Just when you think your voice cannot change things, it is proven once again that if you scream loud enough the right person might just hear what you have to say.
Remember last year and early this year when we talked about how hard it was for women of color serving our country in various capacities to wear their hair in certain styles.
We had quite a discussion about it and it became a pretty big deal for us civilians especially who wanted our sisters serving the country to have as many options as they could on how they wore their hair while maintaining the uniform as required by the rules.
It seems as if the discussion we had as a collective helped people to start to take a second look at policy because as of December 14th, 2015 the U.S. Marine corps now allows what they call “entwined” hair styles.
This means styles like, braids twists and locs are allowed which is much different from previous years. According to Colonel Christian F. Wortman the changes were done to give women more options.
“These changes were made to provide additional options to our female Marines that are professional in appearance, easier for some of our female Marines to maintain in an expeditionary environment, and less costly and time consuming to maintain than some currently approved options.”
There are still rules to follow even with the new regulations, and these rules are very specific:
Lock and twist hairstyles are authorized as long as they are neat and maintain a professional military image. The hairstyles must be secured with no hair exceeding the bottom edge of the collar and not have bulk, other than the bun, exceeding two inches from the scalp. Hairstyles must not interfere with the wear of covers.
Watch the Marine core hair regulation video below:
Yes don’t punish our culture!
They never did. It was all on safety as long as people stay with in the regulations which was why they had to think twice to begin with then it’s no issue. I saw many girls get their hair ripped out or there hair set on fire because they didn’t stay within regulations.
Even better! They gave 3″ I had 2″. Yeah!
Yes every branch of service needs to allow locks and twist. Its hard enough trying to keep black natural hair in reg, this would be a way to maintain our hair and keep it up.
The Navy does. I served and I wore them.
That’s good news. Am happy about this. Why then most African American cry about Racism. We have been accepted or approved of all rights in America. God please help us to Love one another.
Because racism exist in the US in abundance. This is a very small step forward. The fact that it was an issue in the first place is rediculous. Thinking this solves racism or makes racism go away is delusional…
As long it’s in a bun its ok
What!!! Now they approve it!
I served in the Navy (1999-2004) and I always wore my braids like the woman to the right because your bun has to be no bigger than 2″ in bulk. I was never told to change my hair and I was never called out because I was in regulations. Actually when we would be on deployment we would bring our braiding hair and weave hair and we would fine the few girls that new how to do it and Sundays we would get our hair braided. Sundays as the day where you get an extra hour before you had to go to work, so you wake up a little earlier and you get your head done in the berthing lounges. I remember in boot camp hearing girls cry and sob because they weren’t allowing black girls to relax their hair before they did their pictures or graduated and they went ahead and allowed it. Now we are crying cause we want to be natural. They are doing the best that they can for us, but you have to weigh out the safety issues etc. before you implement it into regulations. It just so happens that other than Samoans and some Indigenous Americans we have the thickest hair and the equipment isn’t made to handle thick hair. Which again is a safety concern. I served Proudly with braids and twists and had no issues. My entire ship (A nuclear aircraft carrier; which is a floating city) didn’t have an issue with them as long as you bun it back.
There is a typo in the line above the video. It reads “Marine core” when it should say Marine Corps. Great Article.