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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Shades of grey
— to dye or not to dye one's hair in later life | | Author(s) | Laura Hurd Clarke, Alexandra Korotchenko |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 30, part 6, August 2010 |
| Pages | pp 1011-1026 |
| Source | http://www.journals.cambridge.org/aso doi:10.1017/S0144686X1000036x |
| Keywords | Older women ; Attitude ; Physical characteristics [elderly] ; Ageing process ; Social surveys ; Canada. |
| Annotation | Older women's perceptions of grey, white and coloured hair is examined. Using data from in-depth interviews with 36 women aged 71-94 (mean age 79), the authors elucidate women's attitudes towards and reasons for dyeing or not dyeing their hair. The majority of the participants disparaged the appearance of grey hair, which they equated with ugliness, dependence, poor health, social disengagement and cultural invisibility. The women were particularly averse to their own grey hair, and many suggested that other women's grey hair was acceptable, if not attractive. At the same time, half of the women liked the look of snowy white hair, which they associated with attractiveness in later life as well as goodness and purity. While one-third of the women had begun to dye their hair in their youth so as to appear more fashionable, two-thirds continued to dye their hair later in life so as to mask their grey hair and their chronological age. The women suggested that they used hair dye to appear more youthful and to resist ageist stereotypes associated with older women. The authors discuss the findings in relation to previous research concerning older women's hair, the concept of doing gender, and theories pertaining to ageism. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-100719005 A |
| Classmark | BD: DP: BA: BG: 3F: 7S |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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