A woman shaving her hair carries religious and cultural significance in some African cultures. In Kenya, for example, women who are a part of the Maasai (also Masai) people — an East African tribe occupying southern Kenya and northern Tanzania — are known to shave their heads bald or wear very low cuts. In this culture, it is the men who work to maintain hair length as a representation of power, protection, and masculine elegance —a role reversal of sorts, in which women aren’t bound to an expectation to perform beauty under a patriarchal gaze. Though a form of regulation, it is important to also note that in other African cultures it is believed that by cutting their hair, school girls will be less distracted in class. And Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek, who became the first African model to grace the cover of Elle magazine in 1997, has inspired many African women to embrace themselves through her fearless ownership of her baldness and African features at a time when black models were more commercially accepted if their skin was light and their hair was straight, as The Guardian notes