‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’ | Hacker News Reader

‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’

bbc.co.uk

35 pointsgadders32 comments

One point not mentioned in the article, but obvious from the photo: her natural hair is black, and the blonde hair was also dyed.

That also stood out to me. She is just changing already not-original look from trying to be more attractive to be more serious. I really don't understand how this is interesting enough for full article.

It's an article about sexism and women complaining about sexism. This topic seems to be really trendy on Hackernews, judging by the shitstormy comment threads articles like that always generate.

It's most probably a placed piece.

It's unlikely that it's coincidental that the article is a diversity story about someone who runs a company in the diversity field in a news outlet that is currently running a diversity campaign. Also, sexism in SV is topical so her coming from the Bay area probably helped.

I might be being too cynical but I doubt it. I mean, it's the BBC. They hardly needed to cross the Atlantic to find blonde women who dye their hair to avoid unwarranted attention. In fact, I know a Swedish lady, who worked for the BBC for a while, who does this regularly.

This thing happens yearly as BBC runs their BBC 100 Women series.

As much as I love the BBC for their news reporting, their gender diversity reporting tends to be very contrived.

Not necessarily. My mother is a natural blonde and her roots come through similarly.

If you do a quick google, you will see there are many natural blondes with this issue for a variety of reasons.

It's interesting how capitalism is able to monetize everything even social justice. This story could be entirely made up, it fits perfectly in her narrative. I find it unlikely that the BBC reporter contacted her, most likely the PR firm recommended to her by the VC that "told her" to dye her hair arranged for that profile.

I'm going to post a slightly mean reply. Do you question every story you hear?

My wife is a successful blonde female academic (more successful than me). I often go with her to events she is invited to and there is always some people who assume she is my "dumb wife" that I've brought with me.

At every event at some point I usually have to say to someone "Don't ask me, I have no idea. Karen is the person you should be speaking to", and they are always surprised. I've had people accuse me of lying when I say my wife is better at some academic topic than me. Yes, genuinely. That isn't an exaggeration.

I can see it's annoying being a blonde and female academic. Far too many people just seem to have hard-wired that "blonde female = stupid".

> Do you question every story you hear?

Do you not?

Edit: I feel a bit awkward about being on the same side as the "this is bullshit" people. I think the general message that it's harder for women to look "appropriate" in a business setting is probably fair, at least based on some of the conversations I've witnessed among my male co-workers.

OK, I worded that badly.

I more meant "Do you reply to every story on news.ycombinator says "This story could be entirely made up", I mean that's true of many, many stories, but I'm sure I've noticed a pattern that that kind of message appears more on stories about females. However, I should probably do a correct survey on that claim!

> Do you question every story you hear?

Generally speaking yes, especially if it us told to me by someone with a clear profit motive and not backed by evidence. Obviously the only reason this story works is because it is easy to believe that a typical VC has the stereotypical view of blond women you describe. That doesn't make it true or relevant.

Also imagine someone wrote a profile about Ursula von der Leyen, the current German Defence minister, who happens to have blonde hair and ~6 children. Or a profile on Manuela Schweswig, current family minister in Germany, who happens to be blonde, just had a child and pushed through a gender quota for executive positions in DAX companies. Both of them probably profit from being female, because their parties struggle to find enough female politicians, but it is not the reason for their success and I'm pretty sure they would not try to get publicity by talking about the adversity they faced being female. Their accomplishments speak for themselves.

Also just BTW I'm just getting a haircut because I will be speaking at a meeting with important people attending, so I want to look as professional as possible, which according to male stereotypes means short hair, no beard and no glasses.

I've never heard "no glasses" being a required part of professionalism, maybe it's a thing in different countries?

Also, the point here I feel is for women that also includes (possibly) change hair colour, which is a much more serious, and expensive, undertaking.

"my 'dumb wife' that I've bought with me."

I assume that's a typo, but it works either way ...

It was, which I decided to fix :)

Yes, I question every story I hear. This is known as skepticism and is a critical thinking skill in a world filled with people writing articles with agendas.

My wife dyed her hair blonde once and noted a noticable change in how she was treated. She described it as people being nicer to her but also sort of taking her less seriously. She also got hit on a lot more. She went back to her normal brown pretty quickly.

It's not just the obvious things like race. There are thousands of little prejudices. For guys I've read studies from sales about how men with broader shoulders or more prominent chins land more deals.

I find this stuff profoundly depressing. We are not really intelligent beings, just clever apes.

It's only depressing if you've been told lies all your life to the contrary of reality.

For most people these things are rather obvious.

It's why business men wear suits instead of plain t-shirts (or worse, hoodies).

Oh sure you can hack these things. That's why the woman in the article dyed her hair brown and got glasses.

It's depressing that it's necessary. If two people present something to me I should be evaluating the something, not the shoulder girth of the people presenting it. But inside my head there is a monkey that doesn't know what geological epoch this is.

Well, these are signals. Our minds are programmed to send signals and expect others to do the same. These signals helps us understand where we stand with people and where people stand in relation to us and each other.

You might think we don't need these signals anymore, but I think you would be gravely mistaken to assume that. Instead, it's better to (re-)learn these things and adopt them. Think of it as a form of power. By understanding the instincts that drive human behaviour, you can hack it, by controlling how you present yourself in different situations.

I don't think it's something to complain about.

What if the signal is something you can't control?

Sucks to be you then, eh?

What can you really control though? Your genetics and your environment determine who you are. Nature and nurture. We all have to make do.

Prejudices? I don't understand why you find it surprising or depressing that people treat those they're attracted to better. Even in professional settings, "personality fit" is often placed very high. Inasmuch as being friendly and being attractive are both equality irrelevant to getting things done, and both make people feel better around you and hence like you more, they're pretty much equivalent.

Wow, this article has almost no content. Maybe wearing baggy clothes, thick-rimmed glasses and brown hair makes her behave differently? It's impossible to tell - you can't do double blind tests and repeating experiments in social situations is impossible. Also, n=1. There also counter examples, like Marissa Meyer or Thereza Holmes.

"Links for the intellectually curious, ranked by readers."

This link does not seem to target the intellectually curious, nor does it seem to be picked by a ranking algorithm.

I sometimes upvote crap articles, because I'm interested in what HN has to say about the topic.

I wear a shirt to be taken more seriously at work.

I put my pants on.

This story is very weird and either I'm missing the point or it only shows that everything is broken. Eileen Carey a CEO of a company that focus on software to empowering a diverse workforce dyes her her to be taken more seriously.

Yeah, I dress according to the people I am meeting and what I hope to get out of the meeting. News at 11.

I am all for a meaningful debate about equality for all, and the barriers to this, however there is an increasing amount of bullshit like this around the topic that weakens and dilutes the overall debate, and that is a pity.

My take - someone willing to modify their hair to find a route to success is also likely to modify other aspects of their behaviour and strategy to find a route to success.

Sad it has to happen this way but unlikely to stop this individual

It amaze me how usually most schools for children don't have a class called "Logic 101" or something like, where we can teach people about Confirmation bias and that "Correlation != Causation".

God knows how many BS like this we could save if only people treated stereotypes as such, simple narratives easier to understand when we tell in stories, but aren't truth when applied to individuals in the real complex life we are.

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