Will Smith Encourages Willow Smith to Have Control Over Her Body

In a recent interview with Parade, Will Smith revealed a few of his parenting aspirations as well as  why he allows Willow to experiment with her hair and style. We have all given Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith the side eye at one point and time as we’ve watched Willow swing on stripper poles and dye her ever-changing hair.

“We let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. She can’t cut my hair but that’s her hair. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that it is hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives.”

Upon reading will’s interview, I became a little more understanding of her situation, which led me to ask,

“How much control do WE as women have over our body?”

This a time where we have to be honest with ourselves.  With all of the cosmetic enchancing, weaving, eyelash extending, and so many other things we do to look and feel beautiful, is it really working?  Why do we, as a whole, feel like we have to spend an exhorbant amount of money and time reach a standard of beauty that someone other than us set the standard for?

As time progresses, there are more women branching out and experimenting with their looks, some for the better, others, for worse.  Watching women inject until they die, coloring until they have to cut, and destroying our feet, knees, and back for shoes that cost more than some people in our own cities eat in a month, it makes you wonder,

Who’s really in control of our body and beauty?  Are you in control of you?