Here's why the Army is allowing ponytails and other grooming changes
An update to the Army’s grooming policy that allows female service members to wear ponytails, earrings and nail polish in some cases went into effect Thursday.
Army leaders said the revised grooming standards support its “people first” priority, diversity and inclusion efforts.
“The Army must continue to put people first by fostering a culture of trust that accepts the experiences and backgrounds of every soldier and civilian,” said Lt. Gen. Gary Brito, deputy chief of staff for personnel. “Our diverse workforce is a competitive advantage, and the Army must continue to offer fair treatment, access and opportunity across the force.”
The changes follow a Department of Defense directive issued in July by then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to address discrimination, prejudice and bias in the ranks.
Among the outlined requirements in Esper’s memo was for secretaries of each service branch to “review hairstyle and grooming policies for racial bias.”
Fayetteville Army veteran Ruby Murray thinks the change is good for people of color in the military.
Murray, of Fayetteville, served in the military for almost 27 years before retiring as a sergeant major in 2016.
"I think this is a long time coming because being an African American female, it was a lot of strict guidelines that we had to abide by, but they were neat guidelines,'' Murray said. "Now that a lot of us are going to our actual backgrounds, it feels good to actually see that we are actually allowing women to be diverse, regardless of whatever color your skin."
Jasmine Coleman of Fayetteville is another Army veteran who thinks trying to meet previous Army grooming standards for hair created a bit of a burden for Black women in the military.
“You’d have to use chemicals or wear wigs,” she said.
In an August opinion column for military.com, Lt. Col. Andrea Peters, an engineer officer and currently an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, wrote that though perms weren’t required, images of a white woman with a bun when she joined the military “reinforced the same European standard of professionalism.”
She detailed the process to perm, or chemically straighten her hair, which burns the scalp.
Policies were updated in 2014 and revised in 2015, to allow women to wear twists, locs and braids, but Peters recommended additional updates to the policy.
And she wasn’t the only one with suggestions.
Though Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston was engaged in conversations about the topic on Twitter in December, discussions have predated that time.
Sgt. Maj. Mark Clark, with the Army’s office of the deputy chief of staff for personnel, said some of the recommendations are ones he’s heard in the past year.
During a Jan. 26 Facebook Town Hall meeting, Grinston, Clark and Sgt. Maj. Brian Sanders, the policy branch sergeant major for the Army, announced the changes.
Changes were based on recommendations from a panel of soldiers ages 24 to 55 representing various units to include the U.S. Army Forces Command, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, U.S. Army Special Forces Command and U.S. Army Recruiting Command.
The panel, which included women in combat military occupational specialties, was briefed by subject matter experts from Walter Reed, the Office of the Surgeon General, a dermatologist and behavioral health specialist.
The dermatologist told the panel buns created alopecia, or hair loss, for women in the Army, of which one-third affected were Black, Clark said.
“But it also impacted Asian soldiers, Latino soldiers, other demographics, as well — so it wasn’t geared toward only African American women,” he said. “It was geared toward women in general.”
The subject-matter experts placed hairstyles into high, medium and low-risk categories for hair loss, which indicated women transitioning from short hairstyles to longer hairstyles were more at risk, Clark said.
Sanders said the decision to allow a short ponytail came from conversations about it being difficult to form a bun “out of nothing.”
“If you don’t have the texture or length of hair to form a bun, what do you do?” Sanders asked.
A short ponytail is allowed as long as it is not too wide and doesn’t impair the proper use of headgear, he said.
As long as hair is neat in appearance and well-groomed, Sanders questioned, “why not” update the policy?
“Right now, soldiers are forcing hair to go into a bun is really pulling on the hair — causing hair loss, alopecia,” Sanders said of what the dermatologist told grooming policy panel members. “And what we want to do — along with diversity and inclusion — from the medical health and wellness aspect — is how do we make sure we keep our soldiers healthy?”
Sanders said the panel reviewed changes from an “effectiveness and functionality” perspective, with long ponytails being one of those considerations.
Officials said long ponytails will be allowed while conducting physical training and if tucked into the back of the uniform to allow helmets to sit properly without impairing vision “or making it uncomfortable” to execute effective training or combat operations.
Grinston agreed a bun could make wearing an aviator helmet more difficult.
"Having something additional on the back of your head push that helmet down over your eyes while shooting a rifle is miserable...," he said. "Males and females and said, ‘Well imagine sergeant major you’ve got a bun on the back of your head and you’ve got your combat vest on and you have a bun and that’s also pushing down'. So to me, it would help our readiness to undo that."
Clark said that under previous guidance, female soldiers were allowed to only wear one hairstyle.
“But as we probably go back and look at some soldiers that we’ve all had at some point in time, we’ve all probably realized that they probably had multiple hairstyles they wanted,” he said. “They had locs then had it pulled into a bun or braid and still presented a professional look and it didn’t interrupt good order and discipline of the soldiers.”
During her time in the military, Murray said, it wasn’t too difficult to comply with military grooming standards because of her leaders' support.
"Standard from head to toe was a must for me, and it was because of my leaders that I had that most importantly would always tell me, ‘Your first impression will always be your last impression,’" Murray said. "So the type of leaders that I had, that kind of got me all the way up to the rank of sergeant major, believed in appearance."
Murray said that whenever she went to a braid shop, she had to make sure hair stylists knew the regulation for a woman of color — how long braids can be to get it in a bun that doesn't go below the collar.
While there are no updates to the maximum length of hair, there is an update to the minimum length.
Clark said that as more women are entering into combat roles , shaving heads for certain training like Ranger School allows the women to be more inclusive with their peers.
“And there really was no rationale on setting a set minimum length for the female hair,” he said.
The updated regulation does not set a minimum length requirement for hairstyles.
Hair dye is already authorized under current policy, but Sanders said the update addresses highlights.
"Female soldiers, even male soldiers, they want to have an opportunity to kind of jazz it up a little bit, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” he said. “It’s part of your identity.”
Highlights are now allowed, as long as they are a natural uniform blended color.
Purple, blue, pink, green, orange, bright red, fluorescent or neon colors, and some others are prohibited.
Coleman said that as soon as she got out of the Army, she dyed her hair “rooster comb red,” as a form of self-expression after conforming with rules.
She now wears her hair in a natural, curly Afro which she dyed blue — something she was inspired to do after a “tumultuous experience” of her husband fighting and recovering from COVID-19.
"I colored my hair blue because after being faced with something that makes you think about your own mortality, and just life, and you get all introspective and soul searchy," Coleman said. “So, I said 'I know what I'm going to do, I'm going to dye my hair blue.’”
Working in higher education at the University of North Carolina Pembroke, she said, allows a more "permissive environment" as far as personal expression
Hair isn’t the only updated change to policy.
Fingernail polish is allowed — as long colors aren’t extreme, and screw-on, clip-on or post earrings in gold, silver or diamond will be allowed with the Army combat uniform.
Earrings must be unadorned and spherical without exceeding 6 millimeters or 1/4 inch in diameter, pearl earrings will not be allowed with the Army combat uniform, and earrings will not be allowed in a tactical, training setting or a combat deployment.
Clark said a behavioral health specialist told the panel how certain policies impacted female soldiers in a “masculine Army,” where the rates of those who leave the military are higher for women than men.
“Earrings kind of help bridge the gap and soldiers who want to serve and be soldiers but also want to feel like a female at the same time,” he said.
Coleman is happy that the Army is evolving in a positive direction but is a little envious.
"I wish they had those changes when I was in, especially the earrings,” she said.
Coleman served in the military for eight years, from 1998 to 2006 before leaving as a sergeant.
During that time, she said, she could only wear earrings with a dress uniform, but not the garrison uniform.
“That was a big deal because you're in this environment where it's decidedly more stereotypically male-dominated and you're doing these jobs and you're rough and you're tough, but you might just want to put some earrings on that day,” she said.
During the Facebooktownhall meeting, Grinston said he thinks the updates show progress to allow soldiers to “identify with who they are.”
Grinston said he previously used the phrase “We’re all soldiers. I just see green.”
“So that’s some of those things we’re trying to understand is not only are you a soldier, but there’s other pieces of you that are critical that we need to understand as an Army," Grinston said.
And change, he said, is how the Army operates.
“People say, ‘Well, why now?’ and I say, ‘Well, why not?’ … There’s going to be something else. … this isn’t the end.”