"But again, anyone who's friends with black women or has black women in their family and circle, knows that black hair can be wildly hard to manage. If it's neat, why do they have to style it like white people do?"

They don't. They just have to style it in a way that their particular branch of the service finds acceptable.

The army is not a fashion show.

I doubt if the policy set out to be discriminatory but each branch of the service has their own regulations.

I was in the Army when corn rows were allowed.
When you have spent three weeks in the field with no shower, you start wishing you could just shave your head, the way many of the men do now.

When you have spent the same amount of time, in a tent in the middle east, I suspect those twists are going to be filled with lice, and fleas.

Besides the obvious sanitation issues , the Army does have a concern about whether a gas mask will fit properly over some of these hair styles.
Would you be interested in dying for your dreadlocks?

What Isab said.
Shipboard, compartment entry may be required during or after a fire, in which case the EAB mask - think, "full-face respirator", must fit, or again you die. There is no one else to call, and no waiting to deal with the casualty, PERIOD.

Why are so many always lined up to criticize the services? Did you not see the Army advance across Iraq? Did you think it was styling that allowed that advantage?

When you have spent three weeks in the field with no shower, you start wishing you could just shave your head, the way many of the men do now.

--

If we had any sense, we would not put women on such deployments.

Why not just shave their bloody heads? You want to be in combat, you get to look like a dyke.

Interestingly, reading this reminded me of a little girl I knew ages ago. She was a fair-skinned-but-freckled little cherub with gobs of itty bitty tight curls in her hair. While adorable, I remember thinking that I would have hated to have to comb it. A #2 pencil couldn't have fit inside those curls! So, whomever is making this a race issue is kinda missing the point (some pasty-colored people have the same problem).

I do take issue with the author's dismissal of allowing wigs. If they didn't allow wigs, there'd be an uproar the first time a woman had to come to work bald from chemo.

This is a voluntary commitment. You voluntarily agree to be bound by the uniform code of military justice as well as the appearance regulations of the particular branch of the military.

I'm pretty sure that if I showed up to boot at Parris Island with a beard and long hair I'd be shaved and given a hight & tight, not to mention a Texas-sized shitload of grief from my drill instructor for the next 6 weeks.

If you so love your dreads, perhaps you should consider joining the Peace Corps?

I agree that if the style is neat, there shouldn't really be an issue.

The real problem I have with the article is the implication that there should be different standards for black women vs white women.

As Amy points out, cornrows look different on "white" hair. So do dreadlocks. They do not look neat. And I don't think there should be special exemptions based solely on race.

Sorry, no sympathy here. I spent 12 years in the Army, in Forward Support and Heavy Construction Engineers. That gas mask needs to go in in 15 seconds, be sealed and cleared or you are dead. At the very least you have dammaged lungs and are trying to mitigate the effects of the gas by self injecting large quantities of atropine. Dead or disabled, you are a burden to the ones, male and female, that were able to get their masks on in time.

I saw too many non-black women with long (think waist length) hair that couldn't get their gear on in time. I also saw far too many black women with twists or braids or extensions that also could not get their gear on. I wore my hair either very short or shoulder length and tightly french braided.

The military is not a place to express your individual choices in hair fashion. As for AR 670-1 allowing women to wear extensions or wigs...go ahead, try it. AR 670-1 is the MINIMUM standard required. No unit I was in in my 12 years would allows wigs, extensions, toupees or any other type of hairpiece unless you were in Class A (formal dress) uniform.

And Art Deco, many of us would have happily shaved our heads while in the Middle East but were not allowed to, because it is considered "extreme and faddish". Demi Moore's style? LOL, yea, if I had tried that it would have been an immediate counseling statement.

How bout this?

When deployed out of country, or in country(but only durring a time or war) all active duty soldiers must be shaved bald?

When I was in the USAF it was AFR 35-10 for dress & appearance. But individual base commanders could waive or tighten them as he felt appropriate.

The 35-10 rule in general was that if you wore a short sleeve blue shirt you didn't need to wear a tie. The long sleeve or in a sweater required a tie always. An outer jacket with short sleeves you didn't need a tie.

One base I was on the base commander decided that you had to wear a tie regardless from September thru March. My response after I found that out was to wear BDU's (fatigues) all winter even with my office job. A lot of other people did the same thing.

Another issue that a lot of guys (mostly black) have is PFB (pseudofolliculitis barbae). So a lot of them get to sport a short beard.

There are many ways to get to follow the letter of the regs while flaunting the spirit behind it. So there will be the women who go the bald route by claiming support for the local chemo patient. Or they'll go with the high and tight as some celebrities do and point the them as an example.

If we had any sense, we would not put women on such deployments.

Why not just shave their bloody heads? You want to be in combat, you get to look like a dyke.

Posted by: Art Deco at May 2, 2014 6:23 AM

80 to 90 percent of the people in the world ( and more than half are women and children) live under worse conditions than the American military deploys into.

My three weeks without a shower was Germany, in the winter.

"80 to 90 percent of the people in the world ( and more than half are women and children) live under worse conditions than the American military deploys into."

Irrelevant. They do not have the same job at all.

"80 to 90 percent of the people in the world ( and more than half are women and children) live under worse conditions than the American military deploys into."

Irrelevant. They do not have the same job at all.

Posted by: Radwaste at May 3, 2014 3:38 AM

Deployment and combat are not the same thing. If they were, I would not be in favor of deploying women either.

But if you are going to run mobile medical units, as those units are currently configured, you are going to have women deployed, and this was no less true in World War 1than it is today.

STILL irrelevant.

I am in the military currently. This regulation is stupid. They use things like this to draw down on their numbers. I think they took it too far saying no dreads no twist cause women of color cant wash their hair everyday after pt n style it under limited amounts of time, but at the same time those of us who over do it n have ridiculous big braids n buns could have avoided this issue if we would have kept it simple. I have natural hair n had twist braids for years. I always made sure that my bun or size of it didnt bring attention. The new regulation does limit what i can do but it wont b long beforw they have to change something cause they will see black women coming to work with their hair all over their head. I really think it is racist cause u take out what u know the majority of black women wear n add a DAMN PONYTAIL! Now please tell me whos that for? I dont see no black women during pt with their pony bouncing. Its majority white!!! Who u think made the regulation!!!! Ok! Black women continue to b successful in the army n hell we are so creative we will find other hairstyles for them to make another regulation for!!