>> Christiano, who has an autoimmune disorder that caused her body to attack the hair cells on her head, notes that though much attention around hair loss is paid to men, some 30 million women in the United States experience thinning of their hair.

Perhaps it's different for men, but there are few events that I would experience as more disfiguring than losing my hair, and they all involve severe trauma. In fact, I have a facial scar from a fall when I was a kid and I don't ever think about it. But one time I managed to sear my hair off with too much bleaching and the couple of months until I was sure it was growing back were some of the hardest I've ever been through.

Is that socially constructed? I suppose having a nose (rather than just a pair of nostrils) is socially constructed. But we live in a socially constructed world and some things are harmful, even if they have no real substance.

Edit: but I'm proud of you if you can get over some of those things and more power to you. A handsome man is a handsome man, hair or not. I'm making a comment about how this sort of therapy can be beneficial to women, also, for whom losing hair is not "natural" (in many ways).