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Communication Across Cultures
Perceptions of Hair Color: A Gray Area

Read the passage below and check your comprehension by answering the following questions. Then “submit” your work.

Anne Kreamer looked at a photograph of herself standing alongside her teenaged daughter and suddenly came to a realization. She did not appear as her daughter’s “faintly hip older friend,” but rather as “a schlubby, middle-aged woman with her hair dyed too dark.” Inspired to authenticity, and with a bit of curiosity about what she really looked like, Kreamer decided to ditch the dye (Kreamer, 2006).

Gray hair is fraught with cultural meaning: for a woman, it might imply that she is past her prime. Many women worry that going gray will harm their careers (and there is some evidence that they are correct; Sixel, 2011). And although gray hair on men has long been considered “distinguished,” the number of men choosing to cover their gray is rising (Daswani, 2012). Women typically begin dying their hair because they feel they are too young to be gray; however, some young women have dyed their hair gray to stand out and be different. Even young celebrities like Kelly Osbourne and Lady Gaga have experimented with gray hair. Instagram found a way to make it hip by using the hashtag #grannyhair—from the back, some might mistake a young gray-haired woman for her grandmother.

After Kreamer grew out her hair, she tried an experiment. She went to an online dating site and created profiles of herself with her new silver locks and with her hair colored brown. The gray-haired image drew more positive attention than the brown-haired one, even when she tried the same experiment in different cities. Kreamer theorizes that her authentic, natural look sent a signal that she was not hiding anything from the get-go and was actually an advantage in dating situations (Kreamer, 2007).

THINK ABOUT THIS

1. How do you perceive men or women with gray hair? Are your perceptions of someone changed if you know they are at an age when they would normally be gray, but obviously dye their hair?
2. Do our perceptions of gray hair carry the same meaning at age 30? 40? 50? 60?
3. Why might more men be opting to cover their gray? Have perceptions of age and masculinity changed, or are men simply more comfortable at a salon than they used to be?