“Unmanageable”: Exploring Black Girlhood, Storytelling, and Ideas of Beauty

Abstract This article explores how Black women use storytelling to construct their Black girlhood on the axes of Black hair and beauty politics. The study includes a discourse analysis of a series of focus groups with a student organization dedicated to Black women’s natural hair at a midwestern predominantly white institution. I ask: How do young Black women use storytelling as a tool to construct, recall, and (re)negotiate their childhood experiences of hair and beauty politics? I explore the ways these women use storytelling to articulate how their Black girlhood was in part shaped by encounters with hair politics and constructions of beauty. These “hair moments” that they recall reveal complex negotiations of standards of beauty. I analyze three themes that emerge from these conversations: (1) shared experiences around play, imagination, and relationship to images of mainstream beauty; (2) family as a social unit that socializes Black girls around beauty; and (3) adolescence, prom, and contested notions of appropriate “formal” adornment. These themes among these young women illustrate shared experiences, negotiation/critique, and meaning making around concepts of beauty. This study contributes to conversations around beauty culture, Black hair politics, and the bourgeoning field of Black girlhood studies. Through understanding how Black women reflect on their girlhood experiences of the politics of hair and beauty, we can better understand the inner experiences of Black girls, and the complexities of how they come to know and understand their bodies.