Hairdressing is an industry dominated by women. Walk into any hairdressers in the country, and it’s overwhelmingly likely that you’ll be confronted by a female wielding a pair of scissors. But when you look at the top of the industry, a strange pattern emerges: female hairdressers face increasingly stiff competition from their male counterparts. And at the very, very top of the industry, men are very much in control. Scan through the shelves of your local department store and you’ll find shampoos, razor blades and hair-thinning scissors designed and endorsed by men like John Freida and Nicky Clarke – but their female equivalents are much scarcer.
This reflects a phenomenon that goes far beyond the hair and beauty industries. Depending on your political mores, you might decide that the cause is obvious. Either men are naturally predisposed to be domineering and self-promoting, and that women are less likely to seek fame and attention. Or, you might decide that the industry’s women are being unfairly treated by a ruling cabal of flamboyant males.
The British Hairdresser of the Year awards is an excellent case in point. It’s been won by a woman, Sally Brooks, for the last two years. But she’s rather the exception that proves the rule: the rest of this year’s 9-person shortlist are all men. Brooks hasn’t just led by example, she’s also helped to create a documentary, entitled The Journey To My Destination, which details exactly how she got to her current position. In an interview with Concept Hair, she was quick to bemoan the perception of the profession as something less intrinsically valuable than other, academic professions: “We are professionals like any other industry. There is a misconception of what this industry is and the possibilities it has. We wanted to share this with the world and hopefully change the perception of parents and teachers. Maybe it will allow a young hairdresser to not have to justify why they chose hairdressing.”
Given how many women choose to earn a living cutting hair, it seems implausible that they’d create an industry that is inherently sexist. Likelier, there are other obstacles standing in the way of women succeeding at the very top, like the decision to have children and raise a family instead of pursuing long hours outside of the home. We should also consider that day-to-day hairdressing offers a kind of job satisfaction with which many women are perfectly happy: it offers a chance to socialise, financial independence, and the self-esteem that comes with an in-demand skillset. No wonder hairdressers seem so contented!