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Culture and baldness: Why we fear it

On Behalf of | Feb 18, 2019 | Firm News

When you decided to take Taxotera, maybe you didn’t worry about the side effects because you knew you needed to do anything to treat the cancer. Maybe you did worry about the side effects and your doctor told you that you wouldn’t have significant hair loss. Maybe you never thought about it at all.

No matter what, you lost your hair and it has changed your life. It’s something you never thought you would have to deal with, and yet here you are. It has impacted your personality, your confidence, your dating life and even your ability to get a job. You know that people just do not look at you the way they once did.

Why is this? Why do we have this cultural fear of baldness?

We act like it’s unnatural

For one thing, people tend to act like going bald is unnatural, as if the amount of hair you have when you’re 25 years old is the amount you should have for the rest of your life.

“Bald men seemed disfigured to me,” one man said. “I felt pity for them.”

That’s a strong statement. Is that how you have been feeling about your own baldness? You can see how easy it is for the condition to impact you mentally and physically. Living your entire life feeling like the drug caused you to become disfigured is devastating. Some people try to downplay this side effect, as if it’s not all that important, but it really is important to your psyche and your outlook on life.

We see it in the media

There are exceptions to every rule, but Hollywood tends to portray men with full, perfect hair in an ideal light. You see it in movies, TV shows and even commercials. It’s part of their identity. Some have even gone so far as to say that the media connects hair to virility, strength and power.

It’s easy enough to say that you shouldn’t look to Hollywood for your own self-esteem, and that’s true. However, the reality is that they create this expectation. When you fall short of that, it changes the way you feel about yourself.

Your dating life

Perhaps the top reason that people fear going bald, though, is that they worry that it will impact their dating life. Will members of the opposite sex still find you attractive? Your self-confidence plummets. If they don’t, are you going to miss out on a loving relationship and the family you want just because you lost your hair?

This is why people who saw the negative outcomes of Taxotera need to know what legal rights they have. Don’t underestimate how this is going to change your life, your attitude and your future.