The Real Cost of a Haircut

Author: Jenna White | Website | Instagram | Blog

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice . everywhere. We are caught in an in escapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

In the US, few states offer protection against gender-based price discrimination. Where protection exists, it is rarely enforced. Salons have traditionally quoted higher prices for female haircuts and lower prices for male ones. Such a pricing can be problematic for people who identify as non-binary or gender fluid, as they have to choose between pricing targeting a binary customer base. It also calls into question the ethical way to price haircuts for the hair industry.

Now, it’s important to denote the difference between ‘gender identity’ and ‘biological sex’ for this topic as a point of clarity. “Gender identity” is how someone, and society, see themselves, while “biological sex” is the label assigned at birth based on various biological factors. To put it simply, ‘gender identity’ is blue for boys and pink for girls or barbies for girls and trucks for boys. Biological sex is XX chromosomes for female and XY chromosomes for males. A large portion of the population does not view ‘gender identity’ as a social construct and instead views ‘gender identity’ and ‘biological sex’ as the same. With this common misconception, it might be difficult for a person to embrace gender-neutral pricing policies if one accepts or is not aware that it affects a person.

In an article by Harvard Law Review titled Civil Rights - Gender Discrimination - California Prohibits Gender-Based Price Discrimination, it is cited that gendered price disparities for hair salon services have been documented across the United States and Europe. The article also reports that the California Assembly Office of Research conducted a survey of five large California cities and found that 40% of the hair salons charged women were five dollars more than men for a standard haircut. This trend is not unique to cities in California. On Researchgate.net, a report titled The Cost of Doing Femininity: Gendered Disparities in Pricing of Personal Care Products and Services shares that similar price differences were noted in New York City, with nearly 48% of 199 hair salons examined charging women more than men for haircuts.

According to an article published by the LA Times, on January 1, 1996, “Gov. Pete Wilson made California the first state to bar merchants from charging women more than men – solely based on gender – for haircuts, dry cleaning, car repairs, and other services.” The article further reports that the bill was introduced by Assemblywoman Jackie Speier (D-Burlingame). One of its goals was to make it clear that charging men and women different prices for services that require the same amount of time, difficulty, and cost to deliver is a violation of AB1100. Salons should base their pricing on time, materials, taxes, hair length, and/or other gender-neutral reasons.

In 2019, almost twenty-five years later, now Congresswoman Jackie Speier (California-14) and Congressman Tom Reed (New York-23) reintroduced legislation to include services and products in California, according to a press release published on her website. This new resolution, called H.R.2048, addresses what is known as the “Pink Tax” with the press release citing a report, published by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA), titled From Cradle to Cane: The Cost of Being a Female Consumer, which showed that on average, across five industries, women’s products cost 7% more than similar products for men. Specifically:

The report further states that, “in all but five of the 35 product categories analyzed, female consumers’ products were priced higher than those for male consumers. Across the sample, DCA found that women’s products cost more, 42% of the time, while men’s products cost more, 18% of the time”.

Sources such as “What Makes Wrongful Discrimination Wrong? Biases Preferences, Stereotypes, and Proxies”, published by the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the More Perfect podcast, the episodes titled Sex Appeal plus The Hate Debate, have generally made two points against gender-based price discrimination:

A third argument, specific to haircuts, is that women’s haircut prices frequently bundle services: a haircut, blowdry, bangs, texturizing, all under one price. This is based on the gender-bias that most women have hair that is chin-length or longer and adds perspective to the origin of gendered haircut pricing. The processes required to cut and style longer hair versus shorter hair are merely different. If salons were to provide an à la carte menu giving people the option to add any services aside from a basic haircut, they would risk clients skipping needed steps. Thus, they would walk out the door with a cut that was not an accurate representation of their talent and skills. Couple this with the fact that shorter women’s haircuts often require a blowdry to achieve the desired look, and one starts to see how the haircut pricing bias was formulated.

To make all clients feel welcome and comfortable in a salon or barbershop, the client’s gender should not dictate your services’ pricing, and in places like California, such a practice is illegal. That being said, moving society away from a gendered haircut pricing model has its challenges. I’ve shared some strategies for addressing this, along with their pros and cons, below. Professionals should decide what mix of these options will help communicate what is best for new and existing clientele.

Time: Charge for how long it will take to do the service.

Pros: The flexibility of pricing services based on time spent, which is how most professions are paid.

Cons: Harder for new clients to book online before evaluated in person.

Hair Length and/or Thickness: Set price based on short, medium, or long haircuts and/or fine, medium, or coarse hair textures.

Pros: Can be easily applied across all genders.

Cons: Some clients may be confused about which group they fall within.

Price Range: Give a price range for your haircuts that starts at your base price and ends at the most you would ever charge.

Pros: Gives you the flexibility to adjust price as needed after completing the service.

Cons: New clients could become nervous about price ranges that are too wide.

Set Price: Use one luxury price for any haircut, regardless of gender.

Pros: Easy for online booking and new customers, can be set as a higher price to avoid underpricing services that take more time.

Cons: If not set high enough, can undervalue the amount of time and effort needed for longer vs. shorter hair.

À la carte: A pricing menu that the client can pick and choose from.

Pros: Exact pricing communicated upfront.

Cons: The client may not be aware of everything that needs to be done for the desired look (particularly with color services), and limited flexibility on price once the client is in the chair. Most salon ‘best practices’ advise offering service packages that help guide the client to their desired result.

Emily Dixon’s motto is, “hair has no gender.” She thinks the words, “male,” “man,” “female,” or “woman” should be absent from a salon’s advertising, and says, “ultimately, my time is valued the same with or without gender [considerations].” She also believes that early education in the hair industry teaches stylists and barbers gender-specific descriptor words that severely impact how some clients feel in the chair and even the lobby. When this happens, the client leaves remembering how badly they felt, versus their fantastic haircut. “My advice to anyone looking to make a change about creating a safer space in a totally culpable industry,” she said, “is [to] ask people for their pronoun(s) — every single person that walks into your salon. Why? Because it normalizes the use of pronouns.” One can learn more about the importance of normalizing pronouns to create an inclusive environment here.
 

Leche is a salon owner, educator, and highly experienced stylist offering solution-oriented results for salon operations and working behind the chair. When it comes to service costs, he is a big believer in “bas[ing] the price on the end result,” meaning one needs to see how the client’s consultation turns out to know the final price. He warns that pricing by the hour restricts one’s ability to do this. No client that sits in our chair ever has the same head of hair, and if a professional delivers something they’ve ever experienced before, it should be priced based on that. The best way to earn the client’s trust in quoting prices is by delivering an in-depth consultation beforehand. That might involve a strand test, observing the results, and explaining the investment range of time and money needed to achieve the client’s desired outcome.

For services that do not differ in labor, materials and related costs of production, it is inadequate to charge more based on the gender of the consumer. Economic well-being for all starts by supporting fair access to equal products.