For too long, Thai women like Ha Thi Binh were faced with a daily conundrum when they hopped on their motorcycles in Vietnam. Thai customs dictated that married women wear their hair in a high bun, but the law said all cyclists had to use a helmet.
The six-inch high bun is more than just a fashionable hairstyle. In an interview with the humanitarian organization CARE, Binh said that it’s a revered tradition for married Thai women to wear the bun. She explained that if she let her hair down in public, it would signal that she was being “unfaithful” to her husband.
“It’s an affirmation that the woman is married,” Binh told CARE last summer. “We all do it the same way.”
As the breadwinner for her household, Binh drives her motorcycle daily to her coffee cooperative company Ara Tay in Son La, Vietnam. For years, she faced the frustration of choosing to follow tradition or follow the law.
Image via Laura Noel/CARE
Often, women attempted to do both, which was uncomfortable and dangerous. Others chose to forgo one or the other — choosing between safety or tradition — because there wasn’t a helmet that accommodated those high buns.
“The current ordinary crash helmets just fail to protect these women,” deputy chairman of Vietnam’s National Traffic Safety Committee, Khuat Viet Hung, said in a statement to the press.
After two years of tinkering, Vietnam’s Ministry of Science and Technology launched a special motorcycle helmet with added bun room. After it passed safety tests, it was distributed to low-income households in six provinces throughout Vietnam.
Today, it’s commonplace to see the unique helmet atop cyclists’ heads on Vietnamese roadways. Thai women like Binh can finally travel in style: safely and fashionably.
A version of this article originally appeared in the 2024 Gender Edition of the Goodnewspaper
Header image via Laura Noel/CARE
