1 00:00:03,160 --> 00:00:06,439 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupports 2 00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:14,480 Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen 3 00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:17,599 Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline and Caroline. We've talked about hair a 4 00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:21,400 Speaker 1: number of times on Stuff Mom Never Told You, covering 5 00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:26,560 Speaker 1: things like the significance of women's hair and length, what 6 00:00:26,720 --> 00:00:30,040 Speaker 1: happens when women cut their hair short and they kind 7 00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:34,120 Speaker 1: of associations with that. We talked about graying hair, and 8 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:37,640 Speaker 1: now we're going to look at the places that we 9 00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:42,080 Speaker 1: often go to get our hair cut, because when you 10 00:00:42,200 --> 00:00:46,120 Speaker 1: look into beauty parlors and barber shops or whatever you 11 00:00:46,159 --> 00:00:51,960 Speaker 1: want to call your hair cuttery, there are so many 12 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:57,720 Speaker 1: aspects of gender, culture, ethnicity, a lot of stuff tied 13 00:00:57,800 --> 00:01:01,000 Speaker 1: up in these places. Yeah, this reading about this topic 14 00:01:01,040 --> 00:01:03,560 Speaker 1: actually got me thinking about where I have gotten my 15 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:08,040 Speaker 1: hair cut the past several years, various different salons, and 16 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:12,640 Speaker 1: it's usually been all women the salon I go to. 17 00:01:12,760 --> 00:01:15,680 Speaker 1: Now there are a couple of men um, but it's 18 00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:18,600 Speaker 1: always been mostly white as well. Yeah. I have a 19 00:01:18,600 --> 00:01:22,440 Speaker 1: feeling that if most listeners think about where they go 20 00:01:22,680 --> 00:01:25,319 Speaker 1: get their haircut, if their guy, they're probably going to 21 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:28,200 Speaker 1: a place with a lot of other men. Uh, a 22 00:01:28,280 --> 00:01:30,280 Speaker 1: lot of times we go to get our hair cut 23 00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:33,320 Speaker 1: at places filled with people who look a lot like us. 24 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:36,280 Speaker 1: I think that's the simplest way to put it, which 25 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:38,800 Speaker 1: is a little weird when you think about it, because 26 00:01:39,160 --> 00:01:42,600 Speaker 1: it's hair. It's just human hair, So why do we 27 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:47,920 Speaker 1: need these kinds of segregated spaces. But before we get 28 00:01:47,960 --> 00:01:54,480 Speaker 1: into hair salons, beauty parlors, barber shops today, let's go 29 00:01:54,760 --> 00:01:59,080 Speaker 1: as we often do back in history because, not surprisingly, 30 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:03,400 Speaker 1: because he Wan's have always had these pesky heads of hair, 31 00:02:04,320 --> 00:02:07,680 Speaker 1: We've always wanted and had people to cut our hair 32 00:02:07,760 --> 00:02:10,960 Speaker 1: fix our hair may look nice, well, that is if 33 00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:14,800 Speaker 1: you're rich. Right in ancient room, going back to the 34 00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:18,919 Speaker 1: days of ancient Roman hair, hair dressing was performed by 35 00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:22,440 Speaker 1: slaves and former slaves, and so this kind of ties 36 00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:27,080 Speaker 1: into hair dressing historically being seen as a lower status 37 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:30,240 Speaker 1: form of labor. Yeah, this is also something that's referred 38 00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:34,480 Speaker 1: to as body work. If you go to hair salon, 39 00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:36,600 Speaker 1: if you go get a manicure, pedicure, if you go 40 00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:40,760 Speaker 1: get a massage. It's these kinds of services focused on 41 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:44,720 Speaker 1: working on our bodies. And an ancient Rome though that 42 00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:48,080 Speaker 1: kind of bodywork, the hair dressing that happened was no 43 00:02:48,280 --> 00:02:53,280 Speaker 1: simple task because it was almost like hair sewing because 44 00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:56,240 Speaker 1: they use needles and thread to stitch together those intricate 45 00:02:56,320 --> 00:03:00,280 Speaker 1: designs that you'll see in artwork or in sculpture. And 46 00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:06,600 Speaker 1: this was discovered actually by a hairdresser turned academic, Janet Stevens, 47 00:03:06,639 --> 00:03:10,880 Speaker 1: who wrote this groundbreaking paper called Ancient Roman Hairdressing on 48 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:17,120 Speaker 1: Hairpins and Needles, and it sent shock waves through academia 49 00:03:17,320 --> 00:03:23,320 Speaker 1: because she, in her spare time, studied all of these 50 00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:28,400 Speaker 1: primary sources, looking at Roman women's hair and figuring out 51 00:03:28,560 --> 00:03:31,079 Speaker 1: what kind of tools they had at the time. And 52 00:03:31,240 --> 00:03:33,160 Speaker 1: I don't want to go too much off into this tanship, 53 00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:36,240 Speaker 1: but it was fascinating to see how they literally wove 54 00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:40,640 Speaker 1: women's hair together. Yeah, and the study included pictures of 55 00:03:41,240 --> 00:03:44,520 Speaker 1: hair dummies, you know, just heads with with hair for 56 00:03:44,520 --> 00:03:48,960 Speaker 1: for styling purposes, you know, using these dummies to illustrate 57 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:52,160 Speaker 1: how one would go about creating these Roman hairstyles, which 58 00:03:52,280 --> 00:03:55,360 Speaker 1: was cool and kind of creepy all at the same 59 00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:59,360 Speaker 1: time because not all of the hair dummies had eyes. Yeah, 60 00:03:59,400 --> 00:04:05,720 Speaker 1: some of the capitated dummy heads were eyelis. But thankfully, 61 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:09,560 Speaker 1: once you looked at the intricate braiding that was done 62 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:14,440 Speaker 1: the weaving distracted from the potentially terrifying faces. Um. But 63 00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:17,680 Speaker 1: since ancient times, like in Rome, this is also verified 64 00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:20,919 Speaker 1: in ancient Greece, and even if you look into biblical 65 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:26,120 Speaker 1: texts for instance, hair has long been an integral part 66 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:29,440 Speaker 1: of gender performance, as we've touched on in those other 67 00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:33,720 Speaker 1: hair podcasts. For instance, men's long hair for a long 68 00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:37,520 Speaker 1: time symbolized strength, political power, and youth, which is interesting 69 00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:41,640 Speaker 1: because today most dudes of short hair, right, I mean 70 00:04:41,720 --> 00:04:46,000 Speaker 1: think about Samson. And for women, hair denotes fertility and sexuality. 71 00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:48,159 Speaker 1: But one of the sources we were reading was talking 72 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:51,159 Speaker 1: about how basically women had a very short period of 73 00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:56,000 Speaker 1: even being able to display this I don't fertile sexy hair. 74 00:04:56,600 --> 00:04:59,400 Speaker 1: You know, it was like between the time of growing 75 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:02,479 Speaker 1: up and being young girl to write, before you got married, 76 00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:04,720 Speaker 1: and then it was that hair went right back up 77 00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:08,000 Speaker 1: because you were somebody's missus. Yeah. I mean for men 78 00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:10,360 Speaker 1: and women alike, the way that we wear our hair 79 00:05:10,440 --> 00:05:14,560 Speaker 1: has been so scripted for so long. Um. But if 80 00:05:14,640 --> 00:05:18,760 Speaker 1: you move over to West Africa, for instance, this is 81 00:05:18,800 --> 00:05:22,240 Speaker 1: really interesting. The hairdresser's roles in a lot of society's 82 00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:27,239 Speaker 1: has long been praised because there are beliefs, for instance, 83 00:05:27,240 --> 00:05:30,920 Speaker 1: about people's spirits being embodied in their hair, as well 84 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:35,760 Speaker 1: as traditions of braiding and hair design that symbolize milestones 85 00:05:35,839 --> 00:05:39,440 Speaker 1: and people's lives like coming of age, marriage, And I 86 00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:42,960 Speaker 1: mean you mentioned Caroline that in ancient room, ancient Greece, 87 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:45,800 Speaker 1: women had that brief window of time, and yet the 88 00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:49,200 Speaker 1: person who was fixing all the hair was looked down upon. 89 00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:54,400 Speaker 1: But if you look more into African cultures, they seemed 90 00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:59,680 Speaker 1: to take more pride in the artistry of hair. And 91 00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:02,560 Speaker 1: then if you fast forward to the eighteenth and nineteenth 92 00:06:02,560 --> 00:06:08,640 Speaker 1: century in the United States, you see those cultures colliding. 93 00:06:09,440 --> 00:06:13,000 Speaker 1: But moving from looking at women's hair and sexy hair 94 00:06:13,080 --> 00:06:16,599 Speaker 1: to men's sexy hair. Let's talk about beards for a moment. 95 00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:18,640 Speaker 1: Where do we get the word barber? It comes from 96 00:06:18,640 --> 00:06:23,680 Speaker 1: the Latin word for beard, and barber shops were common 97 00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:26,640 Speaker 1: in Greece around four b C and in Rome in 98 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:30,640 Speaker 1: two b C. And fun tidbit about the barber pole. 99 00:06:30,760 --> 00:06:34,279 Speaker 1: The red and white pole symbolizes blood letting and bandages 100 00:06:34,320 --> 00:06:38,200 Speaker 1: because barbers were employed for periodic ritual blood letting after 101 00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:41,760 Speaker 1: a papal decree forbade clergy and monks from blood letting 102 00:06:41,800 --> 00:06:43,840 Speaker 1: and so you know, you you no big deal, you'd 103 00:06:43,839 --> 00:06:46,400 Speaker 1: just be a barber surgeon. Yeah, and I'm sure that 104 00:06:46,480 --> 00:06:49,120 Speaker 1: guys going to the barber today what I would love 105 00:06:49,160 --> 00:06:51,760 Speaker 1: to think about blood letting. That's what That's what this 106 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:54,919 Speaker 1: this pole means. Okay, I'm not nervous at all about 107 00:06:55,120 --> 00:06:57,560 Speaker 1: the shave. I'm about to get um. But but that 108 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:01,400 Speaker 1: is interesting though to note that barber shops do predate 109 00:07:01,760 --> 00:07:04,559 Speaker 1: the beauty shop. Probably the women's hair would be done 110 00:07:04,920 --> 00:07:07,600 Speaker 1: at home. Um. And a lot of this also is 111 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:11,440 Speaker 1: coming from the paper called Working on Hair by Helene M. 112 00:07:11,560 --> 00:07:18,000 Speaker 1: Lawson and Losson notes that by four hundred London barbers 113 00:07:18,360 --> 00:07:23,560 Speaker 1: formed the London Company of Barber's Guild, and even by 114 00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:27,080 Speaker 1: this point the social function of the barber was as 115 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:31,240 Speaker 1: a news deliverer and an advisor, similar to how we 116 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:35,640 Speaker 1: think of the function of the beauty shop the hair 117 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:41,520 Speaker 1: salon today, where there is often lots of exchange of news, gossip, 118 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:46,320 Speaker 1: advice giving, et cetera. But it started out though, with 119 00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:49,840 Speaker 1: the barber. Yeah. And and you know all this talk 120 00:07:49,880 --> 00:07:52,680 Speaker 1: about barber meaning beard and this being a man's space, 121 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:55,320 Speaker 1: it's not that there weren't women there there were women 122 00:07:55,400 --> 00:07:58,280 Speaker 1: barber's even way back then, but they were by no 123 00:07:58,360 --> 00:08:02,280 Speaker 1: means the majority, and they were by no means the boss. Yeah, 124 00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:05,760 Speaker 1: they would not have been owning the barber shop. Um 125 00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:09,080 Speaker 1: But we should note too that Gillette's mass production of 126 00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:13,600 Speaker 1: a safety razor in nineteen oh three did threaten barber 127 00:08:13,720 --> 00:08:18,520 Speaker 1: shop business. But industry wide, men were considered the real 128 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:22,040 Speaker 1: minds and the scientific innovators when it came from the 129 00:08:22,080 --> 00:08:25,920 Speaker 1: expansion of the barbershop into the beauty shop and just 130 00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:29,640 Speaker 1: hairstyling as a whole, and they were often called beauty 131 00:08:29,640 --> 00:08:33,160 Speaker 1: culturalists side note. And they would unionize's kind of like 132 00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:37,680 Speaker 1: those London barbers did in four hundred, But those unions 133 00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:41,480 Speaker 1: were led mostly by men, and often when they were 134 00:08:41,480 --> 00:08:45,160 Speaker 1: talked about in trade publications and in the media, it 135 00:08:45,280 --> 00:08:49,360 Speaker 1: was usually dudes cutting hair who gotten most of the attention. 136 00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:54,319 Speaker 1: And it was these um men in these beauty culturalist 137 00:08:54,559 --> 00:08:57,800 Speaker 1: unions who did around the first half of the twentieth 138 00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:01,160 Speaker 1: century seek to regulate the industry. Basically, they wanted to 139 00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:05,320 Speaker 1: ensure that men, whether they were styling women's hair or 140 00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:08,280 Speaker 1: men's hair, were earning a bread winter wage. That was 141 00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:11,280 Speaker 1: the objective, and so during the first half of the 142 00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:15,480 Speaker 1: twentieth century, they wanted to make sure that they regulated 143 00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:18,160 Speaker 1: it and regulated the industry, I should say, in such 144 00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:20,920 Speaker 1: a way that it became a respected profession, kind of 145 00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:24,120 Speaker 1: tidied up a bit so that there were rules and 146 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:27,520 Speaker 1: regulations as far as hours go, safety, you know, all 147 00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:29,720 Speaker 1: the stuff that we think of as positives. That's good, right, 148 00:09:29,800 --> 00:09:32,760 Speaker 1: there should be rules and regulations for safety. But around 149 00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:35,480 Speaker 1: this time, what that basically did was kind of screwed 150 00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:42,120 Speaker 1: over the smaller female run hair care businesses. And I 151 00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:44,400 Speaker 1: say hair care businesses, but I mean that could be 152 00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:47,839 Speaker 1: anything from something run on a woman's front porch to 153 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:53,800 Speaker 1: a factory latrine basically, and so um, these unions, these 154 00:09:53,840 --> 00:09:56,760 Speaker 1: men and these unions were essentially trying to distance the 155 00:09:56,880 --> 00:10:00,760 Speaker 1: work from quote unquote women's work and exclude another quote 156 00:10:01,040 --> 00:10:07,720 Speaker 1: irregular practitioners. Oh no, Well, perhaps they were feeling like 157 00:10:07,960 --> 00:10:15,320 Speaker 1: the previously male dominated industry was being infiltrated by women 158 00:10:15,360 --> 00:10:19,600 Speaker 1: all of a sudden. Because women's hairdressing really started out 159 00:10:19,640 --> 00:10:22,280 Speaker 1: as an at home operation. It was almost like a 160 00:10:22,280 --> 00:10:25,520 Speaker 1: cottage industry that some women would have and in the 161 00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:29,680 Speaker 1: late nineteenth in early twentieth century, women were converting their kitchens, 162 00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:35,520 Speaker 1: bathrooms and porches into beauty parlors, which really fostered some 163 00:10:35,760 --> 00:10:40,000 Speaker 1: entrepreneurialism among domestic workers and farm girls. This was an 164 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:44,079 Speaker 1: opportunity for women who didn't have a lot of means 165 00:10:44,360 --> 00:10:46,920 Speaker 1: to start their own businesses and to really make something 166 00:10:47,360 --> 00:10:49,800 Speaker 1: of themselves. Um And at the turn of the century 167 00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:53,319 Speaker 1: there were only a few salons that did cater to women. 168 00:10:53,400 --> 00:10:57,600 Speaker 1: It's still the days of the barbershop, and mostly was 169 00:10:57,640 --> 00:11:00,920 Speaker 1: wealthy women who would leave the house to go get 170 00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:04,160 Speaker 1: their hair done, although we should note that hair dressing 171 00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:08,000 Speaker 1: services rarely included cutting, because women tended to wear their 172 00:11:08,040 --> 00:11:10,880 Speaker 1: hair long. You would go there instead to just get 173 00:11:10,880 --> 00:11:15,120 Speaker 1: it washed and detangled, oiled, et cetera. All that fancy 174 00:11:15,160 --> 00:11:19,080 Speaker 1: stuff put up into a fancy pretzel looking thing. Yes, 175 00:11:19,679 --> 00:11:23,160 Speaker 1: pretzel hair done. Yes. But the thing is, though people 176 00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:25,840 Speaker 1: thought that it would be a fad, women going to 177 00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:29,880 Speaker 1: get their hair done, men going to barbershops. Okay, sure, 178 00:11:30,400 --> 00:11:35,319 Speaker 1: But at the beginning of the twentieth century, oh my goodness, no, 179 00:11:35,520 --> 00:11:39,560 Speaker 1: why would why would women do that? But then things 180 00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:43,400 Speaker 1: really changed within the industry, and this again might have 181 00:11:43,480 --> 00:11:47,480 Speaker 1: prompted more of the union unionization efforts that were going 182 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:53,400 Speaker 1: on led by male hairdressers or barbers because with the 183 00:11:53,440 --> 00:11:58,160 Speaker 1: invention of the bob haircut and the permanent wave, all 184 00:11:58,160 --> 00:12:01,480 Speaker 1: of a sudden, women were going to salons, they were 185 00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:04,079 Speaker 1: going to barbershops, they were going any place they could 186 00:12:04,400 --> 00:12:06,840 Speaker 1: to get their hair done. Yeah. It's funny to read 187 00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:09,400 Speaker 1: accounts from that time of men who were like pouting, 188 00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:12,000 Speaker 1: you know, because they couldn't get a seat in the 189 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:15,160 Speaker 1: barbershop because all these all of these randy women were 190 00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:17,160 Speaker 1: in there getting their hair cut off. This is pre 191 00:12:17,280 --> 00:12:21,719 Speaker 1: World War One, and um, barbershops were struggling to keep 192 00:12:21,840 --> 00:12:23,640 Speaker 1: up with all of this demand. And it was great 193 00:12:23,679 --> 00:12:25,840 Speaker 1: because it was good for business, but it was weird 194 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:30,920 Speaker 1: because it was women. Yeah. One academic describes it as 195 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:33,800 Speaker 1: the struggle over the nature of public space and the 196 00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:37,000 Speaker 1: increasing desire among women to have their own homeless social space, 197 00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:42,600 Speaker 1: which contributed to the dramatic growth of the women's hairdressing industry. 198 00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:45,720 Speaker 1: UM and speaking though again of men in the in 199 00:12:45,760 --> 00:12:49,920 Speaker 1: the industry, it was German hairdresser Charles Nessler who was 200 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:52,880 Speaker 1: hailed as the inventor of the permanent wave machine, whom 201 00:12:52,920 --> 00:12:58,200 Speaker 1: Time magazine called a revolutionist who transformed women's way of 202 00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:01,640 Speaker 1: life because with the permanent wave, you go in, you 203 00:13:01,679 --> 00:13:03,920 Speaker 1: get your hair waved and done. You don't have to 204 00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:08,200 Speaker 1: think about fixing your hair painstaking late every day and 205 00:13:08,280 --> 00:13:12,160 Speaker 1: actually is a bit of a time saver um. But 206 00:13:12,640 --> 00:13:16,440 Speaker 1: like you said, Caroline, some men were pretty disgruntled about 207 00:13:16,760 --> 00:13:20,480 Speaker 1: women arriving at the barbershops sometimes get their hair bobbed. 208 00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:24,520 Speaker 1: There was a nineteen verse actually that was published in 209 00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:26,640 Speaker 1: the New Zealand Freelance, so this was not just in 210 00:13:26,679 --> 00:13:29,960 Speaker 1: the United States. This from the New Zealand Freelance and 211 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:34,000 Speaker 1: it went says, the poor Harry Bachelor bobber b o 212 00:13:34,160 --> 00:13:36,679 Speaker 1: b b R shop is the right word. Now I 213 00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:39,560 Speaker 1: can't get shaved. I'm in despair. There's a girl and 214 00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:43,520 Speaker 1: every bobber's chair. How terrible. Yeah, well, I mean it 215 00:13:43,679 --> 00:13:47,040 Speaker 1: was obviously the popularity was getting out of control. I mean, 216 00:13:47,080 --> 00:13:51,400 Speaker 1: in n there were five thousand beauty shops registered, not barbershops, 217 00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:54,559 Speaker 1: but beauty shops. It wasn't a huge thing, and this 218 00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:57,319 Speaker 1: is in the US, but by that had skyrocketed to 219 00:13:57,400 --> 00:14:00,840 Speaker 1: forty thousand. So I mean those chain aging times. The 220 00:14:00,840 --> 00:14:05,120 Speaker 1: new technology of having the permanent along with the new 221 00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:09,080 Speaker 1: style of the bob I mean women were going in droves. Yeah, 222 00:14:09,080 --> 00:14:12,960 Speaker 1: And there was also a fad of bleached blonde hair, 223 00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:17,880 Speaker 1: which we might not think about as happening before World 224 00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:20,360 Speaker 1: War One. We think of the blonde bombshell is more 225 00:14:20,360 --> 00:14:23,360 Speaker 1: of a World War two era kind of lady. But 226 00:14:24,040 --> 00:14:27,000 Speaker 1: that was happening at the same time, which also fed 227 00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:31,280 Speaker 1: that beauty shop industry. But in nineteen thirty two, the 228 00:14:31,360 --> 00:14:34,560 Speaker 1: debut of the at home perm meant that less wealthy 229 00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:38,800 Speaker 1: women could also experiment with styling. So the bobbing and 230 00:14:38,840 --> 00:14:42,480 Speaker 1: the waving and the bleaching, uh, it was happening, yes, 231 00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:46,760 Speaker 1: a lot at these barbershops, at new salons, but it 232 00:14:46,880 --> 00:14:49,680 Speaker 1: was still happening at home. There was still a big 233 00:14:49,720 --> 00:14:55,640 Speaker 1: grassroots aspect to hairdressing. Yeah, And so by the end 234 00:14:55,680 --> 00:14:57,680 Speaker 1: of World War One, hair dressing was seen as a 235 00:14:57,720 --> 00:15:01,800 Speaker 1: respectable middle class woman's occupy. Patient and the beauty industry 236 00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:04,640 Speaker 1: was sustained during the Great Depression as well, thanks to 237 00:15:04,680 --> 00:15:07,880 Speaker 1: products that could only be purchased in salons, which in 238 00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:12,040 Speaker 1: the year I'm just gonna go ahead and say it's infuriating. 239 00:15:12,120 --> 00:15:14,160 Speaker 1: I'm glad that these salons made it through the Great 240 00:15:14,160 --> 00:15:16,600 Speaker 1: Depression and everything, but I can't tell you how annoying 241 00:15:16,640 --> 00:15:18,480 Speaker 1: it is to have to go to a salon to 242 00:15:18,520 --> 00:15:21,400 Speaker 1: buy my shampoo. I mean, okay, like I don't buy 243 00:15:21,400 --> 00:15:23,480 Speaker 1: all my shampoo to salon. I'm not like a total 244 00:15:23,520 --> 00:15:26,720 Speaker 1: press like just you know, well, it's just expensive, but 245 00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:28,720 Speaker 1: it's well, it's expensive, and I you know, would like 246 00:15:28,760 --> 00:15:30,480 Speaker 1: to be able to get it at the grocery store. 247 00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:33,640 Speaker 1: But hey, that's I mean, that's part of why, though 248 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:37,160 Speaker 1: the hair dressing industry is as robust as it is today, 249 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:39,800 Speaker 1: they suckered us in Carolina, I know, and now we're 250 00:15:39,880 --> 00:15:44,400 Speaker 1: just stuck. Well, so if you look at the amount 251 00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:47,960 Speaker 1: of women going to beauty shops, in thirty seven point 252 00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:52,560 Speaker 1: five per cent of women went to beauty shops. That 253 00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:55,040 Speaker 1: that increased in nineteen fifty three to fifty two percent. 254 00:15:55,200 --> 00:15:58,320 Speaker 1: That's not that long of a time. Yeah, it went 255 00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:02,320 Speaker 1: up really quickly. But there's something about this history of 256 00:16:02,360 --> 00:16:06,560 Speaker 1: hairdressing in the United States that we have to point out, 257 00:16:07,520 --> 00:16:10,360 Speaker 1: and that is that what we've talked about so far 258 00:16:10,640 --> 00:16:14,800 Speaker 1: is really just about white men and women. And you 259 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:17,000 Speaker 1: mentioned at the top of the podcast, Caroline that a 260 00:16:17,040 --> 00:16:20,360 Speaker 1: lot of the places that you go, you've noticed it's 261 00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:23,120 Speaker 1: you know, it's you, it's other women and generally other 262 00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:28,960 Speaker 1: white women, and I think that's pretty common, same for me, 263 00:16:29,480 --> 00:16:33,280 Speaker 1: because it's something that we might not think about that often. 264 00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:39,359 Speaker 1: But not only are beauty shops hair salons highly gendered spaces, 265 00:16:39,680 --> 00:16:45,720 Speaker 1: they're also highly segregated spaces. And that's even in But 266 00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:48,440 Speaker 1: we have to go back and and way back. We 267 00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:51,760 Speaker 1: have to talk about some of the uglier history in 268 00:16:51,800 --> 00:16:54,880 Speaker 1: the United States that leads us up to today and 269 00:16:54,920 --> 00:16:58,040 Speaker 1: how also the black beauty shops are going to become 270 00:16:58,080 --> 00:17:02,040 Speaker 1: these real powerhouses for or the civil rights movement um. 271 00:17:02,080 --> 00:17:07,840 Speaker 1: But touching quickly on the importance of hair in African society, 272 00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:12,200 Speaker 1: because we talked about how in ancient Grease, ancient Rome, 273 00:17:12,600 --> 00:17:16,040 Speaker 1: hair dressing was always considered this lower status occupation. It 274 00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:18,320 Speaker 1: was something that the slaves did. But if you go 275 00:17:18,359 --> 00:17:22,160 Speaker 1: to someplace like West Africa, the hairdresser's role in many 276 00:17:22,200 --> 00:17:27,320 Speaker 1: societies has long been a really honored one because of 277 00:17:27,520 --> 00:17:31,560 Speaker 1: beliefs about people's spirits being embodied in their hair, or 278 00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:35,200 Speaker 1: simply because of time honored traditions dealing with a braiding 279 00:17:35,200 --> 00:17:39,119 Speaker 1: and hair design that represent milestones in people's lives. And 280 00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:43,800 Speaker 1: I think those different attitudes towards hair came with people 281 00:17:43,920 --> 00:17:47,359 Speaker 1: from West Africa when they came to America as slaves, 282 00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:50,879 Speaker 1: and slave owners, as we look back, would attempt to 283 00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:54,200 Speaker 1: humiliate and too humanize their slaves by shaving their heads 284 00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:57,560 Speaker 1: and referring to their hair and animalistic descriptions, calling them 285 00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:01,439 Speaker 1: things like wool. Hair was a symbol of pride, strength 286 00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:06,600 Speaker 1: and invincibility, and often it would suffer. Often the hair 287 00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:10,840 Speaker 1: would be removed. Yeah. Julie A. Will It talks about 288 00:18:10,880 --> 00:18:13,280 Speaker 1: this in her book Permanent Waves, The Making of the 289 00:18:13,320 --> 00:18:17,440 Speaker 1: American Beauty Shop, and she mentions how female slaves working 290 00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:20,480 Speaker 1: in the fields might wrap and thread their hair with 291 00:18:20,560 --> 00:18:23,879 Speaker 1: cotton and cover it with a bandana. Not unlike the 292 00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:27,120 Speaker 1: effect of sitting under a dryer. There was still that 293 00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:32,359 Speaker 1: kind of hairstyling that was going on, and slaves also 294 00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:37,119 Speaker 1: commonly served as slave owners, barbers, and hairdressers, harkening back 295 00:18:37,640 --> 00:18:41,359 Speaker 1: to those ancient room and days where it's the slave's 296 00:18:41,440 --> 00:18:47,719 Speaker 1: job to make the master presentable, which is when you 297 00:18:47,760 --> 00:18:53,960 Speaker 1: consider how loaded the slaves hair was to the master's 298 00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:56,800 Speaker 1: where it would be cut as punishment, where people would 299 00:18:56,800 --> 00:19:01,679 Speaker 1: often be ridiculed for having non white hair. It's a 300 00:19:01,760 --> 00:19:05,520 Speaker 1: it's a strange relationship when you start to think about that, Yeah, 301 00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:10,080 Speaker 1: I mean speaking of strange and evolving relationships. Up until 302 00:19:10,160 --> 00:19:13,600 Speaker 1: about the eighteen twenties, black men were the prominent hairdressers 303 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:18,400 Speaker 1: for women, but that quickly changed when social attitude started 304 00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:23,520 Speaker 1: changing toward not only black men, but the views of 305 00:19:23,560 --> 00:19:26,679 Speaker 1: black men interacting with white women, and suddenly that was 306 00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:30,080 Speaker 1: seen as unsafe. It was not a good idea, and 307 00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:33,680 Speaker 1: so those racist fears ended up leading to black men 308 00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:38,680 Speaker 1: being barred from providing that service. Yeah. In Atlanta, actually, uh, 309 00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:42,760 Speaker 1: they passed a city ordinance that white women couldn't go 310 00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:47,800 Speaker 1: to a blackmail barber because of those racist fears. And 311 00:19:47,840 --> 00:19:51,040 Speaker 1: even after the Civil War when we have the slaves 312 00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:54,800 Speaker 1: who were freed moving up north, they were often still 313 00:19:54,840 --> 00:20:01,360 Speaker 1: hairdressers too wealthier white clientele, which, again, these were arrangements 314 00:20:01,560 --> 00:20:07,520 Speaker 1: that uncomfortably hearkened back to that indentured domestic work, and 315 00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:11,440 Speaker 1: a similar color line was drawn with black barbers as well. 316 00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:13,879 Speaker 1: It's like they're doing similar jobs that they were doing 317 00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:18,880 Speaker 1: back in the days when they were enslaved. And gradually 318 00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:23,000 Speaker 1: the beauty industry really segregated itself, and by the nineteen 319 00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:26,520 Speaker 1: twenties and thirties, it was already rare to see an 320 00:20:26,520 --> 00:20:30,880 Speaker 1: African American woman hairdressing a white woman. Yeah, and it's 321 00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:33,560 Speaker 1: also interesting. You know, we talked about unions a little 322 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:36,720 Speaker 1: bit ago and how they were trying to basically root 323 00:20:36,760 --> 00:20:43,359 Speaker 1: out women and quote unquote irregular practitioners in this beauty industry. 324 00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,720 Speaker 1: And in the mid twentieth century, the industry was looking 325 00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:49,720 Speaker 1: to expand, and that's when lines started to get blurred, 326 00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:52,159 Speaker 1: and there is that rise of more men and women 327 00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:55,719 Speaker 1: getting their hair cut and the same places those color 328 00:20:55,840 --> 00:21:00,440 Speaker 1: lines were pretty deep, I think, um And and also 329 00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:05,240 Speaker 1: embedded with that is the good hair versus bad hair 330 00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:11,840 Speaker 1: complex that also serves to further segregate white salons versus 331 00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:15,280 Speaker 1: black salons, because there have even been court cases where 332 00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:19,840 Speaker 1: a white person working into the salon will refuse to 333 00:21:19,840 --> 00:21:21,760 Speaker 1: cut a black woman's hair because she says she just 334 00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:25,800 Speaker 1: doesn't know how to cut black hair. In quotes um 335 00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:29,800 Speaker 1: And Jennifer Scanlon, who did some research on the representation 336 00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:34,399 Speaker 1: of beauty parlors in film, says, quote the beauty parlor 337 00:21:34,520 --> 00:21:38,600 Speaker 1: plays a role in demarkeating difference, in imposing disciplinary practices 338 00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:43,040 Speaker 1: that enforce racism through beauty standards. Bell Hooks and others, however, 339 00:21:43,080 --> 00:21:46,679 Speaker 1: remember the beauty parlor not as a discipline whiteness, but 340 00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:51,600 Speaker 1: as an important ritual and an instruction in womanhood. And 341 00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:54,280 Speaker 1: another thing that Hooks was saying about those trips to 342 00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:57,080 Speaker 1: the salon, those ritualized trips to the salon, is that, 343 00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:00,680 Speaker 1: you know, even though we shouldn't fall prey to a 344 00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,280 Speaker 1: the male gaze or be you know, what society tells 345 00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:08,320 Speaker 1: us we should look like black or white. It is 346 00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:12,000 Speaker 1: sort of a part of womanhood about growing up and 347 00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:15,359 Speaker 1: not being able to escape those images and not being 348 00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:18,520 Speaker 1: able to or necessarily even wanting to escape the desire 349 00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,840 Speaker 1: to feel pretty. But then when you add on to that, though, 350 00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:29,960 Speaker 1: considering this judgment purely based on the texture of your hair, 351 00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:34,440 Speaker 1: how that must add another layer of complexity though to 352 00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:38,600 Speaker 1: that instruction in quote unquote womanhood and what might be 353 00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:45,040 Speaker 1: acceptable womanhood, because it's such a lie really that there 354 00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:48,320 Speaker 1: is good hair versus bad hair. This is something that 355 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:51,800 Speaker 1: a constancy On Russell points out in a paper she 356 00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:54,520 Speaker 1: wrote for the Harvard Black Letter Law Journal in two 357 00:22:54,520 --> 00:23:02,359 Speaker 1: tho eight. She says, actually, black hair can be curly, wavy, long, short, straight, xtured, fine, thick, medium, course, 358 00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:07,159 Speaker 1: oily dry, or combination of characteristics. Generally, they're fifteen to 359 00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:09,240 Speaker 1: twenty different types of hair on black women, with a 360 00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:12,040 Speaker 1: number of different types on one head. There is no 361 00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:16,320 Speaker 1: standard type of black hair. And she sided studies talking 362 00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:20,000 Speaker 1: about how there's typically more differences within a group than 363 00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:23,959 Speaker 1: across groups, and so going to a salon and being told, oh, 364 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:26,439 Speaker 1: we don't do that type of hair is actually a 365 00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:31,120 Speaker 1: bunch of bull honky. But so kind of amidst all 366 00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:35,560 Speaker 1: of these um racist attitudes and the deep lines of 367 00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:39,359 Speaker 1: segregation drawn between white hair salons and beauty parlors and 368 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:43,160 Speaker 1: black hair salons and beauty parlors, you have women who 369 00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:47,720 Speaker 1: were striking out on their own with the support of 370 00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:52,000 Speaker 1: the black salons behind them. Yeah, the black beauty industry 371 00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:55,680 Speaker 1: really starts out in the nineteen tens as a door 372 00:23:55,680 --> 00:24:00,199 Speaker 1: to door cottage industry, not unlike how hair dressing in 373 00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:04,200 Speaker 1: general really started out as a cottage industry in women's bathrooms, 374 00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:06,840 Speaker 1: on their front porches, in their kitchens. Um. And there 375 00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:09,639 Speaker 1: are two names that we have to call out, Madam C. J. 376 00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:15,240 Speaker 1: Walker and Annie Turnbow. Malone and Walker built up this 377 00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:21,240 Speaker 1: beauty industry after working for eighteen years as a laundress 378 00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:24,400 Speaker 1: and a widowed single mother, and she developed something called 379 00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:27,119 Speaker 1: the Walker hair Care System and became one of the 380 00:24:27,119 --> 00:24:30,560 Speaker 1: most successful women, not Black women, just women in general 381 00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:35,560 Speaker 1: in the United States in the early nineteen hundreds. Yeah, 382 00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,720 Speaker 1: she employed two thousand to ten thousand Walker agents and 383 00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:42,760 Speaker 1: started up Walker schools for training. Um. And it's interesting 384 00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:45,040 Speaker 1: to read about the product she created because they really 385 00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:47,960 Speaker 1: had mass appeal. This wasn't just a thing that was 386 00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:53,080 Speaker 1: just for black women. This was something that anybody would 387 00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:56,560 Speaker 1: who was looking for cleaner, healthier hair was drawn to 388 00:24:56,760 --> 00:25:02,159 Speaker 1: and so becoming a beauty cultural culturalist excuse me alongside 389 00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:05,280 Speaker 1: Madam C. J. Walker. It was a significant opportunity for 390 00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:10,760 Speaker 1: Black women who otherwise found few jobs outside of domestic work. Yeah, 391 00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:14,360 Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty, just to put it in some perspective, 392 00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:17,800 Speaker 1: clerical and sales jobs accounted for one third of all 393 00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:23,040 Speaker 1: white women's employment and only one percent of African American 394 00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:27,399 Speaker 1: women's paid labor. So Walker really did open up a 395 00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:32,399 Speaker 1: lot of valuable opportunities. Although she is sometimes criticized in 396 00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:36,359 Speaker 1: her hair care system is criticized for it being for 397 00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,440 Speaker 1: emphasizing straight hair and maybe emulating more of what we 398 00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:46,119 Speaker 1: would consider Euro or Caucasian hair. But you can't deny 399 00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:52,960 Speaker 1: that she was very much committed to civil rights as well, right, Yeah, 400 00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,920 Speaker 1: she was actually an organizer after the St. Louis race 401 00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:59,320 Speaker 1: Riot of nineteen seventeen, h Walker and some of her 402 00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:02,760 Speaker 1: agents alvanized ten thousand Black New Yorkers in the Negro 403 00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:06,960 Speaker 1: Silent Protests parade, petitioning the White House to make lynching 404 00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:10,040 Speaker 1: and mob violence a crime. And this is a theme 405 00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,119 Speaker 1: that we will get into here in a minute, that 406 00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:16,679 Speaker 1: we see throughout black beauty parlors. Yeah, and we just 407 00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,560 Speaker 1: have to quickly mention two Walker's protege, Annie Turnbow Malone, 408 00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:25,560 Speaker 1: whose beauty gospel was also sort of what's called, by 409 00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:31,920 Speaker 1: one academic, a racial culture. She really focused on promoting 410 00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:36,080 Speaker 1: clean hair, clean bodies to audiences because it would then 411 00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:41,200 Speaker 1: foster better appearance, more business opportunities, higher social standing. What 412 00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:46,000 Speaker 1: Turnbow was doing was not just selling a product, but 413 00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:50,359 Speaker 1: selling a hand up right away, I mean talk about 414 00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:55,560 Speaker 1: politics within appearance. Yeah. Well, and then if we move 415 00:26:55,720 --> 00:27:01,080 Speaker 1: into the civil rights movement of the nineteen sixties, those 416 00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:07,800 Speaker 1: kinds of racial equality politics were absolutely intertwined with the 417 00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:11,280 Speaker 1: beauty shop culture. This is something that Tiffany gil who 418 00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:15,240 Speaker 1: was an associate professor of History and African Diasporas Studies 419 00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:18,119 Speaker 1: at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the 420 00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,840 Speaker 1: author of the book Beauty Shop Politics, African American Women's 421 00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:25,840 Speaker 1: Activism in the Beauty Industry, in which she uncovers this 422 00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:31,200 Speaker 1: fascinating relationship between those black owned beauty shops and civil 423 00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:34,680 Speaker 1: rights organizing. Yeah, the black owned beauty shops really gave 424 00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:37,919 Speaker 1: women the perfect platforms for political activism because they didn't 425 00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,720 Speaker 1: risk employment in the process. They weren't working for a 426 00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:45,399 Speaker 1: white woman as a you know, a domestic servant in 427 00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:49,160 Speaker 1: their home. These women were running and working in their 428 00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:53,000 Speaker 1: own beauty shops. And in a lot of the sources 429 00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:55,120 Speaker 1: that we looked at, you know, it wasn't just in 430 00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:58,399 Speaker 1: these um black owned beauty shops. It was in women 431 00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:00,520 Speaker 1: run beauty shops as well, and it kind of in 432 00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:02,560 Speaker 1: general as far as like, oh, well, we don't have 433 00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:04,760 Speaker 1: to be worried about them. You know, they're just women, 434 00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,199 Speaker 1: or in this case, they're just black women. You know, 435 00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:11,320 Speaker 1: what's the danger in letting people gather and talk and so, 436 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,919 Speaker 1: you know, having beauty shops be overlooked a sort of 437 00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:19,119 Speaker 1: an innocuous gathering space actually allowed a lot of political 438 00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:24,760 Speaker 1: and social conversations, crucial social conversations to occur. Yeah, and 439 00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,760 Speaker 1: especially to occur among those women because another example that 440 00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,240 Speaker 1: she pointed out was that it wasn't just at a 441 00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:34,919 Speaker 1: church that would probably have a male preacher, so you 442 00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:37,480 Speaker 1: would then have sort of the male oversight. It was 443 00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:40,680 Speaker 1: really important that these women were talking to other women. 444 00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:45,920 Speaker 1: And Gil says that the beauty industry was central in 445 00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:49,960 Speaker 1: the political lives of black women, and there were also 446 00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:53,320 Speaker 1: black beauty organizations like the National Beauty Culturist League and 447 00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:57,080 Speaker 1: the United Beauty School Owners and Teachers Associations that lent 448 00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:02,600 Speaker 1: even more credibility to the perceptions of black professionals as well. 449 00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,200 Speaker 1: So even within the community with their roles as civil 450 00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:10,160 Speaker 1: rights organizers and the respect that they garnered from that, 451 00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:14,320 Speaker 1: and then professionally from a from a trade standpoint, you 452 00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:20,560 Speaker 1: have these professional organizations also giving them more credibility, and 453 00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:27,080 Speaker 1: it becomes a really important cornerstone of these women's lives 454 00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:31,360 Speaker 1: and their career potential. Yeah. I mean, it's it's interesting 455 00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:35,320 Speaker 1: to to talk about that division as far as gender 456 00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,479 Speaker 1: and race goes, because I mean, these were spaces for 457 00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,360 Speaker 1: women that you could get away from men and the 458 00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,800 Speaker 1: domineering male forces in your life and talk about anything 459 00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,040 Speaker 1: from the silly stuff in your life to the more 460 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,840 Speaker 1: serious and in looking at the divisions between black and 461 00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:54,600 Speaker 1: white spaces, black owned beauty shops that allowed black women 462 00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,720 Speaker 1: to help one another. I mean, I think it was 463 00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:01,520 Speaker 1: Gil that talked about how even today, a lot of 464 00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:05,840 Speaker 1: black owned beauty shops are still sources of health information 465 00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:10,240 Speaker 1: to the community. Yeah, there was an example of one 466 00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,320 Speaker 1: woman who owns a beauty shop who does a lot 467 00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:18,320 Speaker 1: in terms of HIV education, like safe sex kinds of things. Um. 468 00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:23,360 Speaker 1: But yeah, it's absolutely still going on today. Although it's 469 00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:25,920 Speaker 1: we don't have that much more to say about beauty 470 00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:29,040 Speaker 1: shops because the history is already so fraught with so 471 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:35,440 Speaker 1: many issues, and I feel like it's not that much 472 00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:39,400 Speaker 1: different today. I feel like it's still very segregated, it's 473 00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:43,640 Speaker 1: not very talked about, and we just kind of let 474 00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:49,720 Speaker 1: it happen. Um. And there's also socio economically, Uh, this 475 00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:58,000 Speaker 1: trend where you're either having unisex chain very inexpensive salons 476 00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:01,360 Speaker 1: or barbershops pop up versus is the higher and higher 477 00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,400 Speaker 1: end salons, right, And I think. I mean, I read 478 00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:07,080 Speaker 1: one stat that said that that's been a trend since 479 00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:12,160 Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, that total divergence the low price unisex 480 00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:14,440 Speaker 1: chain or the high end expensive salons. And at the 481 00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:19,280 Speaker 1: same time you have the humongous, deep, steep decline of 482 00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:22,520 Speaker 1: the barbershops. Well, and I wonder then if maybe our 483 00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:29,400 Speaker 1: it's we've replaced those racist undertones with classiest undertones, where 484 00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:34,840 Speaker 1: it's not so much the focus on keeping black and 485 00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:39,360 Speaker 1: white people separate, but more keeping you know, going in 486 00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,560 Speaker 1: for a high end experience, that kind of thing. That 487 00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,160 Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah, And I mean, well, some of the 488 00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,160 Speaker 1: men interviewed in in some of this research we're talking 489 00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:53,360 Speaker 1: about going to barbershops and how you know, they talked 490 00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:55,640 Speaker 1: to some men who wished they could still be going 491 00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:57,760 Speaker 1: to a barber but that just wasn't a service that 492 00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:00,360 Speaker 1: was available to them anymore for some reason or another. 493 00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:02,680 Speaker 1: But they didn't want to go to a high end 494 00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:07,000 Speaker 1: salon and shell out sixty bucks, nor did they want 495 00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:10,080 Speaker 1: to go to the unisex shop in the mall and 496 00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:12,920 Speaker 1: and not know the person cutting their hair. And so 497 00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,560 Speaker 1: I'm just wondering also if the decline barbershops has to 498 00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:17,920 Speaker 1: do with cultural norms as far as like, well, you're 499 00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,240 Speaker 1: a dude, you're not supposed to care about that. Oh yeah, 500 00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:23,720 Speaker 1: there's so much masculinity stuff tied up into barbershops, so 501 00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,480 Speaker 1: we didn't really even have time to go into. In 502 00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:31,480 Speaker 1: Helene Lawson's paper working on hair, she spent some time 503 00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:35,880 Speaker 1: in barbershops. It was just talking about how the conversations 504 00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,640 Speaker 1: that you over hear barbershops was so markedly different from 505 00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,080 Speaker 1: what you hear in salons, and a lot of it 506 00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:46,280 Speaker 1: is homophobic or just about men's things. And granted though 507 00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:50,760 Speaker 1: she was looking at a very specific geographic area, which 508 00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:53,320 Speaker 1: she probably wouldn't hear the same kinds of things if 509 00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:57,960 Speaker 1: you were to walk into, say a Manhattan men's salon, 510 00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:03,080 Speaker 1: But it's it's fascinating once you really start thinking about 511 00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,720 Speaker 1: those spaces. Yeah, because I mean, as Lawson was saying, 512 00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,200 Speaker 1: there's a lot of on both the part of the 513 00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:11,960 Speaker 1: client and the hairstylist, there's a lot of kind of 514 00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:17,440 Speaker 1: concern for identity management. And so that makes me wonder like, 515 00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:20,480 Speaker 1: are we ever going to cross these boundaries? Are the 516 00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:25,760 Speaker 1: lines between black, white male female personal spaces going to 517 00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,040 Speaker 1: be erased when it comes to body work? Yeah, and 518 00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:33,080 Speaker 1: that identity management really hit home with me as I 519 00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:37,920 Speaker 1: was researching this, because I remembered going to my mom's 520 00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:41,239 Speaker 1: salon to get my haircut for the first time, and 521 00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:44,840 Speaker 1: it was one of the first places that I really 522 00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:51,120 Speaker 1: remember thinking about my appearance and my attractiveness because the 523 00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:52,840 Speaker 1: Barbara it was a guy who would cut my hair 524 00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,240 Speaker 1: and he would always, you know, call me princess. So 525 00:33:56,520 --> 00:34:00,880 Speaker 1: you're so pretty, pretty princess, and I loved it. It 526 00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:02,440 Speaker 1: was because it was like the first time I had 527 00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,280 Speaker 1: been like directly praised outside of the hall for being 528 00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:09,960 Speaker 1: a cute little girl. And yeah, I was like, whoa, 529 00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:12,320 Speaker 1: So that must be weird that I call you princess 530 00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:14,520 Speaker 1: all the time. It was a little weird. Should stop, 531 00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:16,440 Speaker 1: but you know, I don't mind. But no, I I 532 00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,040 Speaker 1: really it's like the gendering goes all the way back 533 00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,200 Speaker 1: that far. Yeah. No, I remember going with my dad 534 00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:24,160 Speaker 1: to get his hair cut and it was not he 535 00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:29,080 Speaker 1: did not go to a barbershop. He went to a sellon. Um. 536 00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:31,479 Speaker 1: But you know, side note, I was very very little. 537 00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:32,879 Speaker 1: I was maybe three years old, and I looked out 538 00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,360 Speaker 1: the window and the hair salon was like slightly elevated 539 00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,440 Speaker 1: from other buildings and I could see like the exhaust 540 00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:42,320 Speaker 1: from some fans somewhere, and I ran out of the 541 00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,960 Speaker 1: salon screaming that the building was on fire. Small little 542 00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:48,600 Speaker 1: things we remember, So you weren't. You weren't thinking about 543 00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:50,879 Speaker 1: what a pretty little princess you are. Now I don't 544 00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,760 Speaker 1: even remember. I think my mom took me to Great Clips, 545 00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,240 Speaker 1: which was fine, literally, I mean until I was about twelve, 546 00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:01,120 Speaker 1: and that was fine, and till I went in and 547 00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,680 Speaker 1: this woman grabbed my bangs in the middle of my 548 00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:07,839 Speaker 1: forehead with one fist and then just chopped across and 549 00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:10,280 Speaker 1: so they were all zig zaggy, and I was terrified. 550 00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:12,760 Speaker 1: And that's when I started going to a ground up ladies. Hello, 551 00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:17,239 Speaker 1: the salon is so so strange to think about this, 552 00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:19,240 Speaker 1: and it's gonna I'm gonna and you know what, Caroline, 553 00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:21,319 Speaker 1: I'm going to think about all this stuff every time 554 00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:23,640 Speaker 1: I go get my haircut now. And well, it actually, 555 00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:25,279 Speaker 1: I mean, not to keep rattling on. I mean it 556 00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:27,480 Speaker 1: made me think about my mom's hair salon that she 557 00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:30,239 Speaker 1: went to because it was run by a man and 558 00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,360 Speaker 1: people from Atlanta might recognize the name Bob Steele, but 559 00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:35,760 Speaker 1: my mom actually went to high school with Bob Steele 560 00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,160 Speaker 1: and he started a salon in Atlanta, and I think 561 00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:41,880 Speaker 1: there's like three or four locations now. And so she 562 00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,239 Speaker 1: had her haircut by a dude in Atlanta, and then 563 00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:47,799 Speaker 1: I did too when I went there. Well, there you go, 564 00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:54,600 Speaker 1: summing up nothing. So if we have any hairstylist, barber's 565 00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:59,080 Speaker 1: beauty shop attendee, so listening, we want to hear from you. 566 00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:03,799 Speaker 1: What do you think about this fraud history of hairdressing 567 00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:07,080 Speaker 1: in the United States. Um, there's there's a lot in here. 568 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:11,680 Speaker 1: Let us know your thoughts. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com. 569 00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,400 Speaker 1: You can tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast, and you 570 00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:17,799 Speaker 1: can also message us on Facebook. And we have a 571 00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:20,200 Speaker 1: couple of letters to share with you when we come 572 00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:23,279 Speaker 1: right back from a quick break and now back to 573 00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:28,799 Speaker 1: our letters. I have a letter here from Elizabeth in 574 00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:33,400 Speaker 1: response to our science podcast. She said, I listened to 575 00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:36,000 Speaker 1: the science podcast while doing basic science research in a 576 00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,440 Speaker 1: lab at a medical university, actually using pipe its and 577 00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:43,120 Speaker 1: flasks to do a tissue culture. I'm working towards a 578 00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:46,200 Speaker 1: PhD in cell biology, and when people find out where 579 00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:48,000 Speaker 1: I go to school, they assume I'm studying to be 580 00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:50,720 Speaker 1: a nurse. And when I say no, Their eyes usually 581 00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:52,600 Speaker 1: widen and they ask you if I'm in med school. 582 00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:54,800 Speaker 1: When I tell them I'm studying to become a scientist, 583 00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:58,760 Speaker 1: the usual responses are good for you as a woman, wow, 584 00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,160 Speaker 1: or I was never good at science. In recent years, 585 00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,800 Speaker 1: I've been asked about the show The Big Bang Theory occasionally. 586 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:08,799 Speaker 1: All in all, the general public lacks and understanding of 587 00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:11,960 Speaker 1: what scientists do, and people are sometimes even intimidated when 588 00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:14,440 Speaker 1: they find out that I work in science. One thing 589 00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,240 Speaker 1: I'd like people to understand is that scientists were probably 590 00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:20,399 Speaker 1: not the cool kids in school. Many were and are 591 00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:23,520 Speaker 1: nerdy and often feel awkward, if not outright anxious in 592 00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,120 Speaker 1: social situations. We spend most of our time in the 593 00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:28,959 Speaker 1: lab interacting with the same handful of people every day. 594 00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:31,480 Speaker 1: Be nice to us, say hello, and please do not 595 00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,319 Speaker 1: let the mirror mention of science intimidate you. Trust me. 596 00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:36,960 Speaker 1: When I'm out on my own time, the last thing 597 00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:39,960 Speaker 1: I want to talk about is science, and I'll never 598 00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,360 Speaker 1: think you're stupid for not being quote unquote good at science. 599 00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,720 Speaker 1: What I have in scientific ability, I lack in social grace, 600 00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:48,560 Speaker 1: and since I've spent much of my adult life being 601 00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:52,080 Speaker 1: a science nerd, there are many many things about which 602 00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:56,200 Speaker 1: I know next to nothing. Your podcast helps me past 603 00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:58,960 Speaker 1: the hours of sometimes monotonous work in the lab, and 604 00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:02,960 Speaker 1: thank you. I have a letter here from Ellen. She 605 00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:05,920 Speaker 1: is a female software engineer and would like to share 606 00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:10,840 Speaker 1: her experiences. She says, I fortunately have not encountered the 607 00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:14,000 Speaker 1: programmer archetype too much in my workplace. I agree one 608 00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:17,319 Speaker 1: that it's far more prevalent in the startup community. I 609 00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:19,840 Speaker 1: work at a large, well known corporation. When I go 610 00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:23,000 Speaker 1: to conferences, meetups, and workshops, I am usually either the 611 00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:25,319 Speaker 1: only woman there or one of a handful. I do 612 00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:28,080 Speaker 1: find that male developers at these events are very interested 613 00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,799 Speaker 1: in talking to me. Most of the feedback I've gotten 614 00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:33,080 Speaker 1: has been positive. These men will say how cool it 615 00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:35,440 Speaker 1: is to have a woman participating and getting involved in 616 00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,560 Speaker 1: the community. I did have an instructor keep commenting on 617 00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:40,840 Speaker 1: my looks in one workshop I was in. It was 618 00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,000 Speaker 1: meant to be complimentary, but all it did was make 619 00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,279 Speaker 1: me feel even more separate and isolated from the men 620 00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:47,359 Speaker 1: in the room. I did work on an all male 621 00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:49,600 Speaker 1: team once and felt like I constantly had to prove 622 00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:51,600 Speaker 1: that I wasn't going to go to HR every time 623 00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,200 Speaker 1: someone cracked a joke. The pressure to prove that I 624 00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:56,000 Speaker 1: could be one of the guys on that team felt 625 00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,440 Speaker 1: overwhelming to me, even though it was pressure that mostly 626 00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,640 Speaker 1: came from myself. I'm extremely fortunate to work on a 627 00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:04,600 Speaker 1: team with several female developers. The lead tech on our 628 00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:06,680 Speaker 1: team is a woman and is actually seen as one 629 00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:09,319 Speaker 1: of the most valuable assets in the company. I've been 630 00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,279 Speaker 1: very lucky to have such a smart, competent, and assertive 631 00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:15,959 Speaker 1: woman as a mentor. Thanks so much for all you do, 632 00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:18,680 Speaker 1: and thanks for what you do, Ellen, and thank you 633 00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:22,319 Speaker 1: for writing in. We really appreciate everybody sharing their stories 634 00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:25,279 Speaker 1: because we want to get the word out about how 635 00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:29,719 Speaker 1: many amazing opportunities there are out there for ladies like you. Exactly, 636 00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:32,880 Speaker 1: I keep here women in STEM letters coming to us. 637 00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:34,960 Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at discovery dot com is where you can 638 00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,759 Speaker 1: send your emails. You can also message us on Facebook, 639 00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:42,280 Speaker 1: tweet us at mom Stuff podcast, and you can also 640 00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:45,000 Speaker 1: for fun, follow us on Instagram at stuff mom Never 641 00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:48,239 Speaker 1: Told You. And of course you should head over to 642 00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:51,680 Speaker 1: our YouTube channel. It's YouTube dot com slash stuff Mom 643 00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:58,520 Speaker 1: Never Told You, and don't forget to subscribe for more 644 00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:10,319 Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other time topics works dot com. 645 00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,359 Speaker 1: Netflix streams TV shows and movies directly to your home, 646 00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:16,799 Speaker 1: saving you time, money, and hassle. As a Netflix member, 647 00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:19,960 Speaker 1: you can instantly watch TV episodes and movies streaming directly 648 00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:23,600 Speaker 1: to your computer, tablet, mobile device, or gaming console. Get 649 00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:26,400 Speaker 1: a free thirty day trial membership. Go to Netflix dot 650 00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:28,239 Speaker 1: com slash mom and sign up now.