Collective Blindness

There was a touching story on the mirror.co.uk’s website last year about a little girl, Nikkita Gibson, that lost all her hair to alopecia at about 18 months of age. In it Nikkita’s mum Louise (herself bald as a result of alopecia) often refers to the fact that people constantly mistake Nikkita for a boy or if not, ask her whether she is suffering from cancer. It’s amazing to note how many people have never even heard of alopecia, and even more so how constructed social identify can be, i.e. little girls should have long hair. The very same kind of thinking applies when people perceive bald men or women to be older than they really are because baldness is associated with age. While we can accept the fact that for as long there is baldness, there will be a social view of baldness, we needn’t accept this particular view of baldness. The trick is to help people remover their blinkers.