Hair and care: appearance and bodily regulation within institutional settings

The provision of care provides a context for the regulation, surveillance and control of older bodies (Lee-Treweek Reference Lee-Treweek1997; Twigg Reference Twigg2006; Ward et al. Reference Ward, Vass, Aggarwal, Garfield and Cybyk2008b). Consequently, in care settings and in caring relationships, the hair of older people is open to be read and judged according to criteria that reflect institutional priorities. On visiting his mother following her admission to a mental hospital in Yorkshire, the playwright Alan Bennett recollected:

This extract underlines how admission to care involves relinquishing control over the body as it becomes subject to institutional imperatives. In the hospital, to be bathed and the hair washed indicates a concern for cleanliness and hygiene – while the combing and curling of hair and matters of appearance are shown to stand outside of nursing practice. Bennett's observations signal the way that past images of madness still haunt perceptions of the unwell, with hair a key symbol in the visual coding of mental disease (Gilman Reference Gilman1996). A number of studies of institutionalised care for older people have drawn attention to the emphasis placed upon outward appearance as an indicator of the provision of good care. For instance, in the United States of America (USA), Reed-Danahay (Reference Reed-Danahay2001: 54) found that nursing assistants in care homes competed with one another ‘by at least having their residents “look good”’ in an effort to counter the perceived stigma of Alzheimer's. The author noted that the care workers felt rewarded during outings when members of the public failed to recognise that those they cared for had dementia.

Based upon research in the UK, Lee-Treweek (Reference Lee-Treweek1997) characterised the provision of care as ‘a production line’ that created some ‘semblance of gendered normality’ through the assembly of ‘lounge standard’ residents. In this context, appearance and image become less a matter of self-expression and more the means to counter an expectation of cognitive decline widely associated with old age. In dementia care, outward appearance and grooming have also been treated as signalling the relative comfort and welfare of individual residents. For instance, Ward and colleagues' (Reference Ward, Vass, Aggarwal, Garfield and Cybyk2008b) observations in residential dementia care led them to see an equation between a neat and orderly appearance and the resident's wellbeing. They found that when judging the quality of care, relatives placed greater emphasis upon appearance and presentation than upon the frequency or quality of communication with the residents. The research also found that maintaining an image through hairstyling and dress helped to support an embodied biographical continuity for residents, at least in the eyes of their relatives. In the same study, hair also figured in the meanings attached to dementia care for workers. For instance, one care worker is quoted describing a resident she once key-worked, who moved to another unit:

This quotation indicates that some carer workers prioritise attention to appearance as a means to support wellbeing and as an expression of the bond they have with particular residents. Observational research in care homes has also drawn connections between hair, appearance and sexual identity. Hubbard et al. (Reference Hubbard, Cook, Tester and Downs2003) found that residents frequently expressed themselves sexually, using both verbal and non-verbal communication. A visit from the hairdresser provided care staff with opportunities to attend to the appearance and presentation of residents, often by paying compliments that acknowledged their gendered and sexualised identities through reference to their attractiveness. With regard to care-home residents' interest in hairdressing, one report linked access to hairdressing to the maintenance of dignity and highlighted how difficult it can be for residents themselves to exercise control over their appearance (Age Concern England 2006). Age Concern England noted that the then level of Personal Expenses Allowance (PEA) failed to account for such basic but highly valued services as hairdressing. The report argued that ‘maintaining a good appearance is vital for the well-being and confidence of each individual. … The PEA must be sufficient to enable people in care homes to afford a decent standard of personal care and clothing, including a haircut’ (2006: 14). Despite the significance attached to hairdressing in care settings for older people, it is a service and practice that remains largely unexplored in the literature on care and little is known of the relationships that develop between older service users and hairdressers over time.

Hairdressers and older clients

Scrutiny of interactions between hairdressers and their clients, including ethnographies of hairdressing salons, has provided insights into this particular personal service encounter (Hall, Hockey and Robinson Reference Hall, Hockey and Robinson2007; McCarthy Reference McCarthy and Coupland2000; Nordberg Reference Nordberg2005) and into hairdressers' working conditions and workplace pressures (Cohen Reference Cohen2010; Gimlin Reference Gimlin1996; Lee et al. Reference Lee, Jewson, Bishop, Felstead, Fuller, Kakavelakis and Unwin2007). To date, however, very few hairdressing studies have taken ageing as a focus (Furman Reference Furman1997; Symonds and Holland Reference Symonds, Holland, Ward and Bytheway2008). In the USA, the role of hairdressers as confidantes of their clients, privileged to personal information and troubles-telling, has been investigated with particular emphasis upon the help-giving role they play and how this might be enhanced (Wiesenfeld and Weis Reference Wiesenfeld and Weis1979; Cowen et al. Reference Cowen, Gesten, Boike, Norton, Wilson and DeStefano1979). A recent survey specifically explored relations between hairdressers and older clients, noting that some relationships had developed in the course of many years' regular appointments (Anderson, Cimbal and Maile Reference Anderson, Cimbal and Maile2010). The study found that hairstylists rated themselves as well able to recognise the signs of conditions such as depression, and recommended more formal links between salons and mental health services and the promotion of hairdressers' gate-keeping role.

In the UK, some ethnographic research has considered the perspectives of hairdressers. For instance, Hall, Hockey and Robinson (Reference Hall, Hockey and Robinson2007) suggested that male hairdressers offer an insight into an alternative mode of contemporary masculinity and noted they often provide less obvious forms of body work, including the care of older customers. The study also highlighted the difficulties for older hairdressers in a youth-oriented workplace. In an ethnographic study of beauty treatments for older women, Paulson concluded that beauticians act as ‘cultural intermediaries’ from whom older women can ‘learn new bodily dispositions and construct their subjective experiences of the ageing body in new ways’ (2008: 258). To date, Furman's (Reference Furman1997) ethnography of a New York beauty salon frequented by older Jewish women remains the most detailed and nuanced exploration of hair, ageing and gender. The author gave prominence to the relationship that older women have with their self-image, and argued that they are ‘twice-objectified’ when they look in the mirror as ‘a woman and as old woman’ (1997: 109). While the author found it difficult to engage the older clients in direct talk of ageism and its impact upon their lives, discussions of hair and appearance provided a vehicle for exploring behaviour towards older women that is often not noticed: ‘it is the usual way people act without thinking … ageist attitudes which are “natural” hence invisible and politically inaccessible’ (1997: 122).

Hair, embodiment and gendered ageing

None of the male diarists recorded hair-related comments or mentioned trips to the barbers as instances where age became relevant to their day-to-day experiences. Indeed, very few men touched upon the topic of self-presentation and appearance at all when discussing discrimination in later life. The overall absence of appearance-related contributions to RoAD from men is open to interpretation. Some men may find it less easy to talk about the way they look or how this changes with age, although Oberg (Reference Oberg and Faircloth2003) has shown that direct questioning can support discussions of this type. The RoAD experience suggests that eliciting insights into men's self-understanding of their appearance requires overcoming conventions about what is considered appropriate ‘men's talk’ according to a hegemonic form of masculinity (Connell Reference Connell1987). However, the appropriation of the blue rinse by older gay men such as Quentin Crisp (the writer, actor and celebrated raconteur) evinces that not all older men share the same reticence concerning their hair.

The RoAD diaries, consultations and interviews confirmed that discriminatory experiences attached to ageing are often gendered in nature (Macdonald and Rich Reference Macdonald and Rich1983; Sontag Reference Sontag1972). In contrast to the low number of appearance-related contributions from men, many women gave prominence to changing appearance as a ‘trigger’ for an altered social experience as they related their personal experiences of discrimination. The observation of one diarist succinctly captured this – while discussing with a field-worker the politics of hair dyeing, she simply noted ‘if I look old, I will be treated old’. Implicit in this exchange was the shared understanding that to be treated as old was entirely unwanted.

The limits of age defiance: hair and the visibly ageing self

Asked to reflect upon their diary entries, the RoAD diarists drew attention to the dilemmas they faced in the context of day-to-day living. In the process, these discussions highlighted the value of peer debriefing when researching topics such as discrimination, where both diarist and field-worker have shared knowledge and experience. The interviews also provided insights into the process of self-assessment outlined by Featherstone and Hepworth (Reference Featherstone, Hepworth, Johnson, Bengston, Coleman and Kirkwood2005) and the reflexive relationship between self-perception, the judgements of others and the mirrored self-image. One contributor aged in the early sixties recalled her thoughts as she sat on a rush-hour bus, ‘When I'm on the bus and I think, God, I'm the only person with grey hair. I don't imagine there's anyone thinking, oh, I quite like the look of her’. Another of similar age raised a broader question:

In these observations, grey hair was associated with a sense of being set apart; no longer subject to the (sexualized) gaze of others. Through its signifying quality, hair mediates between a social and more intra-personal experience of ageing. A lesbian participant aged in the late sixties drew on the notion of the ‘closet’, relating it to her response to visible bodily change and revealing how available narratives are used to make sense of ageing:

In the USA, Gerike (Reference Gerike and Rosenthal1990) interpreted hair dyeing as a form of ‘passing’ that maintains a certain status and a link to those accorded greater privilege and social standing. This question of whether and to what extent they felt compelled to ‘fight’ ageing was a dilemma that many RoAD contributors reported to emerge as their hair turned grey. The dilemma of age defiance created contention and divided the opinions of RoAD contributors, some of whom viewed practices such as hair dyeing as capitulation to the blatantly ageist messages emitted by the hair and beauty industry. For instance, a discussion led by a RoAD field-worker with a group of London-based older feminists concluded that images used in advertising and the printed media simply refused to acknowledge that women grow old. Other RoAD contributors viewed hair dyeing as an astute tactic, buffering against discrimination. As a woman in her early sixties said:

One contributor to the open call for accounts of age discriminatory experiences remarked on the time and labour associated with dyeing hair and maintaining the colour, but ended by noting the consequences of giving up on the process.

As the above quote attests, there comes a time when ‘defying age’ is given less priority and when ‘age resistance’ is replaced by a rejection of the ideology that characterises the beauty industry and broader marketplace. Other contributors noted that wearing their hair grey linked to political affiliation as feminists. One in her early sixties said, ‘make up and thinking about your hair and all those things were not quite … well, really there were more important things’. The same interviewee noted that, as a therapist, grey hair was a benefit and perceived as linked to ‘wisdom or extra knowledge’, signalling the situated meanings attached to hair and appearance.

Hair and social exclusion

Hurd Clarke and Griffin (Reference Hurd Clarke and Griffin2008: 664) studied attitudes to hair dyeing among a Canadian sample of older women. One of their participants said:

Hurd Clarke and Griffin's interpretation was that to appear old equates with a form of social erasure (see also Hurd Clarke and Korotchenko Reference Hurd Clarke and Korotchenko2010). Within the RoAD project data, a salient narrative of gendered ageing concerned the encroachment of invisibility. Indeed, when such contributions are considered alongside the findings of research into gender and ageing, we argue that invisibility emerges as a meta-narrative in accounting for the social experiences of older women. Grey hair was reported to play an important role in these experiences, and going grey is repeatedly cited as representing a form of threshold, signifying the entrance to old age (Gullette Reference Gullette1997).

According to the RoAD contributors' accounts, invisibility was interactionally achieved and something collectively ‘done to’ older people, which had various consequences (see also Ward et al. Reference Ward, Jones, Hughes, Humberstone, Pearson, Ward and Bytheway2008a). Often, the motif of invisibility was used figuratively to convey a sense of being discounted or marginalised. In addition to no longer being recognised as sexual, people found themselves socially invisible; sometimes ignored in conversations, or overlooked in shops and bars. For some of RoAD's oldest contributors, hair colour and style were reported as an unwanted badge of belonging; invisibility by dint of sameness. As one diarist aged in the late eighties wrote:

There were also instances of ‘invisibility’ being cited in more literal senses by the RoAD contributors. Accounts of physically-enforced invisibility included being almost run over by bike-riders, and barged out the way on busy streets. Such incidents echo the opening of Woodward's (Reference Woodward1999: ix) book, Figuring Age, in which she recounts the death of an older woman hit by a cyclist: ‘What was his defence? “I didn't see her”’. Relating the dilemmas of image to the consequences of invisibility underlines that hair and the way it is styled are far from insignificant to the lives of older women.

Responses to dissident ageing

Much of the published research on image, appearance and ageing has drawn attention to the commercial basis on which messages concerning old age are communicated. A fear of ageing provides a vehicle for marketing (Coupland Reference Coupland, Coupland and Gwyn2003, Reference Coupland2007) and offers consumers a rationale for patterns of consumption (Gullette Reference Gullette1997). Contributions to RoAD reveal that reinforcing notions of acceptability extends well beyond these commercial interests. Efforts to resist or redefine a socially-acceptable image in later life were reported to meet with censure and ridicule, as two respondents aged in the late sixties and early seventies explained:

The word ‘freak’ underlines the affective dimension in responses to dissident ageing. The older we become, the less acceptable it is to use appearance and self-presentation as a means of distinction and expression of self. Individuals are reminded of this through the incursion of repeated ‘micro-penalties’ including ridicule and disapproval that focus upon the older body (Katz Reference Katz1996). Ahmed (Reference Ahmed2004) argued that an embodied and visceral dimension to discrimination is currently overlooked in the debate about how to tackle it. In respect to ageism, Featherstone and Wernick (Reference Featherstone, Wernick, Featherstone and Wernick1995: 5) noted how responses to older bodies, their sight and smell, can be understood in terms of a ‘historically-formed disgust function’ that carries ‘a powerful emotional force’. An emphasis on embodiment underlines the affective dimension to discriminatory encounters, while bodies are also argued to signal a broader social dynamic: ‘the perception of a group in the body of the individual’ (Ahmed Reference Ahmed2004: 55). Such a perspective offers a useful approach to thinking about the ways that age discrimination attaches to image in later life. How the bodies of older people are perceived as signifiers of ‘oldness’ plays an important part in the discriminatory encounters they experience. These encounters often appear to be driven by an affective response to old age.

During the course of keeping a diary for RoAD, one contributor aged in the late sixties recorded reading the comments of a fashion editor in a broadsheet newspaper: ‘never let grey hair grow long. Long grey hair is scary, so cut it short or dye it’. Underneath this entry, the diarist noted: ‘So the young are afraid of witches?’ During the end-of-week interview with a field-worker this entry was picked up on and led the diarist to recall an earlier experience.

The field-workers, all of whom were older people, had been encouraged to discuss age prejudice openly with interviewees wherever relevant. In a report of the interview the field-worker detailed the subsequent discussion:

In the course of the interview and subsequent report, the field-worker teased out a number of issues concerning image and acceptability in later life. Prominent among these was the manner in which power imbues the politics of appearance, gender and ageing. Long hair suggests a (perhaps sexual) potency that is incompatible with old age. The interview also revealed how notions of acceptability and ageing are both understood and upheld even by young children as they ridiculed their long-haired teacher. As the field-worker observed, from an older person's perspective, the real threat resides not in some aspect of appearance but in the act of labelling someone as ‘scary’. Where hair and image in later life are concerned, the data reveal that both resistance and conformity have unwanted and inescapable consequences. Older women in particular appear caught in a dilemma over their appearance: on the one hand considered ridiculous or grotesque; and on the other, simply discounted and unseen. As Hurd Clarke and Griffin concluded, ‘there exists a painful tension between being aware of ageism and submitting to it by accepting the importance of physical appearance’ (2008: 671).

In the hairdresser's chair: experiences of regulation and control

Many limiting conditions associated with old age impinge upon beauty and appearance-related regimes, potentially disrupting efforts to maintain a desired image in later life. In the final phase of the RoAD project, a small-scale interview study of Welsh hairdressing salons was undertaken by a field-worker (seeSymonds and Holland Reference Symonds, Holland, Ward and Bytheway2008). Many of the older community-dwelling interviewees highlighted the personal importance of a visit to the hairdressers. Particular emphasis was placed upon a desire to maintain a certain look or style often against a backdrop of physical deterioration and chronic limiting conditions. One interviewee said:

Many interviewees revealed that they had kept the same style for years. For these women, maintaining the ‘same hairdo’ helped support continuity in the face of physical change. The onset of illness or physical impairment underlined the crucial role played by the hairdresser and the importance attached to having access to and sufficient funds for hairdressing services. A diarist aged in the late eighties recollected that ‘Tuesdays were the days to avoid going to the hairdressers because it's pension day. Pensioners’ days are the ones to avoid. Everyone comes out with the same hairdo'.

Previous research on hairdressing had highlighted its beneficial potential for clients, not least in respect to self-esteem, and the many positive aspects to the relationships that develop between workers and clients (Cohen Reference Cohen2010; Gimlin Reference Gimlin1996). In the context of research on age discrimination, a different perspective on the role and conduct of hairdressers was revealed. From the perspective of RoAD contributors, hairdressers were portrayed as arbiters of age appropriateness, this function often most marked in response to individuals considered transgressive. For instance, a number of lesbian women interviewed for one RoAD sub-project, drew attention to the coercion they encountered when seeking an image that departed from notions of acceptability. Two lesbians aged respectively in the early seventies and late sixties made similar observations about hairdressers' reluctance to cut hair short:

Hairdressers were described as steering older clients toward certain styles, leading to a debate over the phenomenon of the ‘pensioners’ hairdo'. A consultation respondent aged in the mid-seventies said, ‘I smile in church where hats are no longer worn. Obviously a visit to the hairdresser before coming. Uniform style of hairdressing. As we get older (and) less mobile perhaps, “keeping up appearances” is essential for our wellbeing’. The reference here to a ‘uniform style’ is one that ‘rang bells’ with many of the people consulted for RoAD. Some pointed out that changes in the texture and thickness of hair limits the choice of style. Others however signalled the perception that they were under pressure to subscribe to fixed and often unflattering notions of how an older person should appear. As one aged in the mid-seventies said:

Another interviewee aged in the late seventies remarked that, ‘If I look around here [a sheltered housing facility], there's two mobile hairdressers that come round and you could tell which hairdresser's done whose hair because its stereotyped … with the rollers and all the rest of it. I don't know if it's because that's what old people want, or are they just accepting that because that's what's offered?’ These quotes illustrate issues central to this paper. They reveal that image dilemmas for older people are often negotiated under conditions of limited agency or choice. More than any other part of our appearance, hairstyles are frequently co-produced and as such can be a locus for conflicting notions of acceptability and appropriateness related to later life. But why is it that hairdressers assert this pressure on older clients to conform to a certain image?

A proposition issued in the RoAD newsletter, that the phenomenon of a ‘pensioners’ hairdo' was an indicator of age discrimination, created contention among the RoAD contributors. Many, including the majority of the men who responded on this topic, argued that it was possible to resist this pressure, through asserting oneself more forcefully during the hairdressing encounter or by simply taking their business elsewhere. It was this strategy that was employed by the RoAD diarist (aged in the late eighties) whose experience had sparked the debate. She described visiting an upmarket salon where no pensioners' discount was available, in order to avoid the uniform style she perceived as a badge of old age.

For this diarist, an attempt to buy her way out of being treated differently due to age was unsuccessful. Her experience suggests that the pressure to conform extends beyond commercial considerations and is a powerful guiding influence upon the manner in which many such service encounters unfold between workers and older clients. Acting as arbiters of appropriateness, hairdressers reinforce the message that while younger consumers may pursue an image as a mode of distinction, older people are required not to stand out. Rather, they must conform to a uniform image that effectively renders them invisible (and indivisible).