A recent study published in the The New England Journal of Medicine has found that 97% of women rank “fear of going lady bald” over a fear of death. The study specified that lady baldness is defined as “the phenomenon of hair loss, as with male-patterned baldness—but on a lady head, and way sadder.”
“Of course I’m terrified of death,” said one study participant, “but the thought of going lady bald can literally keep me up at night. Like, what, would I have to start wearing wigs? Or fancy scarves on my head? I just…I—” The woman then said she “needed a moment” and left the room, her breath “panicked and uneven” according to researchers.
Another participant vigorously nodded her head, stating, “On a fear scale of one to ten, with one being totally chill, and ten being getting your house haunted like in that movie Poltergeist, I’d rank going lady bald as an eleven.”
“At first, the women surveyed wanted to know exactly how lady-bald we were talking about,” says head researcher, Nicholas Wilson. “Most study participants were especially concerned having no hair whatsoever, or just thinning at the top so that only people taller than me would really get a good look.”
Wilson adds that essentially all respondents agreed that even a little bit of noticeable thinning was worse than facing down the irreversible finality of death.
“I don’t think people realize just how pervasive fear of lady baldness really is,” says one study participant. “Every time some of my hair falls out in the shower or on my hairbrush, I spend three seconds fighting back hysterical tears because I am so incredibly frightened that this is the beginning of my slow descent into lady baldness, more so than the certainty of my own demise. And I’m a federal agent.”
The study also found that the majority of women polled also ranked fear of lady baldness over job loss and assault, but not over the office chair-induced condition, “giant flat butt.”
