Ghana Life: Hair Styles for Men
In the past, men claimed that they were not very concerned with their appearance, and this was particularly emphasized when it came to hair. However, in an age where the differentiation between the genders is becoming increasingly blurred, men have followed their sisters in all manner of personal adornment. In Ghana during the second half of the 20th century, this trend threatened to diminish the dominance of natural tonsoral styles and convinced some to find self-expression in the full range of more manipulative means of hair control.
For most of the period under review, men in Ghana’s cities and towns continued to be much more comfortable with their natural hair than women. Most men were content to make a more or less regular visit to the barber to keep their hair length within prescribed limits, while in the meantime relying on a wide-toothed comb of traditional design to maintain a modicum of tidiness. Some professionals, it is true, kept a line on an imitated version of the style of the colonial old masters, but perhaps that was the limit of what was then achieved with a purely tonsorial attention. The days of shaved heads, and especially of the stamped shave, were further in the future.
The first sign of the feminization of men’s hairstyles came with what was known as Rasta. This was the adoption of braiding, with or without extensions of synthetic fibers, to produce long hanging braids, rat tails, dreadlocks or, more properly, simply ‘locks’. Associated with the Rastafarian religion, practiced mainly along the southern coast, Rasta originally came to Ghana from Jamaica. Rasta hairstyles seem to vary greatly in quality, from the almost totally unkempt to the elaborate, freshly braided creations that would grace a female head. However, the general memory of the last century is that Ghanaian Rastas were relatively few. They may be more common today, as a Rastafarian council was founded in Ghana in 2009.
When talking about men’s hairstyles, it’s impossible to overlook the issue of baldness, hair loss that affects many men, and often in its prime. For most of the 20th century, Ghanaian men took baldness in stride with jokes about “televisions” and “highways”, depending on the shape of the bald spot. They generally left the remaining strands of hair intact, except for routine care by a groomer who administered the standard ‘short back and sides’. The ‘some off, all off’ fad, which has swept across the Western world in recent years, was hardly seen in Ghana before the turn of the millennium.
With advances in chemical processing, and in particular with the introduction of less painful and less burning potions, some young men are bravely giving themselves the periodic trial of perming, or permanent straightening, as it should be called in Africa. However, this is a development of the new millennium and was little evident in the 20th century. In general, it must be said that Ghanaian men proved to be much more conservative than their sisters when it came to embracing change and becoming fashionistas. This applied to both hairstyle and clothing. Whether they were wisely content to stick with what they considered the most profitable or stubbornly refused to fully express themselves is a matter of personal opinion.