Ayanna Pressley Is Inspiring Women Everywhere With Her Alopecia Selfie

Ayanna Pressley Inspires Women Everywhere With Her Alopecia Selfie

by September 4, 2020

Ayanna-Pressley-alopecia-selfie
Chip Somodevilla/Getty

“Who needs hair with these cheekbones?” -Ayanna Pressley, AKA the queen, 2020

We all know Ayanna Pressley. She’s progressive, a feminist, a badass leader, a member of The Squad. She’s known for standing up for all her constituents, like when she took on Betsy DeVos in a blistering letter about reopening schools during a deadly pandemic. And in case you didn’t know, she also has alopecia.

But the Massachusetts Representative isn’t letting that hold her back or slow her down. She just shared a selfie on Twitter that has the internet buzzing and it’s easy to see why.

“Let me drop an alopecia selfie flex,” Pressley wrote in the caption. “Ya’ll stay mad on my timeline. I get it. Who needs hair with these cheekbones? Folks want to know which bathroom I use. Obviously, the one where royalty enters. S/O to my Alopecia Squad, 7million strong.”

Excuse me while I just immortalize that quote real quick: “Who needs hair with these cheekbones?” -Ayanna Pressley, 2020.

I mean, for real though, who gave her the right to look this good? What. A. Queen. And the people in her mentions? They are not hating. At least, most of them aren’t. Pressley’s selfie has the entire alopecia community — 6.8 million people in the U.S. alone — showing up in her mentions.

You see all those women? No matter what any hater might say, Rep. Pressley has inspired all those women (and more) to be themselves and to share their stories, and that’s a great thing.

In case you somehow missed it, Pressley announced in January that she had alopecia. She shared the revelation in an emotional, powerful video for The Root, in which she talked about how her alopecia advanced extremely rapidly, and during that time, she struggled to hide the condition from her colleagues in Congress.

“The reality is that I’m black. And I’m a black woman. And I’m a black woman in politics. Everything I do is political,” she said at the time. “So I’m trying to find my way here. And I do believe going public will help.”

Not long after going public in that video, Pressley appeared on the Congress floor without a wig, and she looked stunning. Still in her trademark red lip, it was her first time going to work publicly without her head covered, and we were here for it.

Pressley is leading the way into a kind of politics that might just make the world a better place: Where women are seen for the absolute power they have, and they can use it to make positive change.