Ms. Hostin: As a woman, as a woman of color, I have to fit into this box of what success looks like or smarts look like. They used to say, “Dress for the job you want,” but I see a lot of people get those jobs, and they weren’t dressing for them. It really bothers me because I feel I’ve had to work twice as hard to get half as far. I can’t get past it. Joy [Behar] says, “That really gets to you, doesn’t it?” And it does. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to reconcile that.

Is hair an issue?

Ms. Hostin: Once I became comfortable at CNN, and once my contract was renewed, I was off to the races: curly hair, hair back, whatever I wanted to do. Anderson Cooper was always very good about letting me do that. I was wearing my hair curly, then one day I straightened it, and right after my segment, I got a call from an executive. They said, “This is your look!” This was 2012 or so. It was a not-so-subtle way of saying, “Don’t do the other thing anymore.” I wondered, “Why is this ‘my look’?”

Ms. Maxwell: When you work in predominantly white spaces, especially in news, and you change your hair, it’s a thing. People touch you, and they ask crazy questions. I started out in television with the 18-inch Indian Remi hair that everyone has. For me, it was an evolution, personally. I had to get to the point where I was comfortable enough to take my hair out: “This is how my hair looks, and it’s this big. and I’m letting it be bigger.” It’s been a cool experience.

Once, on “Today,” a hairstylist, a black woman, saw me backstage and said: “Come over here. Do you mind if I make your Afro a little bigger?” She took that expensive Dyson dryer and in two seconds blows the roots out, and it’s big. Then I went out on “Megyn Kelly,” and I was like, “Yes, I wish I could do it myself!” I want my Afro to be as big as possible.