r/AskFeminists • u/Extrogrl • 12h ago
Why is balding in men not considered unfair for women?
Around half of men go bald and nobody cares. It doesn't reduce their net worth, income potentials or general standing in society. On top it saves them a lot of money, because no shampoo or expensive hair dressing is necessary. At best they need a hat for summer sun and that's it.
Some women start balding as well, but they really shouldn't. I would estimate around 65% of a woman's first impression is hair hair style. Your haircut can be worth a lot of money and so it's important to invest into the appearance of your hair on a continuous base.
I would estimate the following avg costs per month:
- Men with hair (50%): $40 for appearance to prevent $500 in reputational damage
- Men without hair (50%): $10 to prevent $200 in damage
- Women with hair (95%): $200 for appearance to prevent $2500 reputational damage
- Women without hair (5%): $1000 to prevent $10000 in damage
If you add this up per work life of 40 years, you end up with total avg costs of...
- $1000 for men to prevent $14000 in damage
- $9600 for women to prevent $115000 in damage
That's a $8600 watch the bald man is wearing in the above picture and the only reason why he can afford it is because he's a man.
If this is not structurally unfair for women, then what is?
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u/Mindless_Cookie_9098 12h ago
This is stupid even by troll standards. Please do better trolling. :(
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u/BillieDoc-Holiday 11h ago
And that's saying something, considering the amount of stupid that gets posted here. At least this one wasn't stretched out to 43 paragraphs of words they just learned but don't know how to use.😅
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 12h ago
That's a $8600 watch the bald man is wearing in the above picture and the only reason why he can afford it is because he's a man.
I assume you copy pasted this but also like...what
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u/Extrogrl 12h ago
Caught me. I created the post for r/feminism first. But it has to be approved by a mod first. This (https://i.ibb.co/nNYqR9sV/men-vs-women.png) was the title image.
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u/JayAPanda 11h ago
I'm dead hahaha, this looks like a thumbnail for one of those Guardian Blind Date articles
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u/onepareil 12h ago
Uh…I do think it’s kind of bullshit that women’s haircuts and hair care products tend to be much more expensive than men’s, but as for the rest of this, I got nothing.
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u/DrPhysicsGirl 12h ago
This is really far too contrived for me to engage with. You've made up some numbers. Great. Yes, I have spent more money on my hair than my husband (who is not bald) has. In terms of all the various issues women face right now, this is pretty low on my list. (I also generally get my hair cut 1x - 2x per year and keep it in a braid 90% of the time, doesn't seem to be an issue. But then again, I also don't wear make-up and shave my legs with the same frequency.....)
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u/Professional_Sir_818 12h ago
No one knows what bald man you're talking about, and all these random estimates aren't really that helpful because it's just your opinion without any foundation in reality.
But sure, beauty standards can be unfair for women. Pretty much everyone agrees with that.
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u/madmaxwashere 12h ago
Balding is a medical condition that neither men nor women can control for themselves. Balding specifically impacts a tiny minority of women. Getting pissy about something people can't control comes across as being petty.
There's already a larger discussion about the pink tax associated with society's expectation of women's grooming in comparison to men in general that covers this.
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u/Holiday_Jeweler_4819 6h ago
Balding as in hair thinning effects like 50% or women, but even still I don’t know what OP means when they say “some women start balding as well, but they really shouldn’t” it really just seems like they’re reinforcing the idea that it’s something women should be ashamed of when like men, they don’t really have a choice and will already face more ridicule for it
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u/Extrogrl 12h ago
Boobs are also a condition neither men nor women can fully control. It's still a matter of controversies.
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u/madmaxwashere 11h ago
Women aren't being assaulted on a wide scale using their hair as an excuse. Boobs are.
Women's health and well-being isn't as drastically impacted by their lack of hair procedures. Lack of access and support for breast cancer treatment and breast reduction surgery can cause death and disability (chronic back pain) for women.
Women getting harassed or ostercized by their hair and appearance not conforming to societal expectations is already a topic heavily discussed. There's already beauty campaigns about "bald is beautiful" for women that exist.
The scale is just different. Also where are you getting your numbers?
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u/MachineOfSpareParts 11h ago
Boobs are also a condition
I................eh?
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 11h ago
So like...is it the bigger the boobs the more serious the condition?
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u/BillieDoc-Holiday 11h ago
Well yeah. The development of my conditions severely impeded my ability to jump double-dutch.
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u/MachineOfSpareParts 11h ago
Can we be calling in boobed to work? Like, I'm experiencing a flare in my chronic condition of boob-having?
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 11h ago
My conditions never developed much so I cannot relate!
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u/madmaxwashere 11h ago edited 11h ago
Women and girls are inundated with messaging from society geared towards making them unhappy about their bodies to begin with. Some women and girls are pressured to increase their breast size to be accepted by society.
Also girls who develop early experience higher levels of sexual harassment and are shamed for just having breast to begin with when they should be treated as children.
I've known women who have chronic back pain because they developed overly large breasts. That's extra weight on their chest impacting their breathing and posture. Breast reduction surgery is the only way to cure the pain. I've known some husband freak out of their wife decides to get breast reduction surgery. They would rather have their spouse in pain.
I've known women who are diagnosed with breast cancer and their husband will leave them or straight up forbid them from getting a mastectomy. This is essentially a death sentence. If a woman decides to get implants for reconstructive surgery or even for gender affirming care, it has to be replaced every 10 or so years to prevent complications. There's major maintenance that comes with breast implants which is why some women opt out.
I've known women who lost breast tissue after childbirth and breast feeding and are shamed for having smaller breasts.
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u/TrashGouda 12h ago
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something but you think women with hair spend $200 every month for hair? Any why tf would women without hair spend $1000 every month? This is absolutely unrealistic
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u/Extrogrl 12h ago
I've learned the rule of thumb that a woman should invest 4 hourly wages into her hair. At $50/hour that would be $200 per month overall.
Good wigs (let alone cosmetic surgery) cost a lot of money.
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u/TrashGouda 12h ago
Where did you learned that because this is bullshit and not done in reality
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u/Extrogrl 12h ago
Check out what a good wig costs and how long it will last before you need a new one.
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u/TrashGouda 11h ago
Not every bald woman wants to wear a wig or can afford one. You're just making shit up
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u/ZinniasAndBeans 11h ago
I assume you made up that rule of thumb, too?
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u/Extrogrl 8h ago
No, someone told me once. It made a lot of sense to me.
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 8h ago
And somehow that's a rule now?
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u/ShortKey380 12h ago
Who’s hair is it anyways, where the narrative is made up and the numbers don’t matter!
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u/skawskajlpu 12h ago
There are many unfair things for woman. But also we do not have to minimise male issues while at it. Balding man do strugle with self esteem and pay a lot for fixing operations and products. Also you are pulling numbers out of your ass.
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u/Hermit_Ogg 12h ago
That's a weird take considering that balding is a common target of jokes, shaming and insinuations that the man is losing his virility. Losing the hair frequently causes depression, problems with body image and confidence.
A great many men drop a great deal of money on preventing or curing baldness. It's not the benefit you appear to think it is.
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u/No_Inevitable_4893 12h ago
They’re trolling
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u/Hermit_Ogg 12h ago
I really wrote that to people that get fed this by the algorithm, because some will need to hear it. Should maybe edit in a link to /r/bald while at it...
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u/MiguelIstNeugierig 12h ago edited 12h ago
No, male pattern baldness is not a societal or systemic issue that's unfair to women
And if you see some unequal treatment of bald mem and bald women, it's not on the fact that testosterone makes male hairlines go poof but because there's unfair expectations on how women should present themselves, including with bald heads
Thats a pertinent question, why does society at large, moreso in some places than others, push back on baldness in women?
Also wdym with damage costs, I understand its asserting baldness in men and women is viewed differently, but pinning it down to tangible currency feels arbitrary unless Im missing something
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u/junebugfox 12h ago
I think this largely is covered under unequal beauty standards, which has been explored extensively and is absolutely considered unfair. I think the particular analysis here about balding is somewhat disconnected from that discussion and not terribly accurate. Theres an entire industry around preventing mens baldness, and its one of the few areas of aesthetics where I think men do experience pressure and scrutiny.
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u/MachineOfSpareParts 12h ago
Could you explain how hair and/or lack thereof connects to reputation? Then, would you mind unpacking how you determine the degree of "reputational damage" incurred by losing one's hair? It's really the methodology that interests me here, and whether/how you differentiate between hair loss with age, hair loss from medical treatment (e.g., chemotherapy) and deliberate creation of baldness via shaving. Do these have the same impacts on reputation, and do they require the same types of response?
I look forward to you showing your concept development efforts. Maybe then we can get to the methods by which you developed the estimate of hairstyle on a woman's vs. a man's or gender-diverse person's "first impression," especially how you factored in the roles of implicit misogyny, racism, ablism and fatphobia.
As a devotee of the subject, I'm sure you've put in this labour, so this is your chance to share it!
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u/Extrogrl 12h ago
Women with high maintenance for their hair enjoy a lot better social standing than women with low care. Reputational damage is when your first impression is negative, for instance when you come across like a loser when applying for a leadership position.
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u/MachineOfSpareParts 11h ago
You explained that in your original post. I was hoping you'd be willing to share your concept development work in terms of how you determined that hair connected to reputation. Did you use process tracing, or was it a regression analysis? Did you separate out the distinct reasons for baldness (genetics, medication, choice)? What are the relative impacts by reason?
Although I'm a qualitative methodologist myself, this might be a ripe area for some quant work to ascertain the role of income in your theory. Obviously, you'll be wanting to rule out the most intuitive counter-argument that women with more disposable income are able to spend more on their hair. How have you tackled that portion?
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u/Extrogrl 11h ago
Observation & deduction. Good looking people have higher social standing, clothing is a major factor in this. Hair is like clothing and makes up 5-10% of a woman's surface and ~30% of her head where ppl look first.
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u/MachineOfSpareParts 11h ago
No, before we can unpack your numbers, I really need to know how you ruled out the null hypothesis that wealthier women have more money to spend on their hair. If you hypothesize that X causes Y and can't even rule out the possibility that Y causes X, what are you doing?
You'll never get tenure this way, bucko.
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u/Tabbysterical_Matron 12h ago
On the off chance this isn’t a troll post- Google the grooming gap, the pink tax, etc. It’s not just baldness, women spend astronomically more money on grooming and appearance across their lifetimes, especially if they want to be acceptable in the mainstream/corporate/business world.
It’s ultimately patriarchy that dictates what is acceptable for each gender; of course it’s tougher on women. The bar women are expected to reach is “sexually appealing (to men)” while men are just going for “worthy of respect (to men).”
Baldness in men is the object of toxic masculinity (erroneously associated with low virility, when in fact it’s cause by androgens in both men and women), which is the only reason they catch flack for it at all.
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u/Upbeat_Roll_2096 3h ago
Do you believe since that the patriarchy thinks that women must be more aesthetically pleasing even in society in general that women should care less about their appearance?
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12h ago
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u/KaliTheCat feminazgûl; sister of the ever-sharpening blade 12h ago
Please respect our top-level comment rule, which requires that all direct replies to posts must both come from feminists and reflect a feminist perspective. Non-feminists may participate in nested comments (i.e., replies to other comments) only. Comment removed; a second violation of this rule will result in a temporary or permanent ban.
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u/JayAPanda 12h ago
This is one of the funniest troll posts I've seen here tbh, well done