How can barbers tell the difference?

[JellySlice]

How can barbers tell the difference between men and women, if biology doesn't matter but performing gender stereotypes does?

DH needed a haircut once. So did toddler DD- nothing complicated, just tidying up (she was bald until a year old!) So he took her with him to the barber- who couldn't/wouldn't be ause she was a girl. He did contemplate changing her jumper and returning.

There are all kinds of reason people might want something like a hair salon, spa, or barbershop to be male or female only. It might be privacy related in a spa but even without that, many women like to go to a place like that and have only other women there, and only other women as service providers.

Similarly, barbershops have traditionally been male spaces and some men like that about them. They like being able to bond with and hang out with other men sometimes.

Lots of women talk about how they prefer gyms to be all women. Not because they think they will be assaulted, but because it changes the feel of the place.

For cheaper women's cuts, it's worth looking around. Often you can find a place that will do a short cut with no wash or product very cheaply, if you are clear about what you are looking for.

I think it is as goosefoot says they are often male spaces. They’ve not let me take DS to a barbers before. I wasn’t even having my hair cut, just chaperoning/waiting for DS. They wouldn’t let me leave him either..

Have cake/eat cake.

If we support women beauty therapists declining Jessica Yaniv then we can’t demand that male haircutters also cut women’s hair.

Both sexes have the right to choose to whom they offer services. Or should have.

There is, I suspect, a greater difference between doing a Brazilian and doing a BS&C than between doing a SB&S on female hair and on male hair. And the consequences of using the training for one on the other are probably worse, too.

Are the differences in barbering that significant, though? Clearly many barbers are willing to do SB&S for women, and many women are happy with the results when male techniques are used on their hair.

The main reasons women want and need sex-segregated spaces are safety-related. Not relevant in this situation.

As to having single-sex spaces for purely social reasons - absolutely. Why not? Barbers can have men-only sessions as well as open sessions.

This is why I now cut my own hair and have done for 3 years now. Got some clippers and hairdressing scissors and twill position the mirror in the kitchen so it’s easy to sweep up. Currently got a Chelsea cut with a fringe. I don’t understand why more people don’t do it!

When I was in the hairdressers last week the hairdresser actually said to her female client (who was complimenting her on how she was the only one who would actually cut her hair properly I.e short back and sides, the hairdresser is leaving and the client was worried who would take over)

"This is just a basic man's cut"

It's total bs it's different. A barber has the right to say "I can only do short back and sides, it might not look that good on you because women's hair is so different to mens.."

But the woman should still be able to make the choice to use a barbers. It's like women are too thick to work out what we want with our hair, or work out for ourselves

It's not the same as genital waxing ffs.

I would feel the same if a beauty parlour refused to wax a man's eyebrows, or makeup stand refused to sell foundation to a man. It's not an intimate enclosed space, no one is in anyway vulnerable and no one is getting sexual kicks from it.

For 11 years I went to the barbers with my older brothers for a bob. When I asked for a curly perm aged 12 I was sent packing.

From what I can see men’s appointments are literally ‘I’m on my lunch do a 10 min cut' whereas mine now take a lot longer

That’s what makes the difference in the price and the cut

Sorry for the on the last sentence. I meant to say, I think barbers should be a santury for men and a hair salon a santury for women(santury in the loosest sense iykwim)

But some barbers are female and some hairdressers are male.

What sort of price differentials for a short barber-type haircut are we talking here? In real life, if you are actually looking for a cheap, short haircut? As opposed to in a BBC article mentioning that "Hair is a huge part of queer culture and lesbian identity"

Not something I am bothered to spend a lot of time researching as I have been going to the same hairdresser for years, where there is no difference in prices for men and women.

A quick internet search for cheap hairdressers within striking distance of where I live in the UK includes results for:

• £8 for a haircut by students on a local hairdressing course (cheaper than the closest barber)

• £15 to £20 - several, usually including wash and blow-dry

• Several with concessions of up to 50% for students and children.

• Many do special deals for pensioners on certain days (according to my mum!).

It would cost about the same for me to go and annoy a local barber and their regular (male) customers - or I could go the whole hog and strain the credulity of a local salon that specialises in black hair, which is not what I have.

Instead of ferreting out a cheap back-street male barber, why not go really wild and ask a small "Ladies Salon", usually familiar with short cuts for boys, if they will do a cheap-rate, basic short cut for an adult human female?

They might say "No" and it might not be as "edgy" an experience as brazening it out at the barbers - but what is there to lose by having a go at "expanding the bandwidth" of what a woman's haircut means?

A woman was having her hair cut next to me recently by a very talented hair dresser whom
I adore. The woman wanted the back of her graded. Two hair dressers were trying to explain they had no clippers and couldn't do it. The customer couldn't understand why a hair dresser wouldn't have clipper but this was a blow dry bar that does natural palette foils and the odd eyebrow threading.

The hairdresser did a good job with the scissors in my opinion but the customer was not entirely satisfied,

It's weird if women aren't allowed in barbers but hair salons are not equipped to provide traditionally masculine styles. Whilst that is bonkers, I thinks it's perfectly okay for such a business to be a sex segregated space. There are a few barbers near me that operate as a cultural social hub more than just providing a service.

Was sorry to read about the Irish barbers. So easy to target and ruin small businesses.

I have a very similar short back and sides haircut to my (male) DP, only he has a skin fade on the sides where I have a #1. Otherwise identical, both done mostly with clippers and the top finished with scissors.

I pay between £43 and £47 at my usual salon, depending on the seniority of the stylist.

I pay £15 at the one barber I've found that will cut a woman's hair. They are quicker, do a better finish than the salon and I am made to feel very welcome. However, they are 145 miles away and so I can only go there when visiting family.

My DP pays £12 at a traditional Turkish style barbers that will not admit women.

I have tried two cheaper women's salons but never get what I ask for, they either refuse to use clippers and/or give me something closer to a pixie cut, same length all over and not nearly short enough. There are five barbers in town, none of which will cut my hair.

It is completely daft that we pay £12 and £47 for the same haircut. I don't know what the answer is, except to seethe every time visiting plans don't line up and I have to go to the £47 option.

Both sexes have the right to choose to whom they offer services. Or should have.

Yes, and women will continue lose out until some hairdressers will offer cuts to women at barbers prices, or some barbers accept female customers.
This isn't affecting men in the same way, is it. Thats something to think about.

Men & Women have different hair
No they don't. There is a huge variety of hair types but that's true for both sexes.

I'm a barber
I cut women's hair, little sisters hair, big sis, aunt, nanny, lesbian and mums fringe
Hair is hair buuuut I trained as a hairdresser first so have experience.
However the right to refuse a service should be with the business owner given they may not have experience.
That said-a short back and sides is what it is and there really is very little difference between performing that on a man or a woman (women's hair tends to be softer, their skin softer and so somewhat easier to knick than a mans, tho equal to a child's)

That said there are some misogynistic pricks in this industry, including blokes who won't let women in his shop at all.

Hairdressers are trained in both male and female hairdressing
I've only ever worked in female run barber shops and we have all confidently cut short back and sides on women and men
There is no difference
The issue arises when a woman want a pixie cut which is slightly feminised and softened and cut on the round as barbers are trained to cut square-however most women who want a short back and side want it square.

We've taken DS to hair dressers (male hairdresser both times) and barbers (mix of male and female barbers). I'd say he gets a more fashionable cut at the hair dressers (with the associated higher price) and apart from one barber, who does fancier stuff, he gets a 'standard cut' at all the others, with just minor differences which are down to the individual barber.

There are some 'male sanctuary' type barbers, but most that I go to just have a queue of men and boys (with mum or dad) waiting for their 10 minute short back and sides with very minor variation - it's an open space, basically a production line of relatively identical haircuts coming out on different heads.

There's no reason (beyond contractual) that a female barber at one of these places couldn't do the same buzz cut on a woman if the male barbers felt uncomfortable touching a woman's head.

Yes, and women will continue lose out until some hairdressers will offer cuts to women at barbers prices, or some barbers accept female customers.

It seems like there is a market for this so it's interesting that no one has chosen to fill it.

There are two "barbershops" in my city which cater to some extent to women. One is a barbershop proper but is in a hip area and has a lot of transmen clients. The other again, hip urban area, and caters to lesbians. The barbers there are actually female hairdressers.

Both of these shops have clearly spent a good deal of money to make themselves look like a traditional babershop like you'd see in a film, and they have nice websites. Their prices reflect the locations and money spent on aesthetics.

So I guess I wonder, what the clients of these places are really looking for. They are analogous to one very high end barbershop for men that specialises in beard culture, in a similar location and price range. That's three shops in a medium sized city.

But there are also dozens and dozens of other tiny barberships in working class strip malls or converted houses or basements of residential buildings, with one or two chairs and pretty plain. I find it hard to imagine that some of these ones would not be willing to cut women's care, even if others preferred not to.

Imo barbers should charge more, the cuts are less forgiving of error than long ladies hair, there is huge range of skills involved in clouding razor work.
The cost of a cut between hairdressers and barbers should be more on a par-I charge £15 for a wash a cut or £10 for a "dry" cut. How much does a ladies cut go for these days?

Hairdressers and barbers should be able to choose whose hair they are willing to cut otherwise we're getting into Jessica Yaniv territory (admittedly a less extreme version) . That said, I am in favour of fairer pricing and would welcome barber shops catering for more women.

I suppose what I wonder is if there was a barber shop catering to women, if they would get asked to branch out more and more? Just slightly more stylish? Because while some women really would be happy with the standard male cut, many might expect just a little more variation.

If there were enough who wanted that the temptation would be to hire barbers with a hairdressing background and you might see the pricing go up.

I think to make the original concept work you might have to draw from a good sized area and population of women who really only want something fast and basic. But then part of the reason men like barbers and they are cheap is that there are usually a lot of them, you can always find one close by. Is anyone going to travel any distance to get a cheapish haircut or will they go somewhere closer but a bit more expensive, like one of the cheaper salon?

There are some blow out salons here now, in a way they are a similar model to a barbershop, they do limited things, and its faster and cheaper. But for long hair styles.

I’ve been getting my hair cut at the barbers for a couple of years now. I was refused at the first barbers, where the barbers were both women. Where I go now, I was asked what I actually wanted done - undercut done with clippers - as they were concerned that I might be looking for something fancier than they could do, or be unhappy with what they did.

I go to the barbers because hairdressers now don’t seem to know how to use clippers, and the clippers they have are used so infrequently that they are blunt. I get a much better cut at the barbers, and it costs me £10 instead of £30 or £40. Place I go to now, the barbers are all men.

The cut itself doesn’t take any less time than it would at the hairdressers, and I don’t need to get my hair washed anyway.

One significant difference I’ve noticed between getting my hair cut by a male barber as opposed to a male hairdresser, is that the former is able to cut my hair while maintaining a physical distance. I’ve always been creeped out by the way male hairdressers have kind of leaned on me, or over me, and the barbers do not do that.

I only ever go to the barbers. I used to do my own hair but I can’t do anything other than a full shave. There are loads of barbers round here, some a bit funny but will do it, one who just won’t, and a few who don’t bat an eyelid.

Whenever I’ve gone to a hairdresser they’ve refused to do it as short as I want. I’ve had two or three of them fussing round me in a panic because I asked for a number 1 on the back and sides. They want to charge me two or three times what I’d get charged at the barbers.

I have seen some women go into the barbers and act like they’ve no right to be there. I just plonk myself in the chair and tell them what I want, no messing. I’ve seen some women a bit nervous, which in turn makes the barber nervous. I’ve found just taking up space as if am as entitled as any man helps. It’s a bloody hair cut ffs, not a pubic wax, and there’s virtually no difference between female and male hair. One time I actually told a male barber who was dithering about to stop being daft and just cut my bloody hair.

I can understand the whole male space argument, but it’s a business that cuts hair in certain styles. Half the time the barbers have their mates in there and they aren’t even speaking english, so my being there makes no difference to them whatsoever.

I guess I’m just lucky that I live in a city where most aren’t that bothered. I think my no messing attitude helps though.