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Comment by peakaboo | Hacker News Reader

Yes. Women are awesome in tech, and the field needs much more of them.

But the mass media portraying her as a rebel for coloring her hair, that's like... Tabloid stuff.

Japan is a very different society than the US or Europe, the comment on colouring hair being an incredibly rebelious thing in Japan is entirely valid. Not having black hair has lead to bullying so extreme in some situations that it has lead to suicides.

Apparently some schools in Japan have a policy that your hair must be black. At least one student sued because of this, saying she was forced to dye her hair black to satisfy the rule: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56099237

When I was in Tokyo I saw a mother on the subway with candy red hair. There were others but she was the most notable. Also two of the people I met had bleached their hair brown. All were adults. If anything I felt hair color was less taboo in Tokyo than where I came from. It seems odd that they would have regressed since then so I’m wondering where you got your info.

Coloring your hair as a student can get you in deep shit. Someone invented a temporary black hair dye for this, which I found bizarre until this was explained to me.

Most elementary to high school in Japan is really unnecessary repressive. It's closed society.

Come on did you see the picture? In Europe or US having pink hair will also lower your chances of getting a job, unless it is an artsy place.

It's not the 1950's anymore. In any job where workers have a modicum of bargaining power, it's perfectly fine. This goes treble for tech, which skews younger, less conservative and suffers from severe labor scarcity.

Tell that to a law firm.

Law firm or corporate finance? Sure, agreed, that would be a bit out there. Probably includes some other industries i cannot think of right now.

Tech? Please don't make me laugh. Working at MSFT for a while, I've seen plenty of people in-person (even in management) with visible massive tattoos (even one with full neck covered in ink), piercings, and I am not gonna even start on wild hair styles and colors. One of the very senior people I've gotten a chance to work with had her hair color being split in half right down the middle - half black half white (ala Cruella from Disney's 101 Dalmatians). And mind you, out of all the big tech companies, MSFT is one of those that imo skews a bit of an older crowd, so I don't doubt this kind of stuff is even more common at places like FB.

One of my friends is a doctor in the deep south, and his arm is fully tattoed and is on open display at work (short sleeves). From my anecdotal experience, every time I go for an annual physical checkup with my primary doctor (in PNW), more than half of his nurse staff has either bright-colored hair or tons of tattoos (or, not uncommonly, both).

All of this is extremely acceptable in the US these days, barring few specific industries that still insist on ultrastrict "suit-and-tie" dress code and some rural areas. But in major cities? It would be impossible for me to walk through a block on the street without seeing at least one person with either neon-colored hair or very covered in ink or with tons of piercings.

I work at a Very Large Tech Company in a role where I cross between eng and legal, and the hairstyles on the eng side are definitely not the same as legal.

Absolutely, I've noticed the same as well. But legal also never really felt like a natural part of the company, but more like a completely separate entity tucked away at the edge of the company. For all intents and purposes it is just the same as a law firm, except they only have one perpetual client, and they are on the company payroll with no ability to exist without it.

Or Government job.

Maybe in a place that requires customer facing interaction whereby it might be nice to not piss off those hair-conservatives for a few extra % points of sales.

But computers don't care. Not for your skin. Not for your hair. Not for your sexual preferences. Not for your gender. Computers don't care.

If you are "working with computers" and your colleagues are the "ones that care" to make your life hard. Then that is not a place I'd want to work. If society has this as an endemic issue, than that is not a place I want to live.

In America the saying is "The squeaky wheel gets the grease".

In Japan the equivalent is "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down".

Her dying her hair is ABSOLUTELY a large act of rebellion there.

To add, until recently, people who naturally had a different color of hair were required to dye their hair black for primary school.

In Japan it's still a big deal for women. Japanese value conformity and coloring your hair a bright color is a big way of sticking out.

> Yes. Women are awesome in tech, and the field needs much more of them.

Shouldn't we hire/want people in the field because they are passionate and want to be there rather than some arbitrary skin pigmentation or assigned gender?

> the mass media portraying her as a rebel for coloring her hair, that's like... Tabloid stuff.

I think you're underestimating the stigma against different hair colors in Japan. Japanese culture puts a heavy emphasis on not sticking out, to the point that even having a natural hair color that is different from the norm can be viewed as being rebellious.

https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-students-hair-color...

https://soranews24.com/2019/08/03/tokyo-public-schools-will-...

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