Hair, Masculinity, and Sexism

I have a story to tell, and an observation to make.

Recently my boyfriend was fired, or rather his permanent hiring was terminated, because of his appearance. For those of you who don't know him my boyfriend is the epitome of business casual professionalism. He is all polo shirts and slacks with no overbearing patterns or flashiness. His shirt is always tucked in and his shoes are practical and well cared for. He is constantly clean-shaven and is almost obsessively clean. Being dirty actually bothers him to the point of nausea. He also has long flowing locks of dark hair that are scrubbed clean every single day and brushed free of tangles.

So here is the story of how a certain unnamed medical corporation used sexism as a rationalization for firing one of their best IT people.

After a 6 month period of contracting to the position this IT department decided that Jonathan was a good fit for their team and began the hiring process. This particular institution has a very complicated bureaucracy when it comes to hiring and they had to recreate a position and have him apply before they were able to fully hire him. He had applied and been assured that within a few days his job would be secured.

In the meantime another member of the team found a better job and was thrown a going away party. At this party Jonathan's boss (from here known as . . . Eugene that is a sufficiently douchey name) 's boss made a comment to Eugene that he later relayed to Jonathan as “ Does he always wear his hair down?” This sparked a conversation that ended with Eugene suggesting that he 'might want to wear his hair in a pony tail. Up to him and not that big a deal'.

The next day Jonathan went into work, hair still down and intending to put it up before leaving his office. saw, and Eugene inquired as to why it wasn't in a ponytail as he thought Jonathan had decided to wear it in a ponytail. Jonathan told him that he was going to wear it down in the office but would be sure to pull it back before leaving his office.

Later that day Eugene called him into the office and told Jonathan that while wearing his hair down wasn't against the dress code, and he had never been told to wear it up, he was no longer being hired because he hadn't pulled his hair back. This evidently demonstrated that he was so unmotivated that Eugene felt uncomfortable hiring him.

Here is where I start my observations. This was incredibly sexist and had little to nothing to do with motivation and professionalism.

The reason I say this is that Jonathan's direct supervisor is a woman with even longer hair than Jonathan, which is saying something. She wears her hair down often and Jonathan never wore his down until seeing her do the same with hers. When asked about his hair he assumed that she must put hers up before leaving the office and decided to take the same tactic. This was not the case. It was not the long hair that dictated this special dress issue, but the hair coupled with his sex.

The argument that this is about motivation assumes that asking someone to change the way they wear their hair when there are no issues of hygiene or even professionalism at stake is acceptable. While I would argue that it is never appropriate it is certainly not appropriate when sex starts becoming a determining factor. It is only okay if there are health or hygiene factors involved (men wearing athletic cups in certain physical jobs or women wearing proper support garments)

Telling a woman with short hair she needs to grow it out is not acceptable unless you do the same to male employees. It is not okay to have dress codes that enforce skirts for women and pants for men. It is not okay to tell women they have to wear makeup when men don't. The only time when this might be acceptable is if the job is something like modeling. . . but Information Services is not a glamour job, it is about skills. Business professional clothing and cleanliness really should be the extent of the dress code.

So the fact that a woman wears her long hair down without reprimand is proof that this request was never reasonable. The fact that Jon was willing to wear his hair up isn't proof that there is no issue, the issue is that he shouldn't have to. It is the same appearance prejudice that comes with tattoos and piercings but worse because it is fueled by sexist ideas of what appearance should be. The reason these are sexist is not just that they are different for the sexes, but that the reason it is seen as improper for a man to have long hair is because we consider that feminine. The same for men wearing dresses. It is okay for a woman to wear pants or have short hair because we consider the pursuit of anything perceived as masculine as valuable and disregard anything considered feminine.

There is no legal recourse, this is “the way the world is” but that doesn't make it right. Think about this when we say the world has no place for feminism, or that feminism doesn't work for men's goals as well. There are still people being affected by sexism and misogyny every day, and they are not always women.

Priorities and Prevention

If you want to know what this blog is going to be all about, then you will have to wait for another post, because right now I have something that needs to be said and I don't have time for all the niceties.

I am an Okie, born and bred. My feet are stained with red clay and Gary England is the closest thing to a prophet I have ever seen. The new tattoo on my ankle is testimony to the fact that as flawed as my home state is, I am forever bound to this land and these people. There is plenty to complain about as a progressive in Oklahoma (reproductive justice, lgbtq rights, education funding. . .yada yada) but I never thought I would have such a strong opinion about how the state handles weather related programs. For goodness sake, the National Weather Service is based here, and if there is anything we are famous for it is our violently active weather. We grow up watching storms from our front porches and jumping in cars to chase because we can't help our desire to rope the wind. As individuals we may seem a bit crazy, but as a community no one can fault the exemplary service that Oklahomans are willing to provide not only to our own, but to any community in need of help after disaster. Bombings, hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes, you name it and we will come give relief. This empathy and generosity is one of my favorite things about my state.

Unfortunately, there is a piece of government business that has hamstrung efforts to help the community prepare for violent storms. In the wake of the May 3, 1999 tornado a rebate program was put into place to help families afford storm shelters. How this program worked was that on a first come, first serve basis (after providing assistance to families in areas affected by the tornado), anyone could apply for and receive up to 75% of the cost of their shelter (with a maximum of $2,000) as long as the shelter was up to certain FEMA set standards. There were no restrictions for the program that would have eliminated certain families and no preference to income of recipients. Since then there have been several more rebate programs initiated after different weather related issues that had basically the same parameters. In theory this sounds like a great program that would be helpful to many Oklahomans. It is how these programs have operated in practice that has me up in arms.

Since there are no limits on who may take advantage of this programs many families have taken advantage of the program to install more elaborate shelters than they could originally have afforded. This would not be an issue except for the fact that the program is funded by residual federal monies left over after dealing with problems related to whatever disaster preceded the rebate. This means that the amount of money available for rebates is limited. So when a more affluent family takes advantage of the program to purchase a shelter for say $5,000 dollars that is less conspicuous or more comfortable, then the $2,000 rebate they received means that a family that couldn't afford a shelter at all without the rebate is being deprived of that assistance. The more affluent family could have easily afforded a $2-3000 shelter since they had so much left to pay after the rebate. If they had purchased a shelter at normal price then the rebate would have still been available to a less affluent family and two shelters could have been installed. So the set up of these programs may be directly cutting the amount of shelters that a able to be installed, and thus contributing to death and injury tolls during disaster.

There is a problem with the priorities exemplified here. When it comes to safety these kind of programs should take NEED into context when writing up parameters. There is no reason that families who are struggling to get by should be passed by for assistance when they are the ones that need it most. First come, first serve prizes access to information and ability to quickly act over urgency. It needs to stop. So many people have died in the recent tornadoes and who knows how many of them could have been saved if more families had access to a rebate on a shelter. The priority that should be foremost in our minds is prevention of death and injury, not personal gain or ease of enactment.