AIBU to think younger women should not dye grey hair

I think OP is being a little unfair, saying other women should not dye although she doesn't need to anyway. I got my first grey hairs at 16. It was embarrassing. Have dyed it ever since - not always just to hide the grey but I discovered I like my hair being different colours. If I take after my mum I will never go glossy silver, she's in her sixties now and still "badger".

On a sort of related note, I struggled to answer a question from my six year old the other day "mum, why do ladies shave their legs and men don't? Dad's are much hairier than yours."

YABU. I have used hair dye since the age of 13. I have always loved how shiny it made my hair look and how nice it smelt.

Missorinoco, the point is that our society and culture condition us to want and choose to do things that are not in our collective interest, although this may be achieved by rewarding individuals for those behaviours. So let's say, for example, that we live in a culture that likes women to be unable to run away, in pain, and unfit. That culture will value women who meet these criteria by wearing very high heels/binding their feet. That culture will demonstrate this value by giving women who conform to those conditions praise/money/status. It is then in the interest of individual women to disable themselves, temporarily or permanently, and they may reasonably choose to do so. This choice is not in the interest of women collectively, or in the interest of developing a culture that values women's comfort, health or fitness. So your 'individual choice' is the result of your wish to function in a dysfunctional society, which may reward you but does nothing to being about a functional society. Feminism, like most politics, seeks to put the collective good ahead of individual gratification.

I am struggling here with the fact that you have blonde/red hair and therefore aren't troubled by grey hair, but are telling those of us who do that we shouldn't dye our hair.

I dye my hair periodically because I want to. Not because I feel judged, or forced to, or because I feel society expects me to. Likewise I now wear make up because when I look in the mirror at work the sight of the bags under my eyes depresses me. Again, not because I have to, or because I am forced to.

On a contentious note, why is it acceptable for other women to tell us we shouldn't do something, whilst stating we shouldn't do it because they think society is telling to do it? I thought the point was it is my free choice.
OP, that question isn't personal or meant as a barb to you, you have just made me think.....

Why is the focus on what women do here?

I have read that research before and found it scary.

Similarly, I find it scary how many allergies are triggered by common components of perfume. And nail polish. And so on.

What makes me angry is that companies - big, rich companies, who in the middle of a recession are actually increasing their profits - do not seem to care about this.

If you want to be angry with someone, IMO you should be angry with the companies who say airily 'there's no demand for a different formula' - as if that's the only thing that matters.

Being angry with women who choose or don't choose to dye their hair is the wrong approach IMO.

I do dye my hair from time to time, I also wear make up and like nice clothes, absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. I have long dark hair and a few greys at the front which have become more apparent since having my two dds made my hair fall out around my hairline. I dye it for me, not anyone else. I like to look as good as I can with the limited time I have these days. I am in my mid 30's but have always looked a few years younger and do not want to speed the ageing process up anymore than I have to. I don't see why I should have to leave my youth behind me just yet. As you say yourself, you don't need to dye yours so how can you really understand? As MayaAngel says PPD is another issue entirely.

If you could dye it that lovely glassy white I would do that and wait for nature to catch up. But I can't face the iron-filings look while I wait a decade or two.

Op you can look like Granny Toot before your time if you like! I don't want to.

It's not a feminist issue to me....it's am ageist one. We associate grey hair with being old. That's because generally people ARE a bit older when they go grey. Sometimes though, and as with me, some of us go grey at a younger age. I began to go grey when I was 26. I didn't want to look five years or more older than I was, because of it thank you! No need!

I once went to the hairdresser and nearly all the very youthful staff had grey hair.

It must have been that week's trendy hair colour. It looked bloody marvellous because they were all very well dressed and styled and of course it was an extra-flattering kind of grey.

I do not de-hair myself in any way regularly
I do not wear make-up
I do not mind my facial lines
I do not mind things generally going South a bit

Well, I do mind all of the above, but they do not interfere with my sense of worth or even attractiveness.

My grey hairs however are extremely irksome - they bother me far more than any other ageing related change. It has been 6 months since my last dying session , I am going to have it done tomorrow and I cannot wait .

Yes, I think how much emphasis is placed on youthful = fertile = attractive is an awful thing and I do think it is a feminist issue . And I know a number of younger grey-haired women who are very well groomed indeed, have phantastic sharp haircuts and look just great.
But for me, it will be dye. Until I pluck up the courage to try out that LUSH Henna I have sitting here...

No, most of the feminists I know - and I've counted myself one since I was a teenager - wear make-up themselves. I do feel sad that the 'grooming' stuff I found daft and easy to resist in my 20s becomes increasingly part of my life in my 30s, and I can see it's only going to get worse. But I felt mousy and invisible with greying hair, and I feel like myself again, at least for the first 2/3 weeks after another expensive trip to the salon. It's sad, and surprising, that I seem to identify selfhood with hair-colour but apparently I do.

PPD is a big concern, but I do a careful and small patch test each time just in case.

I am 31 and I do dye my hair because of the smattering of greys I have, my hair is very dark brown so it's noticeable and I don't like them at all. I'll go grey when I'm ready and not before.

I'm 35 and have had increasingly grey hair, mostly at the front for the last 5 or so years.

I've never dyed it, mostly because I can't be arsed and can't afford to have it done properly, but I have had plenty of comments about it.

People at work/I know socially have expressed disgust ( I don't think that's too strong a word to describe some of their reactions), but close friends seem to think it's cool. Have to say though, it's much easier to look incredibly frumpy with greying hair, more grooming effort is needed.

at usual!

Don't feel guilty Bertha!!!!

Do what you feel you have to to fight the patriarchy.

Despite the popular belief that feminists go around judging women for not being hairy-legged and dungaree-wearing etc, I don't know any in RL that do that....

I've dyed my grey out in the recent past, because I wanted to. Grey hair stands out a lot against my black hair and in my late 30s I'm not keen on the look. If you don't like my decision, it really doesn't bother me one bit.

PPD, on the other hand, is more worrisome than the feminist question. I read that article a few days ago. After one dye job grew out within weeks, I couldn't be arsed to keep up the maintenance - grey hair fights back with a vengeance! But having had henna tatts in the past and a slight subsequent allergic reaction to a dye, I see that my idle attitude to hair maintenance could potentially save my life!

If a safer dye were invented (which would guarantee non-grey regrowth ) I'd use it until maybe my mid-40s.

I do, and feel guilty about it. I also wear make-up, and have recently drifted from doing so for parties when I could be bothered to every day for work because I think I look pretty grim without (raised by proper, hairy-legged, deodorant free 1970s feminist mother so fully aware of the politics here). BUT I also know that most people, men and women, for most of history and some of pre-history, have engaged in various forms of bodily modification and adornment for cultural/aesthetic reasons. Which isn't exactly a get out of jail free card, but makes me feel a bit better about betraying the sisterhood. I do have a fairly high-level job and would be the only woman in the building not wearing make-up and dyeing my hair, so maybe I can fight patriarchy in the boardroom while selling out in the bathroom?

I too had a section at the front, just as Pagwatch describes. I thought it was cool as well. It's a bit more than a section now but no, I don't dye it. Life is just too short. Anyway, I have never quite worked out what happens when you decide to stop dying it. Do you just pretend to have gone grey overnight?

Maybe women's hairstyles make it more noticeable. Women's hair is expected to be looked at more than men's, styled and made shiny with conditioner and stuff.

no-one has said anything about anything being unfeminist.

I don't have grey hair, genetically I'm unlikely to until I'm well into my 60's. I do highlight my hair and I wear make-up, although not all of the time. I do these things because I want to. I like to look my best, it may be vain but I'm not going to change because its considered unfeminist.

To each her own. I am in my 40s now but have had very noticeably grey hair since my 20s having had my first grey hairs in my teens. I have highlighted my hair on occasion but have consciously avoided doing anything that I thought I would be difficult to grow out. I haven't done it at all in almost 10 years.

I reckon that women who think they "have to" don't really "have to" at all. What would actually happen if they just didn't do it?

i henna my hair so i'm ok.