"We didn't ask about the teenie-weenie Afros because a couple of years ago people weren't talking about them the way they are today," Roberts said, adding that the firm plans to ask about the style in this year's survey.
Throughout history, long hair has been viewed as a marker of beauty and femininity among various cultures. But length has been elusive for some black women, whose hair texture can range from straight to wavy to curly to kinky, because the natural coil of the hair makes it appear shorter.
Women who have desired longer hair have depended on hair straightening products, hot combs, flat irons, weaves, extensions and wigs.
Frances Simmons, a natural hair care professional who visits public schools in Chicago to talk to students about proper hair care, said she's not against women getting weaves or extensions that are woven in properly. But too many girls are getting them at a very young age and at the expense of healthy hair and a healthy self-image.
"I've met a lot of girls who prefer some type of hair contraption, rather than their own because they feel hair has to be long to be beautiful," Simmons said. "It doesn't matter if the fake hair is matted and cheap and braids (are) falling off. What does that say about our self-esteem and self-worth?"
Lanita Jacobs, a University of Southern California associate professor of anthropology and American studies and ethnicity, has written about the politics of black hair and why length and texture matter so much to women of color in this country and around the world.
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