"Ever since I was a little girl, wearing a doek when going to bed was the order of the night. My mom would tuck me into bed by strategically placing the doek over my braided or relaxed hair so that it wouldn’t fall off during the night and cause much unwanted Dark ’N Lovely oil spills on her precious pillow cases.
I grew up to understand that this was a part of the all-important care and maintenance of my hair, mainly because my mother didn’t want to spend a further couple of 100’s of Rands on repairing my damaged crown. It wasn’t until my varsity days, where I stayed at res and would have my guy friends knock on my door early in the morning asking for milk and other breakfast supplies and seeing the shock on their faces when their eyes caught sight of my doek, and the boyfriend insisting that I keep ‘that thing’ as far from my head and from his sight as possible, that I realized that the doek is one hair item that heavily disgruntles the male species.
While chatting to the men in my life and inquiring why they consider the doek a weapon of mass cosmetic destruction, I realized that they struggle to understand why black females need their hair covered when going to bed, probably because they want to run their fingers through our hair (only the Lord knows why). Black hair is a mystery to most men; it’s a hidden territory that can only be looked at and marveled but never touched. And I guess that looking at the mysterious and untouchable long, flowing locks of our hair adds to the seduction element.
But the big reason why men are rioting against the doek is because this wonderful piece of cloth is not that appealing. And I’ll admit that our doeks have tendencies of looking like they were chewed by cows then spat out and left to dry in the sun, while others look like a bad throw-back into the 50’s. But the whole point of a doek is not what they look like, but rather what they do.
See gentlemen, the whole point of wearing a doek is to protect and
maintain our hair. Hair is one of the most important things to women,
and for black women in particular, maintenance can be quite expensive.
The last thing I want is to pick up stumps of braids when I wake up
because I accidentally pulled them out, from the scalp, because I was
tossing and turning all night. The demise of the hairline is already a
problem and sleeping with no doek and letting my braids fly all over my
bed while I sleep is a one way ticket to the destruction of my hair in totality.As you might have seen while growing up from your sisters and female friends, black hair needs to be moisturized every day to maintain the shine and buoyancy of its chemically relaxed state. I do not want to deal with oily pillow cases every day when I wake in the morning, so the doek is a must-wear when going to bed. And might I add that a black woman looks very frightening in the morning when she wakes up and her hair is standing up on her head, looking like she just got electrocuted by Frankenstein, especially if she has an afro. The hair needs to be kept intact so that it’s not a hassle to fix up when one wakes up in the morning.
Yes the doek might not be the most appealing head gear and it might be a passion killer, especially those grandma-hand-me-down doeks that are multi-patterned and are folded into a triangular shape then are tied around the head, or an old pair of stockings that is plastered on the head and then is secured with the legs part of the old stocking, but they serve a very important purpose, and that is to take care of our hair thus eliminating the possibility of spending 1000’s of Rands in damage control.
If a doek deeply moves you to a protest against it, then perhaps suggest an alternative head gear that black women can use to protect their precious crowns, bearing in mind that these crowns don’t come cheap so no compromise will be taken on their maintenance. But the best solution I can offer is that you accept the doek and embrace it.
For as long as black women exist and the care of our hair is on the top of our priority list, the doek will always be a part of our lives."
Hopefully now guys wont judge females and find them less attractive because of the doek. I mean, unless of course they are a fan of women, with patchy, RAGGEDY RATCHET looking hair, then sure, we'll stop, but until then, the DOEK STAYS ! We love our hairlines thanks.
@YoliDiintsi
MalisticD*~!! :))
