Hair Cut
When they had their hair cut, and thus by passing by the red and white barber pole outside the stores and peeking inside through the windows, I assumed that barbershops were only for white men and boys.
My son was young when the men and boys wore their hair longer. This would mean it was known as Franco and Pino’s Barber Bar where a manicurist a lady stood apart with two male and a female barbers. From there they also washed styled as well as trimmed hair where they sold them shampoo spray as well as mousse.
My daughter visited the shop where she paid bigger amounts to be trimmed up while she possessed many ways more hair cut up to times fewer visits could afford in my shop. Still, I asked myself what it would be like to go where my more well-off friends in Chicago went to salons that served wine and had special consultation rooms. When my son grew up, he decided to go to a unisex salon mainly comprised of women.
He said prices were low, and the workers did better fashion work than male barbers. Plus, they accepted walk-ins. My daughter has found herself an openly gay man who was a hair stylist fashion, she said hair cut better than any woman. Besides, he’s a scream! He wears a tool belt with lots of scissors and hair tools in it and swings them around.
IMPORTANCE OF MANAGING HAIR
Hair management has been an important part of culture and tradition since antiquity. Apart from the length and visibility of hair cut, photographs, and epithets show that over the centuries, women’s and men’s hair has been arranged and styled, curled, and colored in every conceivable manner and enhanced with every kind of embellishment, including wigs.
Guys have taken as much care over their hair cut as ladies and tended to put on wigs greater regularly than ladies. Levine says humans have always believed hair, like nature, needs taming it grows by itself and is part of our physical selves, but unlike other parts of the body, is often more serviceable when pruned, trimmed, or tied up in some way to allow for comfortable vision. Schwartz says there are even larger troubles at stake than consolation or imaginative and prescient due to the fact hair cut is symbolic as a place wherein the way of life and nature interact.
To study the management of hair is to become entangled in wider cultural meanings and ideas about generativity, procreation, power, religion, race, and class identity. Throughout history, hair has been a powerful symbol of individual and group identity. Mercer, discussing African-American hairstyles, points out that head hair cut managed by humans socializes hair, making it the medium of significant statements about self and society.
COSMETOLOGY AND BARBERING
In the modern United States, hair styling is distributed among several kinds of workers. Cosmetology is the science of cosmetics and their application. Hair cosmetics are hair conditioners, mousses, sprays, styling lotions, straighteners, permanent waves, dyes, bleaches, and shampoos. Cosmetologists, also called hairdressers, hairstylists, and beauticians, are licensed workers who are trained in basic cosmetology training which includes fundamentals of hair cutting and styling, nail care, skincare, and makeup application. Cosmetologists primarily shampoo, cut, and style hair, but they also dye, straighten, or permanent-wave hair, give manicures and facial treatments, and provide make-up analysis. Cosmetologists can specialize in any of the above areas, or they can train or be certified in all. Most European hairdressers serve an apprenticeship.
White western women began to use more chemicals on their hair cut. According to Yarwood, perhaps one of the reasons for their having it cut short at this stage was the invention of the modern techniques of permanent waving that gave body to limp hair cut and made it easier to manage for long periods. When large numbers of white middle-class women had to go to work in war plants, they preferred short permed hair cut which was easier to manage. Women who could afford coloring or permanents along with haircuts went to cosmetologists trained in this new chemical technology.
BARBERSHOPS
Most barbers and clients in barbershops are men. The discussions between them revolved around agreed-upon perceived differences between men and women. These differences placed women in a diminished light and separated them from men. The decorations and atmospheres in these shops also helped to separate men from women. Joseph, an old-timer local barber, and five other barbers I interviewed had animal heads mounted on their walls. Joseph also sold hunting guns and gun cabinets in his shop.
Hunting is a very popular working-class sport dominated by men in Northwestern Pennsylvania. These trophies and artifacts are negotiated symbols of masculinity and provide a comfortable atmosphere or space where discussions about hunting separate men from women. Joseph said he was looking forward to harvesting a six-point buck this year and was willing to undergo cold, damp, and uncomfortable conditions for long hours to achieve that goal.
BEAUTY SALONS
As mentioned above, cosmetology is dominated by women 90 percent of workers are women. The mid-range salons particularly reflected this. They were filled with beauty products for women, such as shampoos, hair clips, ribbons, nail polish, specialty objects, like jewelry and earrings. There were pictures of stylized women hanging on the walls and women’s magazines such as Elle and Redbook on racks near the hair dryers.
One upscale salon had Money Magazine as well as magazines on antiques, gardening, and decorating. Another high-end salon had prints of famous works of art on the walls and sculptures displayed around the waiting room. Furthermore, in all the salons I visited, there were complex interactions between the white hairstylists and their diverse clients that differed greatly from those between the barbers and their clients. First of all, there was more flirting and teasing than I saw in barbershops.
UNISEX CHAINS
All the owners and workers in the beauty salons I visited said their shops were ambisextrous, i.e. they serviced both men and women. However, according to their records, the clientele in beauty salons were mostly women. The eleven unisex chains I visited claimed to have a much larger percentage of male clients and all had the word unisex displayed. In addition, all eleven chains were owned and managed by men.
None of the stores had demographic breakdowns for race, but anecdotal evidence and personal observation made clear that there was a predominance of white stylists and younger clients. I did not see any persons of color in 10 of the unisex shops I visited. One unisex shop in Evanston, a culturally diverse suburb of Chicago, had one African-American women worker, and I saw three black male clients sitting in the window.
CONCLUSION
I undertook this research in an attempt to understand the importance of hair management, focusing on the choices available to and accepted by people who wanted hair cut or arranged. I also wanted to search for possible changes in the occupation.
I believe I have uncovered interesting answers to both of these questions as well as additional clues for the future of work in general. To begin with, both hair workers and their clients are concerned with identity management and hair is one way people display their identities. Hair cut is a symbolic indicator of gender, race, and class status. Details of its shape, color, texture, and length are seen as clues about the age, ethnic background, personality, and even values of its wearers.
Although this study shows how gender is produced in these social situations, it also shows how change can occur. The dwindling number of single-sex segregated barber shops, the change of beauty parlors into less gendered styling salons, and the emergence of ungendered unisex shops reveal change in the most extreme examples of gendered workplaces. The industry is now pushing for more men to become cosmetologists. Now many men and women customers in salons interact with the worker without regard for gender.
The clientele of either sex group finds comfort and discretion in the person they receive hair styling services. Even though upper-market stores in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles maintain a higher class division through markers of more upscale status in paintings, appetizers, and wine, and higher cost, these markers are unisex. Both sexes comprise salon workers. The culture talk will likely be a preclude over the sexist banter.