cause the hair to fall out, which, in turn, increased demands for prosthetics. Ovid had some damming words for these women as well and purchased hair, Pandey explains, was viewed as deceptive. They were damned if they didn’t conceal signs of hair loss and damned if they did. Even today some women who wear wigs and toppers worry they will be seen as “catfish” and worry about when to tell a prospective romantic partner about their hair loss.

This highlights an exploitative system that persists to this day: human hair is part of the body and the trade in human hair is often exploitative. We should not imagine that the blonde hair that filled the wig shops by the Temple of Hercules Musarum in ancient Rome was willingly donated. Likewise, today most people whose hair is used to make cranial prosthetics are selling their hair to make ends meet, sometimes for as little as $15. Some hair is stolen and much of it comes from Temples where hair was donated as part of a religious ritual. Those in the US and Europe who want to buy hair need to do considerable research and pay a premium.

Much of the industry, both ancient and modern, that profits from hair loss capitalizes on desperation and secrecy. The shame and stigma associated with hair loss persist precisely because there’s so much concealment and isolation. An evolutionary biologist might say that hair density and length are idealized because they are associated with youth and fertility, but let’s not use evolution to let ourselves off the hook. These are social norms; we can change them. How do I know? Well, ironically, “wearing hair” is normalized for those who wear “extensions.” Even though these extensions are made of the same hair as prosthetics they are marketed and perceived differently. No celebrity is ashamed to admit they are wearing extensions or mocked for doing so.

What happened to Jada Pinkett Smith is every woman with hair loss’s worst nightmare. Frankly, I feel anxious just writing this piece. The cultural conditions that keep women hiding (and spending) are grounded in racialized and gendered beauty standards. Let’s hope this controversy forces us to confront the bare truth about how social beauty standards harm people.