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.