Dove Partners With LinkedIn to End Discrimination Against Black Women’s Hair in the Workplace

Thanks to Dove and LinkedIn, Black women and men will now have access and the opportunity to wear their hair as they please in any professional space.

As a part of Dove's ongoing devotion to helping pass The CROWN Act and end hair discrimination against Black women and men nationwide, the organizations have joined forces to execute a study to analyze race-based hair bias in the workplace and how that affects the professional advancement of Black individuals.

The NEW CROWN 2023 Workplace Research Study found that Black women who wear their hair natural or in hairstyles inherent to their culture are more than 2.5x more likely to be deemed unprofessional, which can impact them during the hiring process. Because of this, approximately 2/3 of Black women (66%) make a change to their hair for a job interview. Among them, 41% straightened their hair from their natural texture.

"For far too long, Black women and men have been subject to unfair treatment, outright discrimination and a myriad of inequities for simply wearing our natural hair texture and hairstyles that are inherent to our cultural identity," says Esi Eggleston Bracey, CEO of Unilever Personal Care. "The goal of the partnership between Dove and LinkedIn is to help put an end to race-based hair discrimination in the workplace. We intend to shine a light on this issue and call upon employers, hiring managers, and professionals to adopt equitable and inclusive practices that create a respectful and open world for natural hair."

To help fight for the right change, in support of the CROWN Act, the organizations have launched their #BlackHairIsProfessional campaign, in which photos of Black women with protective and straightened hair are shared across their social channels to open up important conversations about unconscious and internal bias against Black people in the workspace.