Female Hair Loss
Although many balding men are distressed by their hair loss, they don’t have to look far to find examples of bald men who are considered successful, youthful and handsome. Andre Agassi, Bruce Willis, Michael Jordan, Vin Diesel, the list goes on and suggests that baldness can be sexy…in men. Balding women, however, are hard pressed to find celebrity women who are visibly losing hair.
“It’s totally acceptable for a man to be bald,” says Brad Limmer, MD, a dermatologist specializing in hair transplantation who has a private practice in San Antonio, Texas. “It’s not a socially acceptable thing for a woman. So much emphasis and value is place on a woman’s head of hair; it’s hard to even compare the impact on men and women.”
People tend not to associate pattern baldness with women, but it is just as common in women as it is in men, though the timing and pattern of hair loss is different. While men tend to start losing hair in the 30s and 40s, thinning begins in the 40s or 50s in women, though it can occur as early as the 20s. And while men tend to lose hair in the front and at the top of the head, women’s hair thins diffusely throughout the scalp; total baldness is very rare in women.
