From bad hair days, to age-defying toupees, a number of hair issues cause the average worker to consider how their tresses can affect their work. A recent case involving a Glamour Magazine employee, however, exposed the hidden management desire to trim back ethnic hair-dos.
An Associate Editor of the magazine had the harebrained idea of cautioning female colleagues that their ethnic hairstyles were fashion faux-pas that associated the women with political movements of the past.
Ethnic tresses have stirred up stress in the workplace as the media and image consultants subtly communicate the desire to employ women considered to have ‘commercially beautiful white hairstyles’. With their locks on the chopping block, women of various ethnicities are being challenged to exchange their dreads, cornrows, or afro for the white hair status quo.
Extensions and highlights ignite a controversial question about image in the workplace, and what a hairstyle represents. Melissa Theodore, a New York City accountant, notes that not everyone in corporate America respects the right to bear ethnic hairstyles of choice.
The list of discrimination cases of this kind in the Western World is longer than Repunzel’s locks. On the fairy tale note, Goldy Locks appears to be the hair spokes-woman for US theme parks like Six Flags and Disney, as hair policies in both companies have a history of limiting their workforce’s right to have culturally diverse do’s.
While your bee-hive or mega-mullet may say something about your personal image, hair also does the talking about your lifestyle. From your ethnicity, to your diet, to your smoking and drug-use habits, hair can tell most of your greasy secrets.
Hair facts reveal that letting your hair down at work leads to losing around 100 hairs a day on average. Good thing your hair grows between 0.3 and 0.5 millimeters a day to replenish all of those lost locks. Each of your hairy head-warmers lives for between 2 and 7 years before passing into hair underworld.
It turns out that blondes are the hairiest of all, yielding 120 000 to 140 000 hairs/scalp! (That’s around 20 000 extra compared to other hair colors) You can take that stat to your office cleaning crew, the experts in lost hair-finding. Whatever ethnicity, your apparently full head always grows a few duds; around 10% of your hair stops growing prematurely, but sticks around just for show. They are just dead cell strands, after all!
Hairy workers are happy workers! A 10-country survey showed that two-thirds of females between the ages of 15 and 64 will not engage in normal activities if they feel badly about their looks. On the flipside, it can be deducted that a worker who feels good about herself is most likely to be productive at work. If that means sporting an ethnic hairstyle, then so be it.
Three cheers for ethnic hairstyles!! Hip Hip Hair-ay!
See our Top 10 Office Hairstyles, guaranteed to turn heads in your workplace
See our Top 10 Office Hairstyles, guaranteed to turn heads in your workplace
Topics:
