The issue with dreadlocks is that very curly hair will naturally form them far more easily. They are a great low maintenance hairstyle for Black women with the right kind of hair. But if someone mentions dreadlocks the first image that pops into mind for many is normally a white stoner guy and “people didn’t bathe everyday”. So that association makes them “unprofessional” and against uniform policies for many jobs.

Think if your default hairstyle was co-oped by a group of people that then made it harder for you to get a job, and resulted in you having to spend money to keep your hair in a different style.

I should back this stuff up with some theory, so here is a bachelors thesis that I think reading the introduction for would help many people here. It’s nicely written and not overly academic, if you want to go deeper you can follow the links in that text.

and a quote from that text.

Tiana Parker was banned from wearing her hair in dreadlocks at her Oklahoma charter school. According to local news outlet KOKI-TV, Parker’s father (who is himself a barber) was told by school officials from the Deborah Brown Community School in Tulsa that his daughter’s hairstyle wasn’t “presentable,” and felt her hair could “distract from the respectful and serious atmosphere [the school] strives for”