Variations of the afro have been worn by one or both sexes in the many disparate cultures of the African continent. Due to the hairstyle's links to members of the African-American Civil Rights and Black Power movements, the afro was seen by several outside cultures as a dangerous symbol of political unrest, including Tanzania where the Afro was banned in the 1970s because it was seen as a symbol of neocolonialism and as part of an American cultural invasion. In the 1950s and 1960s, South African women were also known to wear their hair in a fro-type style.