US congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, one of four high-profile progressive female lawmakers known as “The Squad,” opened up Thursday about her struggles with alopecia, revealing on video for the first time that she is now bald. In an interview with The Root, the 45-year-old representative from Massachusetts said she felt it was important to talk about the issue publicly because as a black woman, her political brand had become synonymous with Afrocentric hair styles like Senegalese twists. When she first adopted the look, she predicted it “would be filtered and interpreted by some as a political statement that was militant,” she said — but it quickly won praise among black girls and women.
