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Women pay great attention to their hair. That attention begins early in their lives, often when they are teenagers. It is not uncommon to find a 13-year-old spending considerable time in front of a mirror to see if her hair looks as good as it can.

When they are in their 20s, 30s, 40s or even 50s, women will be spending good money on haircare products and hairstyles. Women’s hair styling generally costs more than men’s.

Women’s great attention to their hair is about looking smart but also attractive to the opposite sex. Yet this obsession does not correspond with the importance men often attach to women’s hairstyles when choosing or being attracted to a woman.

There are precious few men who will say they were attracted to a woman because of her hair. For many men, especially Ugandan or African men for that matter, attractions can be anything from nyash and a nice face to height, firm breasts, skin colour and so on.

A woman with close-cropped hair can still attract men in large numbers if she scores highly in terms of nyash and skin colour. Many men find light-skinned women particularly attractive—the reason some women use skin-lightening creams—but this is not to say that dark-skinned women are not attractive.

That men do not attach much importance to women’s hair, even though women invest a lot in it, is not hard to see. When men look at women they find attractive, their attention tends to gravitate towards physical features they associate more directly with sexuality and sexiness.

Hair, as anyone can see, is not a major factor in sexiness. While it may enhance beauty in some women to a certain extent, it does not compete favourably with things that place women high on the pretty ladder.

That explains why a woman may spend several hours in a hair salon and a fairly large sum styling her hair, yet when she gets out and walks the streets no one notices.

Women who cause excitement when walking the streets in downtown Kampala are rarely those with beautifully styled hair. If you ask women themselves, they are likely to tell you they have never seen a woman attracting glances from men mainly because of her hair.

Some married women get home after being in hair salons and their husbands will not even notice. But if, for argument’s sake, they returned home without their backside, their husbands would readily notice.

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🔴 A weekly column about women and men. Views and commentary on everything from love, marriage, sex, money, desire, betrayal and power to all the glorious mess in between. No sides. No sacred cows. Just The Third Chair: unnamed, unaligned and sitting close enough to hear both sides.