login

The Well-Coiffed Man

Gender & SocietyPublished 5 June 2008
Kristen Barber
Citations97
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score2.27
SNIP3.02

Abstract

This study explores how men make sense of their participation in the feminized practice of salon hair care. By placing white, middle-class, heterosexual men at the center of analysis, I investigate the meaning of beauty work for a population that has been overlooked in research on gender and the beauty industry. Specifically, I demonstrate that men embed their purchase of salon hair care in the need to appropriate expectations of white professional-class masculinity. Ultimately, these men reproduce raced and classed gender differences in the hair salon by resisting feminization while at the same time transgressing gender boundaries.

Keywords

Social SciencesArts and Humanities