Is going grey a feminist statement?

[MedusaIsHavingABadHairDay]

I'm 44 and over the last year my hair has really started to go ..I have a 'mallen streak ' at the front and the top is peppered with random white hairs.
I don't mind and actually rather like my streak (it makes interesting stripes in my long hair)..it feels like the next stage of ME. However the number of comments I have received makes me wonder whether I'm being seen as 'abnormal' for not going down the 'female youth and beauty' norm?

I have had it implied that I should be colouring it for my husband (who is bald on top with a nifty short VERY grey beard that I love!) Other women..colleagues have been the worst. Personally I feel empowered by NOT being a slave to hair dye (I have coloured in the past and it was a drag). I never wear makeup or heels, and happy and confident in my 40s... but somehow allowing my hair to go grey seems to be a taboo subject!

If it IS a statement it's a good one as far as I am concerned but just wondered what others have experienced!

Well, yes, not everyone primps and preens, and I'm aware that the beauty industry targets and sells to more women than men, but the picture that is being painted, that men never invest in their appearance, or can run around unkempt with floppy manbreasts, a greasy combover and 3 day stubble without attracting negative comments is simply exaggerated.

The same way that women not are always met with negative comments or open hostility for not wearing makeup. I usually don't, unless I'm going out which is once in a blue moon, and can't remember any negative comments.

There is a difference between heavily made up - not being made up, but clean and tidy, and flopping your belly around your ankles and having a greasy grey combover. - There is equal pressure on both men and women to avoid the latter, and women probably even get away with a wider range of clothes/hairstyle/makeup choices than men.

Whilst there is probably more pressure on women to use certain products, the reverse is that men still often attract ridicule and/or homophobic abuse if they want to use make up/nail varnish etc.

(I must admit that I don't hang out in shopping malls or leisure centres much - maybe my view is skewered by that)

Sorry if I'm too common for your tastes then.

?

Lots of ordinary folks go to shopping malls and leisure centres you see.

You asked me where I hang out, that my experiences are different from yours. I answered that question. No judgement implied at all.

(also, don't know what gives you the impression that I'm not "ordinary people")

Perhaps miscommunication then. Shall we leave it at that?

Yeah. Not worth getting grey hair over. (Sorry)

snort :)

Posted yesterday about my work colleagues losing fingers - it's not a carehome for the undead, it's a workshop, lots of lathes and stuff.

We have a low turn over of staff, railway rather then fashion or lifestyle magazines and we don't particularly get on with the public.
It's very old school, I like a bit of well cut clothing but that a leisure rather then work thing. 'Tis very liberating.

I don't believe it to be a feminist issue but I do think it can be terribly chic! I've met some very sassy self-assured older women with gorgeous grey hair.

There's a book by Doris Lessing called 'The summer before the dark' written in the 1973 in which the main protagonist experiments with what she sees as stereotypes of femininity, particularly her hair, and analyses men's sexual reactions to her (or lack of them). For the protagonist (and therefore Lessing?) the question of 'taming' her hair again after illness was definitely about whether to accept or reject societal norms about femininity and her social role. Good book.

Wodaling - that book sounds interesting; i will compare it to my experiences. I found that with my long 'Amy Childs' style wig i know i felt, & was treated, like a pretty airhead. With thin hair pinned up & a wide alice band attempting to disguise the baldness; i felt dull, serious & asexual, & was treated exactly the way i felt.

I was getting frustrated by the way both sexes treated me depending on the hair. I then woke up to the fact that i was unconsciously 'acting up to the stereotype' of my different hairstyles - ie. I either felt & so acted like a bimbo or plain jane.

So i made an effort to be myself in both situations.. & that was how i learnt that people react to your personality more than looks. I learnt that people liked 'me' if i was myself.. & it boosted my confidence.

My newly regrown is curlier & grey.. I like colour so yes i went auburn 10 days ago. Today i found even more new grey hair! Firstly i thought 'NOT more grey'.. Then 'omg but my hair is growing back even thicker, YES!!' So i'll leave re-touching it until it is really obvious - i'm just happy it's growing as it shows i'm recovering!

I went grey at the age of 25. I do colour my hair (well my hairdresser does). I consider myself an outspoken feminist. I think it is a matter of the old word 'choice'. I would not judge anyone with regard to their hair. I dye my hair purple cos it is my favourite colour! I do agree with sunshine re it being less important (as far as society is concerned) about men's appearance.

I'm a feminist who dyes my grey out from choice. Not because I don't like grey - it can be stylish and elegant; for example, I remember a woman who used to commute on the same train as me. Early thirties, olive skin, great cheekbones and amazing steel grey hair. Fabulous. Now me.. my grey is patchy and blobby. I simply look like a piebald pony and not in a good way. So I dye it - not to look young, but just so I don't look like a pony (not that ponies aren't beautiful of course)

I think deliberately going grey (as in the Going Grey, Looking Great! crowd) can be a feminist statement.

I was really fat at the end of a 4 year undergraduate degree. Too much booze, not enough activity - standard student stuff. I started getting creaky knees and being embarrassed at how unfit I was. Over a year I slowly and safely lost the weight and got fit again. Politically, as feminist, and as someone sickened with most of our visual culture, I had problems with the idea of losing weight. In the process of losing it, I realised that I'd had problems with food which had made me gain it, I just didn't know about them. Lots of male friends became suddenly more interested in me, which was weird. I mean - if they didn't like fat me, why should I trust them with normal-sized me? They were given short shrift, but it opens my eyes.

But the thing is, life is easier if you fall broadly within the norm. It is good to recognize the difference between 'just feel good about yourself as you are!' - the political/playground stance that is recited about what's on the inside that counts - and the actual (cold hard) truth. That's my point I suppose: I lost the fat because I realised that people say one thing and do another. I was being told that despite the fat, everyone loved me. I was seeing the opposite. I lost the fat, and guess what? Hunch was true. People in general like you more, the more they like the way you look. The world shouldn't be like this, but it is.

So if, in this world where it helps if you fall within the norm and the norm values youth, equating youth with beauty - if in this world you could decide to look artificially young and choose not to - then you are picking your battle quite carefully, and you might well be doing so for a feminist reason, and I applaud it. I've decided not to colour my hair. I've been going grey since I was 22, and I'm still not very grey, but it's becoming more visible. I have a good haircut and I keep it maintained neatly and glossily, because I love my hair... but I'm not going to dye it.

Being fat made me unhappy. Going grey just makes me foxy.
[modest emoticon]

Some women look wonderful with grey hair, some look awful, just as some bald men look good and some look awful.
I would be one of the latter, I've got incredibly dark, thick hair and it looks terrible peppered with grey, I'm typically Celtic with pale, pale skin and blue eyes, DH however could pass for mediterranean, he has dark skin and dark eyes so his greying hair looks incredibly sexy.

He doesn't care if I dye my hair or not but I do it for me, I'm the one who looks in the mirror - I don't wear makeup of any sort , hardly ever shave my legs etc. but I don't want grey hair - it's nowt to do with feminism or anything else.
I've found that all young men of my DD's age (22) are incredibly image concious and unbelievably vain about their hair, as was my DH 25 years ago when he was 22, the perfect flat top was derigeur .

Most women and few men worry about their appearance in most cultures. It is certainly not gender neutral. I can look how I like because of how I live and the sort of work i do but I play the game to an extent, my choice.

They say the biggest difference if you took a group of 50s women in 1930 and a group today (I mean normal not rich women) would be now few are grey. (I suppose another difference would be today most of them would be fat too).

Things that take time when you might be practising your profession o r rising to the top or whatever do do women down unless they can obtain so much more advantage over men through use of sexual capital of which they have more than men do although they rarely are able to. For me it's a time issue - I have no interest or time to spend on who I look or dress or makeup but if I can do somethin in about 2 minutes like getting dressed in a way that works then I will do that (and I do choose to dye my hair). I also think a lot of men would look a lot better if they dyed their hair too.

I just remembered, that once in my period of many colours I dyed my hair a lovely silvery grey. I was about 20 then and it looked fab. But was just too harsh on my hair to maintain for any length of time

Latara, that's great that your hair is growing back

Wodaling - Thanks; now i need to find shampoo & conditioner for: greying, fragile, dry, curly coloured hair!!

Btw - i was shocked when a few men i know confessed to dyeing their hair to hide the grey! These are men (mostly Asian & Arabic) who had black hair & can't face going grey. THEN i learnt my grandfather dyed his hair (& subtracted 10 years!) on marrying his young 2nd wife. I thought of the other men i know - the natural redheads who use bleach, the lads who use gel / wax / GHDs, even the balding men who either shave their heads to hide the ageing process, or who cling to a combover...

Men endure endless banter at work / in the pub over their looks & pretend they don't care (yet admit to me how insecure they feel).
I'm lucky to be a woman - with genuine support from both men & other women. BUT i know that support is there purely because people know i'm upset about hair loss, weight gain & going grey due to illness; & they know i'm trying hard to look better - which they empathise with. IF i stayed fat & grey then people would comment negatively - behind my back at least - it happens to all women & men who are seen to be 'letting themselves go'. Going Grey isn't a Feminist statement IMO - the statement it makes is: 'My hair is grey but i'm not colouring it because i don't bother with the youth & beauty obsessed culture that affects others'.
IF you choose to go grey though - do examine yourself before judging those who colour hair - At some point you may have made choices due to vanity - eg. your car, home decor, piercings & jewellery, glasses frames / contact lenses; children's clothes, even your pet..

Oh, latara, I am not judging anyone who dyes their hair. I've dyed mine a lovely red in the past, and may do so again.

I also make decisions based on vanity, I like looking nice. I choose clothes, glasses frames, even makeup that suits me. (If someone chose a pet to make them look good I confess I would make this face ).

The thing is, I like looking good but I don't think that in order to do that I have to look young. I am working to detach those two things. I think you can go grey and look really good at the same time, and I also think the pressure to look 10-20 years younger than you are is applied to all but more to women. For example, I'm in my early 30s and none of my male friends are dying their hair but my female friends are 'tweaking' their highlights to cover greys, etc.

No.

Worrying about whether or not to do so is a feminist issue.

I do dye my newly regrown hair not because i want to look younger but because i do have a young face, so the grey looks odd.

Also to me hair colour is similar to make-up - certain hair colours can bring out eye colour & warm up the complexion, & i like that effect.
The main reason though is that i love colour - i like bright clothes, & pretty hair colours.
Re: choosing a pet for vanity - i'm referring to lads who get staffies to toughen up their image (hilarious as staffies can be totally soft) or girls who buy 'handbag' size dogs.

The feminist choice re: grey hair, is to do what feels natural to you without pressure from others.