Sitting Between Momma's Knees
The Womanist Salon Podcast
Dear Research Network, Colleagues and Friends,
We are pleased to share The Womanist Salon Podcast. This episode, "Sitting Between Moma's Knees," explores the way a womanist lens provides us with self love and self care. Most Black women remember being little girls who had to sit between their mother's knees while enduring the long ritual of hair care.
In light of the current US political climate, Black women are expected to decolonize the academy, demystify religion and deconstruct American politics. What we're not expected to do is take care of ourselves, survive or even thrive!
How does a womanist lens provide benefit? What can you see now that you never saw before? We’ve posted show notes and the link to the marvelous podcast below. We hope you’ll listen to more episodes from this wonderful group of womanist scholars!
The Misogynoir to Mishpat (M2M) Research Network © 2025
TWSP Ep2 - Sitting Between The Knees: Work What Your Mama Gave You!
Show Notes
Sitting between our mother’s knees getting our hair done was a time when lots of information, knowledge, and coded talk was passed along to black girl children about beauty, womanhood, self-esteem, self-love, and self-protection. Lots of policing our appearance, speech, and sexuality with pressure to be good girls, respectable ladies – not the kind who makes the rest of us “look bad.” Getting and keeping our hair “fixed” or “done” was our first and most important strategy as girls on how to avoid the racist, classist, and sexist stereotypes other people might put us into.
Before all that wisdom and knowledge could be passed along, there was the detangling process. A black girl’s hair has to be detangled before it can put back right. Many Black women have experienced the horrific childhood moments of sitting in between our mother’s legs as she combed through our hair which involved lots of tugging, tears, and even a few love touches to the head. Detangling. Deconstructing. Decolonizing. Demythologizing. Demystifying. Breaking stuff down. Hair texture mattered, but what we now know is that product and the proper tools matter too. You learn that if you have the right -- detangling moisturizer, the proper brush and comb-- and patience, detangling becomes a breeze! In this episode, the hair docs specialize in the ministry of detangling the politics of Black hair for Black women facing the double bind of caring for their hair and resisting hair discrimination. (Intro/Outro Music provided by Epidemic Sound: Sunday by Ballpoint)