 Here's what I'll say, here's what I'll say. I think, to answer your question, why men go into Asian women? It's not because Asian women are more beautiful. It's not because of the hair. It's because Asian women have been branded as being more feminine, more submissive, more cooperative. Conversely, black women have been branded as the opposite. What's up, guys? Welcome to episode one of the Traveling Podcast. My name is Alan. We're in Atlanta, Georgia. We are being hosted today by the Honey Hair brand. And we have three lovely young ladies that are going to join us in our conversation about hair. Black women's relationship with their hair. We're going to talk about beauty. We're going to talk about colorism the whole nine. We're going to go this way and I'm going to have you all introduce yourselves. My name is Ty. I am 23 years old and I am in the film and production industry. Hey, everybody. I am Courtney. I am a self-published author. I discuss the importance of self-love. And I do a lot for a living. All right. My name is Tyneesha Renee. I'm a constant creator and I love having transparent and real conversations. I think the fact that we're in Atlanta is so perfect like as far as speaking to that because I would say Atlanta, especially for black women is one of the most competitive cities. And I just moved here. So, okay. So talk about what it's been like for you since we're here. I haven't experienced. For me, okay. So the thing is I haven't experienced competition if that makes sense because of what platform I am on. I haven't met a lot of authors. So I write books. Like I'm not in a field where other people, like I've heard that though. I've heard this competition like some of the hairstylists out here, they ain't competition with the next. And I'm just like, yeah, I want to get my hair done by both of them. I just want my hair done. Like it don't matter who's better. It matters who provide the better services and whose personality is better. Who doesn't always have an attitude or how's your energy? What's your mental health like? You know, that's when it gets deeper as a person or just the reviews back to what I said of who the person is. But as my experience, I haven't been here that long. So I haven't really interact with a lot of people as you may think, but it's still fresh. It's still fresh. It's still new. But I'm always like true to me and in my own lane. Like I ain't worried about what the next person is doing or worried about what that girl is doing. Like I'm focused on building me up from my younger self. Like, I don't know. That's probably why I never had somebody that I look up to or want to be like. So I'm just trying to look at me in the mirror then look at me in the mirror again. Like damn, you just accomplished all this. Don't lose sight of that, sis. I'm telling you, people come out here and they lose themselves. Talk about it. Seriously. So I've been here longer than you guys. So I feel like I've seen all the different types of things. When I first came out here, I was definitely in the party scene. So you would see like what the nightlife is like. And I'm more of a person where kind of speaking to the competition. If I see you look cute, hey girl, you look cute. Like I'm a compliment you, I want you to feel good. And some women nose up in the air like, you know, you just don't get that same type of love reciprocated. Like I was saying earlier, it's like when I first moved here, I went to Lenox Mall. And I'm used to going back home, going to the mall with leggings on slides, put my hair up in the bun. And I came out here and women have like designer bags, heels, stuff like that in the mall. You know what I'm saying? And so I was like, okay, right. So you learn real quick. Like for me, I mean, I would still get dressed up, but I didn't wear makeup all the time. But I will say that since I've moved to Atlanta and being in like this content creation space, being on social media, I do get dressed up more often than not. Yes, it's very different. Like I was saying earlier, I came here today with like no makeup, my hair not really done, but right. Thank you. And I was like, I want to challenge society for a moment and just really let them know, like you don't have to do it up every single time. Like you are beautiful. Like when I thought about it, I was like, okay, I got to get my hair done. I got to get my makeup done and I got to buy outfit. Just to be here and talk on camera. And I had to sit back for a minute and think like, you don't got to do all that time. Like you are still beautiful. Like I feel most comfortable like this. Like I want to, my hair in the bun, I feel good right now. But don't get me wrong. When I got on the full face of makeup and I got my bust down, my long hair, I feel even better, but I wish that society would treat this like it's more than, cause you are still beautiful. So why can't I walk in the room like this and get the same feedback as I would walk in the room all did up with my hair and with my makeup. I'll say this, I'll say this. It seems to me like y'all do it for other women, not men. Cause most men are okay with this if you got the skin care together. But it seems like a lot of women are more so in competition with themselves, like with each other. I blame social media for this. I agree with you. And I think that we are looking at social media as reality when it's not. And that just kind of goes into different things. Like you said, describing the it girl, it's because that's all we see. And we see that those are the women who get all the likes and they're getting the sponsorships and they're getting paid and things like that. And so I think it's kind of up to us to encourage one another, but I'ma throw it back at you guys, the men. I think it's up to you guys to encourage women as well to be very vocal about the fact that you don't have to do all of that and praise women who are in their natural state as well. But when you go and you see someone who has a BBL and it's half naked and you know, contoured face. And you're praising them. Then it sends a very confusing message because I think subconsciously women do want to impress men. Believe it or not, a woman has spoken. This is what I was saying. I think, and I've said this before, most women only concern themselves with what the top guys want, right? And because it seems like the girl that the top guys with has a BBL or she has a full face of makeup or she has all the hair in the whole nine, women think that that's what men want. Because again, women are only looking at this guy, even though most guys are here. But what do men want? Skincare. Yeah? I love my skincare routine, baby, I can't wait. You know what I'm saying? We want the way you talk to be feminine. We want the way you move to be feminine. Yes, and a lot of women don't realize that. Well, and that's the thing, like I think, and me and you were talking about this the other day, I think a lot of women, especially our women, if I'm being honest, are so preoccupied with being the bad bitch that they're not thinking about being the good woman. Yes. And it's like, and I think what's happening too is women think that the woman that the man wants to sleep with is the one that he wants. As opposed to thinking, okay, if I didn't have a vagina to give him, would he still want to be around me? And am I flexing, quote, unquote, the right muscles? But it's my, me showing my tits and me getting the BBL, is that gonna keep him past just a night? This is so good. I swear to God, I love this topic. Because now it's so true. That's 100% right, because I can only talk for myself, like I can't talk for nobody else, but me personally, I'm at the stage in life where I'm understanding value and who I am in my deeper self, learning self-love, like no shades nothing or nobody, but I've experienced a woman that's the total opposite of me, who head isn't on straight, like on the humble, I've learned new values of growing up to be a woman, like what do my man want, what do he need? Now I'm at stages of cooking, I clean the house, I do everything that a woman is supposed to do, but that's like mandatory as becoming a woman. Like, okay, so I'm young, I had my teen years, now I'm developing to be somebody more beautiful than who I once was. So it just depends on what stage that woman is. Is that in her life? And understanding her mental, you still have to understand where a woman actually comes from. So you was raised off, your mama got a BBL, this is how you was raised, or your mama, or whoever raised you, raised you to be this way. That's why it's always, it always gets deeper to an inner soul, inner core conversation because it's like, who are you really? Like deep down, I like those conversations in getting depth with where you come from. And why are you the way that you are? Or why do you feel comfortable? Like, when we talking about what is the normal, what is the real normal, or what is the made up? Like, I don't want nothing made up, I want natural, uncut, raw, strictly, everything. Like, don't put a filter on nothing. I'm very transparent with a lot of things. Even though men are saying that, women are like, nah, I still want, I still want the in-girl look. But the thing is, okay, so being transparent again, I have two sides, because it depends, I don't know, I gotta be comfortable with you, I gotta be comfortable with who you is. Like now, it depends on what level, it all depends on the levels, and like the moment of gratitude and that situation. Then again, I think it all boils down to when you're growing up and you're just new person, you're this new creature, and you're developing like what you like, who you are, your surroundings can dictate that. Like how you say it, how we were raised. And then again, society can kind of seduce you, so I feel like sometimes women truly don't know who they are. We need to find ourselves for a minute, like in my childhood, in my teenage years, I did not know who I was, I was so lost, I was so confused with society, with how my mom carried herself, how my family carried themselves, to a point where I had to sit down and figure out who is Ty, who am I, without society, without my mom, how she is, how my family is, who am I, all alone by myself. And when I found that person, I ran with it. It's a beautiful thing. I found myself. Now that's the conversation all about self. We gotta find ourselves and we gotta shut out society, we gotta shut out opinions, because those can kind of alter who we are as a person, and just be you, be your true self, without the eyes of the world on you. Who are you when you're home by yourself and nobody's looking? How do you talk, how do you walk? What do you do, you know? And ultimately, that's kind of my main point, that's what's gonna keep a man. I think, and me and my boys, we've talked about this, a lot of women are focusing so much on attention, that they're not focusing on retention. And especially when we talk about black women, black women have no problem getting a man. But the problem seems to be keeping one. And I think it's because the time that should be spent developing those things you're talking about, it's just been developing an image, a brand, an aesthetic. I'm working on my contour as opposed to my personality. So why do you think it's not getting through to, even young, especially Gen Z, like it's not getting through to them at all, they just trying to be bad, and that's it. Backfire, because how they were thinking? I mean, a lot of this ties into who your role models were growing up as well, right? So if we're thinking about Gen Z, who their parents are, I mean, I think their parents who are kind of lost in this matrix of trying to find themselves as well. And when you don't have your own sense of a compass, your own identity, you can get swayed in different ways. So I think that's a big thing too. But kind of like what we were talking about, they grew up on social media, they don't know what it's like to have part of your life, not really have social media in the other part be filled with social media. So they're going just based off of what they're mainstream. In terms of why women aren't listening though, that's something different. Oh my God, I really don't know what it is. I think that we are more prone to listen to other women than we are to listen to men. And maybe that can be tied back to the dynamic that we're used to when we're raised, right? So if it's not a man present, but your mom was the main person the household called in the shots, like that's primed in your head that you listen to a woman, maybe that's it. I don't know, but I think we're more receptive to other women than we are to men. I would say women are not listening because, and I can't say all women are like this, but I know that most women, they have this idea that all men ain't bleep. I don't curse, but all men... I'm trying to reach that level. All men aren't bleep. And I think that's being carried through generation to generation. Like our parents taught us that because I know my mom always said that about my dad. So I grew up thinking that until I had to see for myself, somebody is out there for me, all men ain't the same. And I think if women kind of took that away from their idea or their way of thinking, then maybe they could find a man that they can actually listen to. Because if I'm walking around thinking all men ain't nothing, then how am I gonna know that person that's for me? Like how am I gonna be able to be vulnerable to that person so they can break it down to me like, this should be this. Or like listen to that man or feel that man. Right, so how can we find somebody that we can learn from? If we always got this wallet, we always got this piece like, I don't trust men or I'm not dating right now, I'm just doing what I wanna do type of thing because we haven't really met a good man yet. Like I know for me, I haven't met anybody in my whole life that's like a good man. Well, so I wanna tie this pun intended. I wanna tie this into the hair. So one of the conversations I was having, we were talking about submission. And I asked her, I was like, why is it that a woman would pick a man that she can't trust or submit to? And she told me that it's not because she doesn't trust him, it's because she doesn't trust herself. Like she doesn't trust that she made the right decision in a man, right? And then we were talking further and it kinda got to self-esteem. And a lot of women's, to your point, a lot of women's self-esteem has been fractured. And part of what's fractured to self-esteem when we were talking about a white supremacist framework when we're talking about colorism, also texturism, not having that good hair, right? How do you think things like that, texturism, featureism, colorism has affected a woman's ability to love herself, trust herself and subsequently love and trust a man and identify a good man? I think it goes back to what society says. Like there's a certain type of hair that all women won't, not all women, some women won't. Like, I know with my hair, I wish I had hair that came out of my scalp that was already straight and pretty, but I have to straighten my hair every three days so it could be straight and pretty. So, yeah. Why is it straight and pretty? Because I'm not currently pretty. I just like it. That too, though, I wish I had pretty curly hair, but I also wish I had, I don't know how I want my hair. I just wish it could do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. But that's why we have to wear wigs and weave because our hair, as black women anyway, me specifically, my hair can't curl up like this if I wanted to or it won't be as soft and straight and silky as I wanted to. I gotta do all these crazy things to it. Get a perm, then it comes out. Get a perm and then it's like, I don't think men truly understand what we go through with our hair. Like, all y'all gotta do is go get a haircut, a little shape up and y'all good to go. But us, like, if you wanna take me out, I'm gonna have to get my hair done first because it's like, oh, I'm going like this. And most of the time, this is how I wear my hair. That is beautiful. Thank you. I just feel like sometimes men don't really get it. I can hear your brain working. Talk to me. I'm trying to connect to what you ask. And I'm not sure. I mean, I think it's just a lot of subconscious messaging that we get. So I started getting relaxers and I was like four or five, little just for me perms, because my mom would always complain about how difficult it was to do my hair, right? And so then it's like, you already get this message that, okay, me being in my natural state is a problem. And also I was tenderheaded. So it was like, okay, when I'm in my natural state and I was painful to me, so you start making those connections on why you being who you are naturally isn't good. So that definitely plays a role in terms of how that corresponds to the men though. I don't know. I'm not sure I've ever thought of it being a link between the two. I never thought about it either. I don't, and maybe, I mean, do you have a theory? I think it's kind of like what y'all said earlier. The idea is that some of this pressure is coming from us as opposed to the childhood stuff that you're talking about. And it's easier to say, oh, if men were better, I wouldn't have to go through all this bullshit. But what makes a perfect man? Oh, y'all got to answer that. I can talk about what I think a good man is, but y'all are the consumers of us. What's a good man? What's a good woman? Can we start there first? So I mean, okay, so what would us, what would, if we, once we get ready to settle, what would us women want in a man? Somebody that's able to be soft, not always so hardcore. And I don't want somebody that's like too demanding. That's not, I want you to put your big boy drawers on. Know that you're taking on a lot of pressure, but don't be like insecure and that plays a whole different part in the ball game. But I don't know, that's why there's no perfect person. There's no perfect man. You just find the person that's for you or that fits you and that matches your energy and your sanity or that likes to do the things that you'd like to do or that actually understand who you are as a person. I just, you will want somebody that connects with you, somebody you can learn from. And not even that, like somebody you can grow with and somebody that deep down understand you as a person. The reason I brought it up initially, because you said I haven't met a good man yet. Wow, I feel that too. I've heard it a lot actually. And then the other piece too was the, we're gonna get to it. I'm like, we're gonna get to it. We're gonna get to it. And then the other piece too is kind of like a lot of women say men want a woman with BBLs, men want a woman with Remy or whatever the case may be. So my pushback has always been number one. I don't think a lot of our women know how to identify a good man. So if one was literally right in front of you, you wouldn't know, you wouldn't even see him, right? But the second piece too is a lot of the stuff that we're being penalized for, especially as black men, for imposing on you guys is actually being self-imposed. Wow. A lot of the pressures to the big booty and things like that. Like I was selling, I was selling you the other day. Men across the world, white men, black men, currently are running overseas to find wives. And they're primarily going to Asian countries. Do Asian women have a fat ass? They flat. Nobody have fine hair. Asian women are good women. I don't say that. How do you know they're good women? I'm saying that because I agree with you. Yes, a lot of it is self-imposed, but I've also talked to men who are like, I mean, we can go into colorism where some men are like, I want to be with someone who is like, complexed or of another race because I want my children to have this skin tone, have this hair type. And so it is being ingrained in both of us. I don't think it's just one-sided. And we're just kind of bouncing that negative self-image off of one another. This is what I'll say. Here's what I'll say. I think to answer your question, why men go into Asian women, it's not because Asian women are more beautiful. It's not because of the hair. It's because Asian women have been branded as being more feminine, more submissive, more cooperative. Conversely, black women have been branded as the opposite. And it's hard, especially nowadays, it's hard to make the line between are black men not pairing with black women because they don't like your hair or because they don't like your attitude. Because some men might not even be able to articulate the fact that I have associated a certain skin color with a certain behavior. And it's easy, I think instead of women engaging in that part, it's easier to say, oh, he's a colorist. Oh, he don't like me because of my hair. And keep it pushing. Even though like when I'm talking to guys, yes, I think texturism is absolutely a thing. Colorism is absolutely a thing. But some women are beautiful. They foresee beautiful. Dark skin beautiful in the whole nine. And I think men grade your ability to take care of what you have more highly than simply what you have. Like using what you got, basically. Yeah, so like. Like she can own her own. She can own herself. Of what you actually own. It's some girls with, let's say, 4C hair based on the good hair grade is at the bottom of the barrel. It's some girls I've seen with 4C hair, damn. But she know how to take care of what she got versus trying to be something that she's not. Right, right. Like instead of like, if I don't like my hair instead of putting weave in, I'm gonna own it. Yeah. And learn, I think the other thing too is, and this is a consequence of white supremacy, we have forgotten how to take care of ourselves. Because we're trying so hard to be somebody else. I don't know how to take care of my 4C hair because I wish it was 4A, or 4B, or 3B. I don't know the numbers, I don't know. You know what I mean? And I've been saying part of this femininity journey that I would like to see our women go on more specifically is learning how to be the best black woman as opposed to simply trying to compete. Because when you're in competition mode, you're in masculine mode. That's what we do. Talk to me. Why are you looking at me? I mean, I agree with what you're saying. I agree with what you're saying. Me too. It is sad that we invest hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to cover our hair in the name of it being a protective style. When a lot of people don't trim their hair, you're not deep conditioning it. So it's like, are you actually protecting your hair? Or are you protecting yourself from the insecurities that you have about how you look because we are forced to adhere to these Eurocentric beauty standards? And so I think that's a big thing too. Like we'll say again, protective styles. But one of the things I was talking to one of my guy friends about is that he was frustrated at the fact that the protective styles never come off. He was like, OK, protection for how long? Like, what is it? When are we going to see what you're protecting? You know what I'm saying? And it's like, I think we become so confident. So comfortable with hiding that part of ourselves. Well, like you said, if our hair isn't done, we don't want to leave the house. We feel very uncomfortable. And it's interesting because for me, I'm going on my own little hair journey. And I really want to have Afro. That's what I'm working out with my natural hair and how to shape it and stuff. But it's so funny because this was a whole conversation with my friends. I'm in a group chat and I'm like, OK, I don't know what to do. Like, I'm ready to do this. I'm ready to do this. And I thought about it. And I'm like, do other races of people have conversations about I'm going to wear my natural hair today? And this is a big thing for me. Like, I have to even talk to my friends about this because this is so new for me. This is different territory. And so when I started to look at things like that, I think I realized how deep rooted it is.