I just got my holiday haircut at the usual place: a unisex “salon.” I got into the chair, and about two minutes later a woman got into the adjacent chair. Like me, she had a regular haircut. She didn’t have anything fancy done, nor did she purchase any product. In fact, she was done right before me, and paid right in front of me. She spent almost exactly as much time under the clippers as I did.
My haircut was $20. Hers was $32.
1. Is it normal for women to pay more for the same coupage, even if it takes the same amount of time?
2. If so, what could possibly justify the price differential?
3. If the answer to (1) is “yes,” isn’t that discrimination against women?
Maybe it´s because there are more women willing to spend $32 on a haircut than men?
That could be. I’d cut my own hair before I paid $32 for someone else to do it.
I have seen your haircuts. You are one that overpaid.
Happy Holidays!
HEY!!!!!!
LOL
That is actually quite a nice riposte.
Bravo. Perhaps it was a softball setup, but it was well hit. I always appreciate a well-crafted burn.
Oh, and to clarify, I have no problems with your haircut. I like a finely crafted joke, regardless of content.
My impression is that women’s haircuts generally take longer. But in this case, not, so there’s no good explanation.
I asked my wife, and she said “They always charge more for women’s cuts.”
Could it be that men have a lower threshold of cheapness for such things?
Ray, I think it´s exactly that. Most women just accept the fact that really good hair mantainance is going to cost a bit. Most men go to the cheapest barber who won´t make them look ridiculous.
Funny you should mention. I just two hours ago stepped out of the salon chair. Paid same price as guy who got a buzz cut next to me. I was in and done in ten minutes. He was still getting buzzed when I left.
It is worth noting that I get my hair cut at the 7-11 of hair cutters. Sometimes it is a bad hair cut, but eh, it grows back.
I think a lot of guys would take pride in getting a cheap haircut and might even brag about it to their friends. “Yeah, I got this haircut at McTrimald’s for $2 — not too bad, eh?”
I just can’t picture most women doing the same.
“I just can’t picture most women doing the same.”
Listen, if I could get it $2 less, I’d probably let the hair cutter cut my hair with garden shears.
I bought a pair of clippers ten years ago and have been cutting my hair ever since. I’ve had a few disasters and my best is still pretty clunky but hey, it has averaged out to $2/year and falling so I consider that a win.
So there’s your cheap-as-dirt alternative. Still interested?
I also bought a professional hair clipper(s) about 4 years ago and I also cut my own hair, what’s left of it. Big savings.
I would – as long as it didn’t look awful. I can’t imagine many men would be boasting about cheapness while sporting bald patches and nipped ears.
Let’s stop with the sexism here, huh? Women, believe it or not, are actually people and have very different priorities, tastes, and attitudes. I find that it’s generally not a good idea to get one’s information on gender differences from sitcoms.
The premise of Dr. Coyne’s essay is sexism: is the disparity between the price of men’s vs. women’s hair cuts warranted, or is it discrimination (against women)?
Besides having some fun with the question, I think we’re trying to tease out the answer.
I was replying to Ray Moscow, not to Coyne. That’s why I hit reply under Ray Moscow’s post.
Me? I’m busy watching my sitcoms and ignoring humanity.
That’s a painful tease!
Stereotyping isn’t sexism.
Stating that men are less willing than women to spend money on a haircut — is this sexism? Not at its face. It’s a generalization, but broadly true. After all, women have “very different priorities, tastes, and attitudes” than men (an equivalent stereotype).
Women having to pay more for equal service is, of course, 100% sexist. This gap is very slowly closing though — men’s haircuts are becoming more expensive… :/
It’s the “women do/think X” language that I’m opposed to. If people qualified their statements with “most women tend to X,” I really wouldn’t be as bothered.
But being told, day in and day out, that I feel/think/do such and such by people who have never met me is rather insulting – particularly when the behaviours and thoughts are generally deemed negative in our culture.
Also, let’s say for the sake of argument that women are willing to pay more for a haircut. There is a world of difference between:
1) the baseline prices being equivalent and women tending either to choose more expensive haircuts than men or tending to voluntarily choose to pay more for the same service (such as by tipping higher)
2) a price difference is culturally established and a woman must go through ADDITIONAL effort to be able to pay the same rate as a man (such as by arguing with the cutter)
And that’s the thing, the statement that women are willing to pay more than men simply cannot be substantiated in the current environment. All we can say is that the price difference is rated as less important to women than the fight to have the prices equalized. This is a completely different statement.
Yes…I’m afraid this is typical and has been the custom for as long as I can remember. I think the differential came into being when men started departing the traditional barber shop for the “hair stylist”. Barbers were a lot less expensive, so the stylist had to make it an affordable option. For short hair, I assume it takes less time for shampoo and blow dry. However, cutting seems to be just as critical for a short cut – if not more so, than a long cut.
It would be helpful for a stylist to weigh in…
Some of us wonder where we can find a barber who works by the minute.
I’ve had this conversation with a friend of mine… I, a male, have shoulder length, curly hair and I go to a relatively upscale place to get it cut (because curly hair’s a bitch to cut right). Even though I have long hair, I get charged for a men’s cut ($38 vs $70). My friend, however, keeps her hair buzzed/very short… and will get charged for a women’s cut. She’s definitely argued with barbers for the men’s rate (and gotten it). Pretty clear-cut (rimshot!) discrimination, I think.
I have the same situation. I (also male) have shoulder length hair and get charged less than women do at the same place, even if the woman has short hair.
I’ve often wondered why.
I might ask next time i am in and report back.
I’ve been familiar with this for as long as I can remember, but I thought that the distinction wasn’t male/female but rather trim/style. And women much more often get styled than men. Apparently I was wrong, at least in this case.
1. Yes.
2. It is possible that a cut on a woman take more time on average than on a man. On average, women’s styles tend to be more involved then mens, but there will be plenty of overlap.
3. In a case like yours, it seems pretty ridiculous. The place where I go, the discrepancy is much smaller: $12 for men, $15 for women, I think. On average, my haircuts probably are more involved than those of mens. I almost never go in for “just a trim” — I’m usually growing it out and then having my hair cut in a completely new style. My husband, OTOH, goes in fairly regularly for his monthly trims, so he’s actually spending more money on haircuts than I am. A more fair pricing system would divide it up by trims vs. restylings, but I imagine that leading to quite a few arguments about what constitutes a new style.
I’m afraid to admit, this is news to me.
It’s been years since I’ve had my hair cut; it’s now down to the small of my back.
Before I started letting it grow, I (irregularly) went to Ray’s ASU Barber. I don’t remember if they had yet raised the price to double digits….
If it’ll cost a Jackson (plus tip?) to get my hair cut…well, I really doubt I’ll be interested in spending that much money. I don’t have any plans to cut it any time soon, but if I do, I’ll probably just start shaving my scalp. I’m sure I could manage that without the help of a barber.
Cheers,
b&
I’m with Ben. It has been almost 40 years since I had my hair cut (and, like Ben’s it is down almost to my waist—although it just stays at that length). So, even the $2.00 mentioned above seems excessive.
In Sweden we removed this problem with discrimination laws. So now my 15min haircut is 20% more expensive…
Wayyyyy off topic but I just came across an article that was too cool for even my lurking self not to post. Plus I’m not entirely sure what the best way to email Jerry is.
A study, designed, implimented, interpeted and written by a class of 8-10 year olds on bee behaviour was just published online in the journal Biology Letters.
It’s quite well done! I wish both that I had a teacher like that and that there were more out there.
Full text free here:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/12/18/rsbl.2010.1056
Commentary here:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/12/09/rsbl.2010.1057
To at least make an atempt to stay on topic I cut my own hair. I asked my barber what my hair style was once, he said messy, and I’ve done it myself ever since. Either it’s ok or my friends are awefully polite.
Yes pretty amazing, Ed Yong had this a couple of days ago
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/12/21/eight-year-old-children-publish-bee-study-in-royal-society-journal/
Yes, this is normal. My husband and I both go to the same place, I usually spend less time in the chair (a trim for long hair is actually easier than a trim for short hair – if only because no one has to be careful around my ears), and I pay about double.
No, it isn’t fair. Yes, it is discrimination. It may be rationalized by saying that it’s because women *tend* to get more extravagant haircuts, but this falls apart as soon as someone suggests that prices are determined by difficulty and length of time rather than the gender of the customer.
The majority of hair cuttery places will actually post signs saying something to the effect of “men’s cuts – starting at $X, women’s cuts – starting at $[X+N].
And I’m sorry, but the “women are willing to pay more” is BS. I’m not. There is nothing in having two X chromosomes that makes us happy with having to pay more for the same service as men. The simple fact is that this is just an industry standard and women who want their hair cut professionally do not have a choice.
I cut my own hair for years because of this. But now that I’m in the workforce, I simply can’t justify having uneven hair. My husband and I have been talking about having him try to cut mine (and me try to cut his) to get rid of what is essentially an unnecessary expense. We’ll be trying this out the next time the need arises. If all goes well, it may be a permanent solution!
“And I’m sorry, but the ‘women are willing to pay more’ is BS. I’m not.”
Except you are. Maybe you didn’t used to be, when you cut your own, but now that you’re back in the marketplace, you’ve (very begrudgingly) accepted paying double at the same stylist as your husband.
If you’re really not willing to pay more, you can argue — in advance — with the stylist, and be willing to go elsewhere if they won’t match your husband’s price for a cut. Others above have apparently done so, and gotten the deal.
Presumably at least SOME stylists charge by how complex the work is, not the gender of the person in the chair. They deserve your business, or your current stylist deserves the chance to do so.
The problem is twofold, I think:
(a) Many women are willing to pay more, for the (at least perceived) benefit of better service.
(b) Many men are willing (at least in theory) to risk a crappy haircut to save money.
We can blame societal expectations here. In the worst case, a man can shave his head and it will be seen as a valid fashion choice. Not so for most women.
Good point, actually.
The emphasis placed on a woman’s appearance in Western culture is ridiculous. Women have more to lose from a crappy haircut then men do.
1) Yes
2) “What the market will bear
3) Yes
It also applies to clothes and many accessories, though in many cases there’s wiggle space for argument as they’re mostly not identical.
I work at a salon. On average, women’s cuts take 15-30 minutes longer than men’s cuts. This allows extra time for styling, i.e. blowing dry, curling, and/or flat-ironing. At our salon, we do not charge by style, or by how much hair is cut off, but a flat rate per stylist, per men, women, or children, depending on experience. One stylist may charge $45 for a woman’s cut and $35 for a man’s, and the stylist in the next station may charge $5-10 less per cut.
But really, you get what you pay for.
Finally an actual stylist on the thread!
So tell me, if one were to compare the expenses of running a salon for men only vs. one for women only, are there not extra costs for the women only salon? Hair-style products, time, and equipment that are never used for the majority of men?
It would be interesting to compare the earnings in a unisex salon from men vs. women haircuts, taking all expenses into account.
Still, even if it turns out that this explains the difference in price, one could argue that salons should price services according to the service, rather than to the category of gender.
My mother-in-law, now retired, managed a succession of hair salons. She confirmed what my inner economist suspected: Many salons set their basic or base price for a woman’s haircut / hairstyling based on the average time-is-money cost, and arbitrarily add a little. They do the same thing to men’s haircuts (which generally take less time), and there is a resulting price difference. Robert H. Frank has some good commentary on pricing (“the law of one price”) in his book The Economic Naturalist, but he didn’t explicitly discuss haircuts.
I think there is some gender discrimination at work regarding haircut pricing, in the sense that salons will charge what they think they can get away with, and they realize they can get away with charging higher prices to women. E.g., there is also the “Nieman Marcus / Nordstrom factor” pointed out by someone else above: A woman is more likely to receive comments about her hairstyle or haircut from peers, and although she would not want to be perceived as overpaying ($200), she would also not want to be perceived as underpaying ($15) for the results she got.
OK, you’ve been watching too many sitcoms, too.
[See the comment 3 thread]
Seriously, women who want a simple haircut are indeed getting ripped off.
In the UK womens’ haircuts are more expensive, although to be fair there is often more ‘shaping’ than mens’.
On the other hand in department stores mens’ clothing takes up only a third or a quarter of the area dedicated to womens’ clothing.
And yes, now I’ve retired I get She Who Must Be Obeyed to cut my hair with electric clippers. She won’t let me touch hers though…
This is a long noted phenomenon.
As has been alluded to, ON AVERAGE, women’s cuts do take longer. Since haircuts are not charged by the minute (balding guys don’t get a discount) your particular case may be statistically unusual.
Another area is the cultural expectations of haircutting. Men’s barber shops have traditionally been very plain utilitarian affairs, little in the way of fancy service. Women’s establishments have been geared around far more services than just cutting, so the historically expected pricing comes from a different cultural expectation.
When the two cultures converge in the ‘unisex’ location, then the difference seems anomalous.
The thing is, there is nothing preventing a salon from giving women the same price which would, I think, be a potential traffic draw. The fact that it doesn’t seem to be happening in any significant numbers suggest there is something keeping that price up (and with many salon owners being women, it’s not some patriarchal conspiracy)
1: yes
2: nothing
3: yes
…but that is well known all over the world, and nobody seems to care enough to protest. In effect, I guess, women are subsidizing the male haircuts.
The spousal unit & I go to the same person. I pay $35 and she pays $50, plus color, etc. This woman does a lot of musicians’ hair, and I’ve been going to her on & off for over 25 years since my rock star days. I have asked her why the difference, since many of her male clients have longer hair and are extremely fussy about how it looks. She tells me that most men won’t pay more than that for a cut, and women expect to pay more. Is she sexist? I’d say so. But it works in my favor. BTW I just get a business cut now, so it’s much easier for her than it used to be.
As someone with long hair, my cuts (infrequent as they are) tend to cost the same as women’s cuts.
At least the places I’ve been to, they charge based on long/short hair; although I don’t know if women who keep their hair shorter still get the cheaper price.
I asked my barber. She explained that women are generally (not always, of course, but on the balance) far more demanding, more exacting, and harder to please. All other things being equal, she views the cost differential as hardship pay.
Hardship pay? Then, logically, children’s cuts (under age 5, say) should be the most expensive of all–they don’t sit still, twist around, get ticklish and suddenly jerk away,…and so on. I cut my daughter’s hair. Once. That was enough.
I’ve heard this argued before—very serious stuff. In general women probably have more difficult styles, and they get their hair styled less frequently. Men have easier cuts and get their hair cut more frequently. I think stylists have more training also. So you are probably paying for their degree of expertise. And stylists for women have even more training. Anyway, pricing really varies greatly in the hair biz. Remember John Edward’s $400 haircuts? My barber charges $12. My grandfather has been cutting his own hair since WWII. He shaves his head with an electric razor, $0.
It is the same here in Poland. Women pay more.
There is one thing I find especially strange about this custom. I can kind of understand its persistence in those old-fashioned barber shops (staffed by people who don’t find the word barber offensive) where most men go for a quick trim and ladies (typically older) spend upwards of 30 minutes in the chair chatting away. In the new-fangled ‘salons’, however, it really seems discriminatory to charge the males less. Upscale ‘stylists’ seem to spend similar amounts of time on both sexes.
On a personal note: maybe I’m missing something because I find the whole hair-cutting trade to be a tad pointless. I have not been to a barber ever since I discovered the electric trimmer and my favorite “3mm” setting on it (that would be 1/9th of an inch, I guess). I can’t for the life of me find a reason as to why I should inconvenience myself by requiring outside help with my grooming. But hey, whatever floats your boat.
The cheap barbershop (not a salon) I go to has different prices posted for men’s and women’s STYLES, but I didn’t realize that there were barbershops that just flatly charged more based solely on gender.
I have no problem with barbershops charging more for hairstyles that take more time or effort (as many women’s hairstyles do), but for women with simple tastes whose hair is no more stylized than the average man’s, the price should be the same. Anything else is discrimination.
WHAT? You go to a “unisex hair salon” What is wrong with you. Can’t you find a regular barber? You won’t get a decent conversation with your haircut at a “salon”. Next time you need a trim, put on a decent pair of boots and find a good old-fashioned barbershop. It will be a very different and far superior experience.
I can picture Jerry going to Clint Eastwood’s barber from “Gran Torino” and trading insults with him, all for $10 or less, you thieving bastard (meaning the barber, not anyone here present).
Have always felt this, I have very short hair, no more fancy then a mans cut but I pay more
Did you ever ask to pay the same as a man? Why not?
As several people have suggested, women perhaps are more willing put up with the higher cost. If women start going to cheap barbershops, this might change…
People, not just women, are not overly joyous at the prospect of turning a simple chore into a big fight. When I think “oh boy, I need a haircut,” I would rather not have to also factor in the time it would take to argue with someone and, perhaps, even finding a different place if the argument doesn’t lead anywhere.
Saying that women should be willing to expend so much energy and negative feeling (not to mention the risk involved in getting someone angry who is about to do something to your appearance) or they don’t get to complain just seems silly.
The practice is unfair. Asking that every woman be a Feminist Warrior every time she leaves her house just to get a haircut is also unfair. Asking that a woman spend a great deal more energy looking for a place that will accomodate her without discrimination is unfair.
The discimination should not exist. That’s the end of it. All this “women should just…” talk smacks of victim-blaming. Hair cutters should just charge based on the length of time and skill level required to get a job done, NOT based on what the customer happens to have/not have in a completely unrelated part of her body.
This isn’t really discrimination it is a market working normally. Women have traditionally paid more because their requirements are more expensive and they are willing to pay the price asked, if a significant number of women want something else someone will provide it. If you legislate to bring equality to a non-uniform market the result will be price adjustment in an upwards direction.
I’ll be interested to see what I’m charged next time I get mine cut. I’ve been growing it out for some time now and nobody’s touched it in over a year. I have a pony tail almost to the middle of my back. I plan to cut it sometime soon to donate it to one of the organizations that gives it to cancer patients. If the “women have more hair and it takes longer” hypothesis is true, I should definitely be charged more next time around. Or maybe, just to see how the salon reacts, I’ll bitch loudly that I’m ‘only’ being charged for a man’s haircut.
I pay $35 (plus tip) at a self-proclaimed “men’s barbershop”, which apparently means wood paneling, ESPN in the waiting area, and a bevy of cute, 20-something stylists, all female. So the sexism is part of the marketing. I go there because it’s two blocks away, I can be in and out in 20 minutes, and I get the same stylist every time, who remembers my quirks and preferences as well as my daughter’s name (unlike those cut-rate shops where you never see the same person twice). They do offer lower rates for buzz cuts compared to scissor cuts, and discounts to regulars who commit to coming in like clockwork every two weeks.
I’m a hairdresser. I charge 85$ for women and 65$ for men. 99.9% of the time, women take twice the time and work because of the blow-dry and the more complex cuts. Granted, if a lady took me the same time and effort as a man, I could, and sometimes do, offer a discount. But, its a slippery slope. If you start discounting one person where does it end? Should I haggle every client based on how much work I feel like it took? Its easier to set prices for the average service in either case and stick to it.
If the service is too expensive for you, don’t get it. The barber shop next door from me charges 9 bucks for a mens haircut, I still do 10x as many cuts at 65$ as they do on a daily basis. So there are people, plenty of them, that see the value in my education and experience level. The quality of a haircut can vary as much as the quality of a car. Sure there a people who don’t see or care about the diffence, but there are just as many that do.
Cheers!
If I skip the blow dry (which I always do), can I get the $65 charge instead of the $85?
I value your training and expertise, and I can certainly understand what a drag it would be if you had to haggle over the price with every client, but is it really proper to charge women a higher fee just because you ANTICIPATE that they are going to be more labor intensive, even when they turn out not to be?
Yes because any business that fails to price a job on the basis of expected cost will soon go bust.
A similar difference is evident with dry cleaning. Bring in a white men’s dress shirt for cleaning and pressing, and then a women’s blouse of identical materials and construction, except for the female-style tailoring. Chances are cleaning the blouse will cost more.
Also, women’s shoes and clothing are generally more expensive, all other things being equal. Not to mention less comfortable. Women got the short end of the fashion stick, w/o a doubt!
…*and* we have to buy brassiers, which stores scruple not to charge as much as possible for…
Every month or two I was getting my hair clipped back to a #2 at the $10 barber’s shop down the road.
Wandering through a Warehouse one day, I noticed I could buy a set of clippers for $15.
That pair of clippers turned out to be shit – they kept jamming up every five seconds.
So I went back and tried the next model up for $45, and it’s been going strong for over a year.
Screw going to the barber.
Sticker shock.
I haven’t paid to have my hair cut since about 1964.
I think it was 2 bucks without a shave…
If you want to make a bottle of wine taste better, make it more expensive. If you want a haircut to look better, make it more expensive.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but I am gratified to learn that there is still someone else in the world who sits down, says “Short back and sides”, and is out of there ten minutes later.
Maybe Jerry could try to order a full body waxing to see if the same discriminative pricing applies there.
We want a video btw.
I don’t.
I’m not an economist, but I think this is very common in all kind of activities. It’s called price-discrimination: charge more to the customers who are willing to pay more. Like offering discounts to the people who live near Disney World, so they go often, while the tourist that goes one time in his life probably will be willing to pay a lot more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
In fact, they discriminate more than you think. For example, I’m an old man and not only do they cut the hair on top of my head, they always throw in several other areas for free (eyebrows, inside my ears, and inside my nose). I once asked them to shave my back too, but they drew the line at that. Oh, and don’t worry if you’re in line for your cut after an old man; they have regulations for sterilizing the clippers.
Of course it’s discrimination.
But so is Lady’s Nights, where bars sell booze cheaper to women than to men.
Which is really ironic, because most men would probably prefer cheap booze and most women would prefer cheaper haircuts. But that’s the power of the free market for you!
😀
Oh yeah, I’m actually pretty goddamned upset about those lady’s nights. Envious, that is.
If only Ladies’ Night were actually a good example of the opposite of cheaper haircuts for men!
But like most superficial pro-woman practices, it’s actually not. The goal of Ladies’ Night is to attract more females so that they will act as decoys to attract male customers. Ladies’s Night treats women not as valuable customers in and of themselves, but as mere objects to be used as part of a marketing strategy to attract the *real* customers.
So yes, we get cheaper alcohol, but we get it at a higher price – the loss of individual identity and the assumption that we will therefore be sexually available.
So sorry if I’m not crying over the unfairness you experience.
And you don’t think men are stung by the knowledge that stylists consider them so brutish that they’ll only get their hair cut if it’s cheap? Have you no sensitivity for our pain at this crude perception?
😀
(Seriously, I was just pointing out that the free market sometimes produces outcomes that are not in the best interest of the consumer, but rather in the best interest of the market operator. A trivial point, I know, but in these dark days one cannot miss any opportunity to poke a hole in Libertarian puffery.)
“Libertarian puffery” 😀
2. If so, what could possibly justify the price differential?
I have read a rationale given by hairdressers that women generally have a larger volume of hair, thus.. I think it is a ridiculous reason.
3. If the answer to (1) is “yes,” isn’t that discrimination against women?
I think it is. However, given that the a lot of the beneficiaries are female hairdressers… I don’t know.
Over here, given that barbers are an almost extinct breed, two Japanese chains have set up taken advantage of this situation and set up shop. Essentially, they offer 10-minute no-frills S$10.00 (US$12.00) haircuts and these have proven very popular.
These joints (EC House and QB House) are clean and efficient.
Strangely enough, from my observation (which can’t count as data), the people patronising these (including myself!) are men, children, foreign low-wage workers, maids. Most women would still visit a hairdresser. I don’t know of any women who would visit one of these.
1) Mostly, yes. My hairdresser charges the same for all trims (not changing the style just a maintenance cut) but women who want an entirely new hairstyle get charged more than men.
2) Women’s cuts do generally take a little longer and are more likely to require things like layering. If the prices are based on women’s cut, men’s cut, children’s cut then it makes sense. If it’s based on hairstyle then not so much.
3) See #2.
I’m a male and I’ve got a very thick head of coarse hair; my girlfriend’s hair is thinner and much easier to cut. She’s typically done in half the time; she typically pays 50% more. Yes, it’s discrimination.
I bought a pair of salon quality clippers and have my SO cut my hair for free. Best investment I’ve ever made.
Women will pay more. Same goes for skin care products, same ingredients packaged for a man cost less. In CT and MA it is illegal to base rates on gender. What I wonder is if there is a gender difference in when it comes to how much the stylist gets as a tip.
My girlfriend is a hair stylist, and says some stylists do charge more for women, but she charges the same. According to her it’s about the style not the length, so a guy with a short layered cut takes more cut time than a girl with a long straight cut, but she would then spend more time on styling the longer hair. End point, though, is that she charges based on the hour, not the client’s sex. Here in California there was a law that prohibits charging different prices for men and women, but I doubt it’s enforced in any way.
A lot of women just take longer so the shops charge more even if they only want a simple haircut and don’t take much time. It makes the pricing easier because you don’t have to keep a list of exemptions or anything. Unfortunately it does mean a woman who just wants a simple haircut pays more.
Taxi drivers have an excellent strategy for dealing with this: using a timer.
Imagine that! A simple solution that doesn’t require a list of exemptions or anything and ALSO doesn’t discriminate against half your customer base! Amazing!
I pay around 45$ for having my very coarse, short hair cut (But I’m in Denmark and everything is expensive here). My hairdresser is an absolutely wonderful gay, catholic man from Syria. He recently obtained Danish citizenship. My conversations with him are always fun, he’s charming and one of the best in the trade. He’s cut my hair for more than four years now and is now becoming quite the celebrity stylist ( I found him first!!!!) And yes we’ve had discussions about him being an arabic, catholic gay – he is a fervent believer and never, ever says a single bad word about the pope or other clergy. I try not to yell at him, it would do no good.
Oh – and when his prices go up (they will) I’ll gladly pay a 100$ to have him cut my hair.
Hair today, gone tomorrow…
🙁
It is definitely discrimination, but not in the way you’d think. Since you actually enjoy something more if you pay more for it (lots of of fMRI research backing this up) it is in fact discrimination against men!
The place I used to go for cuts had prices set depending on whether it was a wet cut, dry cut, just a trim, or styling too. They also set prices on -length of hair-, not gender. That makes so much more sense to me.
But I haven’t been in nearly 6 years now, one of the pros of having epic dreadlocks I suppose.
The wife and I go to the same place. I get a Number 1 all over (and a neck massage from a rather attractive young lady) for $8; I’m in and out in 10 minutes. The wife spends hours in there and generally spends about $100. Next time I’ll get a manicure, pedicure, eyebrows plucked, pits waxed and my boxer line done as well and see what the difference in price is.
There’s a local hair salon that openly advertises it’s prices on the front window and women are much more expensive than anyone else. It’s something like children $10, men $15 and women $25.
Yes, I’d be mad too if I was a woman and take my business elsewhere. Luckily, where my family goes, it’s all one price, no matter what gender you are.
You must get your hair cut at the 7-11, too!
Perhaps 20 years ago I often had my hair cut at mall uni-sex salons, and one I stopped by had a similar price list, which I questioned. Yes, women’s hair cuts cost more, I was told; and it made no difference that I wanted a guy-cut, no styling, no set, no blow-drying, just snip-and-go job for my already-short hair while the guy in the next chair had 8-inch long curly locks: mine would cost between one-quarter and one-third more than his because I was a woman. Logic and reason just didn’t cut it with the manager, so—of course!—I left. Evidently this wasn’t yet considered discrimination.
Fortunately I’ve found a gal who does a decent job every few months when I need a cut and dose of thinning shears. I’ve no intention of EVER going to a salon with their near-obscene prices! The only reason her husband the barber won’t cut my hair is that he can’t figure out what to talk about with a woman in his chair and whatever guys are sittin’ around waiting their own turns… seems it puts a right damper on comraderie.
Evidently the same discrimination obtains, or used to, at least, with laundry services: a plain shirt but with buttons on the distaff costs more than an otherwise identical male shirt.
There’s a simple, scientific explanation for this. Women will pay more because they’re stupid.
You can’t argue with science!
In the interest of science and grooming, I spent about 2 hours today in our local “Supercuts”.
On average, women were taking longer than the men — but were getting more done, including shampooing.
However, one woman didn’t take very long and (I observed) didn’t pay that much: £13.95, same as a man’s haircut.
I asked the manager after getting my £13.95 haircut whether they charged men and women the same. She said it depended on what was needed: for just “a trim”, women and men were the same price.
I don’t have enough hair to need more than a “trim”, so it sounded fair enough.
I did forget to mention that some of us who avoid hair-cutters of any kind belong to the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists, and are therefore entitled to include that title after our names. I am such a member. Jerry, obviously, is not.
Sorry: here is the web-site:
arrrgh! I always forget (one can’t use angle brackets):
http://www.improb.com/projects/hair/hair-club002.html