AS FAR as hair is concerned, I'm low maintenance. It grows out of my head, I wash it every day and whenever the ends split, I get a steady-handed friend to trim off the bottom inch or so. So far, this parsimonious routine has suited me fine, but what I didn't realise was how much it had shielded me from one of the most iniquitous facts of modern life – namely that hair is a feminist issue.
The truth was hammered home last year when the husband and I took two-year-old Junior to the barber to get his first proper haircut – mainly because my furtive snippings were making him look uncannily like Worzel Gummidge. To help Junior feel less pa
nicked about the strange new process, we decided we would all have a haircut together.
I went first. It took five minutes to give me a straightforward dry trim. Then it was the husband's turn, and, after quarter of an hour under the clippers, he was admiring his immaculate French Crop. Finally, a recalcitrant Junior went for the chop and, despite loads of sugary bribes, he yelled, squirmed and generally made it as difficult as possible for the barber to get near him. Under the circumstances, the guy did brilliantly and, after half an hour of struggle, Junior emerged with a great haircut.
Then it was time to pay and that's when the veil of complacency was ripped from my eyes. Junior's haircut cost £7. Husband's cost £10. Mine cost £20.
How? In God's name, how did my merest brush with the scissors cost more than the other two put together? And, of course, the answer is simple: I'm female.
A new survey of our hair-care habits has revealed that the average woman spends an astonishing £27,722 on her crowning glory during her adult life (so that doesn't include sparkly scrunchies from Claire's Accessories, then). This figure rises to £33,048 if you come from Glasgow, but, obviously, the Scottish wind and rain means we all have to struggle that bit harder to keep our barnets in shape.
In contrast, the average British male spends a paltry £12,696 on his hair, and I bet that figure was skewed by gay guys on the pull and David Beckham.
It's just not fair. Like most men, my husband can happily visit a barber, come out looking like an extra from This Is England and not bat an eyelid while it slowly grows back into something more normal – eventually becoming the much-desired French Crop via what I describe as "trainee policeman". Perhaps it's the terror of something equally awful happening to me that's kept me away from proper hairdressers for so many years, but, if I'd had as many bad haircuts as he's had, I'd be permanently in tears. Unfortunately for women, the bald truth about hair is that, on the whole, we care and men don't. So we pay the price.
Of course, it also works the other way, because the more you pay, the more you care. If a bloke has spent £10 on a haircut and it's not much good, he can afford to laugh it off and wait for the regrowth to kick in. If a woman has paid £100 and she still doesn't look like Jennifer Aniston, she's got grounds for hysterics and a lawsuit.
But even in the most expensive salons, there are always two sets of prices and the gentlemen's are inevitably lower than the ladies'. I really don't see why this should be, because surely a head of highlights is a head of highlights, whether it's male or female? The fact that George Michael would pay less than Sharon Osborne, just because he's got a Y chromosome, is without doubt one of the great injustices of our time.
Infuriated by the extreme hairdressing double-standards highlighted by the survey, I decided to avenge my gender, so I asked my husband: "What do you do in the barber's? Why does men's hair cost them so much less than women's?"
He shrugged. "We just talk football and get our hair cut. We don't have cups of coffee and hairspray and stuff, like you lot."
So I marched around to the barbers, sat down and announced: "I want a dry trim. Yes, as you've noticed, I am a woman, but I expect you to charge me the same price you'd charge a man. OK?" "Sure," he replied, pulling out the scissors. "So, what do you think about George Burley as Scotland manager, then?" And suddenly, £27,722 seemed a very small price to pay not to have to talk about football.
The full article contains 785 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
