Straight Hair and Straight Men: The Re-gendering of London Hairdressing in the 1960s

• In Event: 256 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Female-Dominated Occupations

Abstract

The paper is part of a larger project examining the relation between historical changes in the gender division of labour and the provision of body work services (Wolkowitz 2006; Wolkowitz et al 2013), i.e. work that involves workers touching the bodies of customers, patients or clients. This particular paper analyses published and unpublished autobiographies of male and female hairdressers in 1960s London, a period of change in the organisation of the industry, especially the rise of the high-fashion, aggressively heterosexual male hairstylist, hairdressing empires and the unisex salon. Most body work is women’s work, yet the gendering of hair care occupations is by no means historically fixed, and includes considerable rivalry between male and female hairdressers and the forms of expertise in which they claim superiority. Gender was particularly important to the emergence of the unisex salon in the 1960s, as the mixed clientele salon signified not just a greater flexibility in the client base, but was also associated with (and was thought to encourage) changed relations with customers (less formal, more equalitarian and individualised) that mirrored the change in hair styles away from stiff, sprayed hair. The paper thus pays particular attention to the corporeal interdependence of stylist and client in promoting more market segmentation than in some other body work sectors, and thus also scope for men to participate as high-status actors in an otherwise feminised sector.

Author

• Carol Wolkowitz, University of Warwick