Photo: Sipa via AP
Assistant House Speaker Katherine Clark, a representative from Massachusetts and the fourth-highest ranking member of Congress, made the decision to go gray back in 2015. At the time, her mom was battling Alzheimer’s and her dad had just suffered a stroke — so going to the salon to get her hair colored was at the bottom of her to-do list.
“Something had to give. And for me, it was dyeing my hair. I had been gray-curious for several years as more silver roots emerged, but had never been ready to take the leap to natural color,” Clark said in an op-ed written forWBUR, Boston’s NPR News Station.
Clark wasn’t sure how she’d like her natural silver shade, but she hardly had any time to decide for herself; soon after she stopped coloring it, she discovered that “my decision about hair color quickly became a political issue.”
“It had not occurred to me that my competence and effectiveness were contained within a small bottle of brown hair dye, but it should have,” Clark said. “It was a painful reminder of just how ingrained traditional beauty standards are in our culture and the double standards women face.”
Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call/AP
Now, as more women are beginning to feel more comfortable letting their hair go au naturale, Clark reminds them to “wear your decision with pride.”
“Your hair should be whatever makes you feel happy, strong, or beautiful,” she said. “Wear your decision with pride and as a challenge to any notion that women should be anything other than equal and empowered.”
source: people.com
