After a lovely few weeks off to visit family, I called my favoured hair salon in Ottawa where I go to school to set up an appointment with my only trusted stylist. You see, I had been through a few tragic hair disasters until a year ago when I finally found someone who cut it right every time and also made me feel fantastic. Plus, my graduation photos will be taken next week so I needed to be looking my best as these images will be displayed prominently on the mantel in all parents, grandparents and relatives’ homes for many years to come.
The problem: The hair salon shut down over the holidays
The bigger problem: While many of the stylists moved to other salons in area, MY stylist, the only person in the world who I would trust to give me an excellent hair cut one week before grad photos, is now working at a males-only barber shop.
I called of course, and begged, but according to their lease agreement, they are not allowed to cut women’s hair. At all.
What’s going on here? I remember an incident in the summer where there was a protest in support of a butch woman who was refused service at a barber shop, even though she favoured short haircuts. I thought it was just that barber shop, not all of them. And really, while many hair salons probably do have a majority of female-identified clientele, I don’t recall any of them having a “women only” policy.
I’m trying to situate my mini crisis in a broader context here, and it seems as though there are a lot of discriminatory policies at play here, in the social expectations for women’s hair, in the gendered price points for a simple trim or short hair styling for women and men, and in the ability of some salons to serve only one half of an imagined binary.
Thoughts? Shall we mount a rebellion? Or begin the search for another stylist and be comforted that grad photo retakes are always an option?
3 Comments
Their “lease agreement” keeps them from cutting women’s hair? Is there really some kind of commercial space usage condition in Ottawa real estate laws that says that?
I’m just trying to figure out if the issue(and there is an issue here) is with whatever the Ottawa equivalent of DHCR is, or elsewhere.
I would guess it has more to do w/ leasing booth space for cutting hair w/in the barber shop and it’s an agreement with the owner of the shop, not law.
I’ve never heard of such a policy, but I don’t find it surprising. I feel like it’s about preserving a male centric space…which while annoying and sexist, is not illegal or anything. Private businesses can set totally arbitrary rules like this; hence the existence of spaces like women’s only gyms. (At least in the US, forgive my lack of knowledge about Canadian business law.)
I also hate completely nonsensical gendered pricing. My male partner doesn’t want to have busy eyebrows, but when he goes to threading places, they charge between $1-5 more for him. Ya know, because women ALWAYS have easier to thread brows.