Gray Matter (Hairy, Too)

I have a picture to prove my theory. Granted, it’s a black-and-white shot from the 1940s, but still, it’s silver. My grandmother’s hair. She’s standing there, flanked by her 2 sons and 2 daughters, ranging from about 3 to 10, in front of the Antioch cabin at church camp in Vermillion, Ohio. She couldn’t have been older than about 35. And her whole head of hair, even pulled back into a bun with modest post-War waves, is plainly gray.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been told I’m the spitting image of Grandma Esther. “Grandma’s Clone,” my parents often called me as a girl. I saw the resemblance, I suppose. It’s the sort of thing you simply accept if you’re repeatedly reminded of it as a young person. But I hadn’t considered the “Old Lady Look” as part of the genetic deal until about 5 years ago, when the grays started showing through on my own Esther-derived scalp. And then I saw the Antioch photograph, and I knew I was destined to go gray at a younger age than most. And so I have.

At first, I felt adamantly opposed to covering my gray with hair colorant—for 2 reasons: 1) Money, 2) Principle—oh, and 3) Convenience (what a nuisance to have to keep up with coloring gray roots every 6 weeks, especially for a woman who can’t shave her legs more than once a week, even in the height of summer). As for the first reason, it would be an added expense, no doubt. And those pesky extra expenses add up. I avoid them.

The main thing, though, was the principle of the matter: I considered covering my gray hair because why?

Because I’m an American woman and that’s what American women do. Why?

Because American women want to look beautiful and our culture considers youth beautiful, not old age. But if I were a man in my late 20s going gray, wouldn’t I consider it an advantage to my career? For a man, gray is “distinguished.” For a woman, it’s “frumpy.”

Because women are primarily valued for their appearance, not for their character. The message seems to be: “Stay sexy for as long as you can, honey, ’cuz when you lose ‘the look,’ you’re not ‘worth it’ (as Maybelline claims all women are…hullo—hand over your 12 bucks a month, ladies, ’cuz ‘if you don’t look good, we don’t look good’ to our stockholders—oh, hold on, that’s Vidal Sassoon).”

Fortunately for me, I worked in an academic setting for the first few years of my graying process. While I was there, I could claim my feminism stance and nobody balked (much). There were lots of ladies there who did color their hair well into their 60s, but many others—professors, especially—did not. On principle.

Since moving back to A-Town, however, first working 1-on-1 with clients literally half my age, and now being the big “boss person” representing our little non-profit organization, I’ve grown significantly more self-conscious about my hair’s silver “highlights.” I’ve wondered: Am I supposed to color my hair? Do people expect me to color my hair? What will they think if I don’t color my hair? That I’m lazy? That I have poor self-esteem? That I can’t afford to buy hair colorant? Is it as much a distraction for people looking at me as I suppose it might be?

The answer to that last question is almost always a resounding “No!” But my perceived pressure to “look good” for the sake of my organization is what finally prompted me to dye. I’m not doing the permanent stuff yet—still want to avoid that whole 6-week root problem. But ever since last spring, about every 6-8 weeks, I’m “Washing that gray right outta my hair” with a temporary color that lasts 24 shampoos or some-such. It’s a tenuous compromise.

Notice I did not list “Because I want to fool people into thinking I’m younger than I am” as a reason for color-rinsing my graying-brown hair brunette. This is the standard objection of a male professor-friend of mine from my former place of employment. Whenever the topic of hair dye comes up he says, “Women aren’t fooling anyone less than 30 yards away. Let it go gray!” To his pious refrain, I say:

a) You’re a man; it’s easier for you to say;

b) You live and work in an academic environment where such principles are applauded as “intellectual,” “high-minded,” and “cultured”; and

c) Hair color—at least, for me—is not about fooling people into thinking I’m younger than I am. It’s about submitting to a societal norm—in my case, for the good of the cause I represent.

Would I rather not shave my legs? Yes! I’d rather go au naturale. But I live in the United States, not Germany. So I shave. I now live in A-Town, not College Town. So I color.