Are natural hair styles better for women...?

I had a very interesting one hour discussion with a customer yesterday - an intelligent young lady. We were talking about the self-inflicted life-long torture women endure because they want their hair to "look good". This complicated system of hardship involves such processes as relaxing (frying the hair in a mix of hot chemicals) blowing drying (blasting the hair with toxic hot gases for hours) braids, extensions and attachments (pulling, strapping, stretching and twisting the hair into impossible shapes) plus several other forms of torture on the hair and scalp that I am still trying to understand and come to terms with.

Sometimes the long suffering hair after going through this endless cycle for years never recovers. This sometimes leads to partial or complete baldness later on in life.

At the end of our discussion we concluded that natural hair makes more sense. The question however remains, why do women put themselves through all of this? Can women still claim equal rights with men who are far more reasonable and practical (skin cuts, short hair, 2-steps, low-cuts etc)? Men's haircuts are cheap, easy and stress free?

Ladies, why do you do this to yourselves? Why?