05.15.07
Where are all the women?
A few days ago a reader asked me if I knew why there were so many men in the presumably effeminate Chinese hair care business. I had never considered this before, but it certainly holds true with my shop. Of the nineteen employees (myself included), only four are female, and two of them are the managers who only handle money transactions and have nothing to do with customers’ hair. The boss is a man. All five barbers are men, and there are eight little brothers and only two little sisters. Why such the gender divide?
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| Women are certainly in short supply in the Chinese hair care industry. This is me with 3/4 of the barbershop female staff, managers Xiao Huang (far left) and Ling Ling (far right) and Zhen Qing (second from left). |
Zhen Qing (fake name) is one of our two little sisters. She is nineteen years old, and has been working in the barbershop for two years. This morning while waiting for customers, I brought up the question to her.
“It seems like most workers in the hairstyling industry in China are men. I would think the job would be more appealing to women, so why so are there so many more men?” I asked her.
“You’re right, there are definitely a lot more men than women. That’s because women prefer to work in the skin care and body massage industry rather than the hairstyling industry. If you go to a skin care shop or a massage shop, you will notice most of the employees are women.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
Zhen Qing placed her hands on the table. “I have good hands now, but working in this industry for a long time will eventually ruin, make them rough and not nice to touch. The hair care products do damage to the skin while the skin care products are beneficial to the skin. In China it is very important for a woman to have good hands. So most Chinese women do not want to work in barbershops.”
I thought about this for a moment. Images came back to me of Mr. Zheng’s hands. Mr. Zheng is in his late thirties and has a look of youth in his face, but his hands have been ravaged from years of contact with hair chemicals. I recalled my massage training with Cheng Qing and how his hands had the feel of slightly dulled sand paper.
“This is why there are so few female barbers in China.” Zhen Qing continued.
“Becoming a barber is a long process, and it requires years of hair washing and doing dyes and perms. By the time the whole process is complete, the hands will have already been ruined.”
“Is it possible to skip the washing/dying/perming process and train directly to become a barber?” I asked, remembering that the barbers in the shop typically do not do anything else except cut hair.
“Yes, if you work in a small shop you only need to train for a few months to become a barber, but working in a small shop is not good,” Zhen Qing replied.
“Why not? Is the pay lower than a shop like this?” I inquired (Our shop is more of the upscale variety).
“No, the pay is about the same.”
“Then what’s the advantage of working in this kind of shop, when you could work in a smaller shop, get the same salary, and become a barber in a matter of months?” I asked.
“It’s the environment. The customers’ 素质 is much lower in smaller shop than in ours.”
素质 (su4 zhi4) is one of those Chinese concepts which is difficult to translate into English. It refers is an aggregated evaluation of one’s education, class background, financial status, manners and etiquette. Our customers pay 30 RMB per haircut and usually come from the upper echelon of the Fuzhou social ladder. There is a smaller shop down the street which gives haircuts for 10 RMB. Accordingly, their clientele are mostly from the lower working class.
Beauty is important to women everywhere in the world, but to some, even beauty fails when stood up against the pressures of social class. For Zhen Qing, she hopes one day to finish the training process and become a barber. If she has to ruin her hands in the process then so be it. She’d rather be washing the heads of Fuzhou’s nuveau riche then laboring over those of other workers.
Jingping Lai
said,
May 15, 2007 at 2:48 am
Impressive dedication and fascinating! I was directed here from a link on the China Law blog; this is the type of thing which people often talk about doing, but so few ever do. Keep it up and good luck!
jenn
said,
May 15, 2007 at 11:02 am
You are so awesome for answering this question for me.
Not only because I was curious, but because I am doing research on women’s employment in China. So it is a personal interest too.
Would you mind if I sited you?
Also, the value of hands here is interesting. At the 1st factory I visited in Wuxi, the laoban said mostly women worked there precisely because the work requires tiny hands (I posted more details about the visit). I thought that it was an overly simply answer, but it appears there really is something to it.
dezza
said,
May 15, 2007 at 12:42 pm
i’m wondering why you went to great lengths to conceal your co-worker/boss’ names but then go on to publish their photos?
Matt Schiavenza
said,
May 15, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Fascinating- I’ve always wondered why there were so few women barbers in China, myself. I for some reason (perhaps due to latent sexism, who knows) strongly prefer to have my hair tended to by women, so it can be a challenge finding a place with a lady actually styling hair as opposed to fetching glasses of hot water.
Benjamin Ross
said,
May 16, 2007 at 2:35 am
Dezza-
You make a good point about the names. I guess out of habbit I did not want to use the real names, but I thought the posts were quite lacking without photos. There really isn’t anything too personal that I’m writing about, and if somebody really wanted to find out who my coworkers were they probably could. But for the sake of continuity, I’m going to go with the pseudonyms. Glad to know people are paying attention though.
Benjamin Ross
said,
May 16, 2007 at 2:36 am
Jenn-
Go ahead and site away. Glad you found the article useful.
dezza
said,
May 16, 2007 at 10:13 am
cool ben. i reread my question and hope you didn’t find it to be sarcastic.:)
thanks for clarifying. it sounds like you’re enjoying your time there..keep up the great work!
chriswaugh_bj
said,
May 16, 2007 at 12:34 pm
@Matt: I also sometimes wondered about the plethora of male hairdressers in China- where I come from male hairdressers would be considered more suited to your hometown than mine. These days, though, I’ve settled on one woman to cut my hair- my wife.
@Ben: Sorry, mate, but that means you won’t be getting my custom, even when you’ve become a master barber.
欧扬
said,
May 16, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Ben did you let your fingernails grow in order to give a proper Chinese scalp massage? Regardless, I think you must be part of a foreign plot to raise the price of haircuts in China to decadent western prices, 30 Yuan is outrageous.
I once got a haircut for 5 yuan in Henan. They heated their own water before pouring it into a homemade dispenser mounted above the sink in which they shampooed my hair.
Benjamin Ross
said,
May 17, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Dezza-
No worries on the perceived sarchasm…you do make a very good point afterall.
Robert
said,
May 19, 2007 at 6:22 pm
As a student years ago I had a haircut in Beijing for 80 fen. It was a staterun shop and I’m sure they silently cursed me for interrupting their newspaper browsing. I recall it took five minutes. I looked like I’d just been paroled. On the upside, the only threat to their hands was the newsprint from the Beijing Morning Post.
LB
said,
June 2, 2007 at 9:13 am
Hi, Ben.
30 RMB for a hair cut, you must be working in a middle class salon. I went back to Fuzhou almost every year. The place I went typically charges 60 – 89 RMB per cut w/o washing. The price range depends on the certificate level of the Master.