Women Are Leaning In And Loving Their Gray Hair Like Never Before
The aesthetics of women’s aging have always mattered in a way that men’s just haven’t.
We see it in our thirsty endorsement of silver foxes Anderson Cooper and Steve Carell, which sharply contrasts to the public shaming of Kate Middleton’s errant grays, or the demeaning way the press treated Alexandra Grant, the silver-haired artist who was speculated to be dating (the much older) Keanu Reeves. We see it in the self-deprecating tone of TV host Kelly Ripa’s “roots watch” during the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown, an experience so universally female that “grooming deficit” social isolation memes are now a thing.
In films and on TV, ageist casting is rife ― silver-haired women are either gummy grannies or washed-out women set up for a second sexual wind. Increasingly, they are villains like Narcissa Malfoy (Helen McCrory in the Harry Potter movies) and Alma Coin (Julianne Moore in ”The Hunger Games”), their hair visual affirmation of their frosty, amoral personas and dysfunctional inner lives. Occasionally they are flat, sexless, oracular or quasi-authority figures like M (Dame Judi Dench in the James Bond films) and Nova Prime (Glenn Close in “Guardians of the Galaxy”), placed firmly outside the humanizing influences of family and friendships and defined exclusively by their solitariness.
In real life, white-haired icons are few and far between: Queen Elizabeth II with her prim, fluffy nimbus of a hairdo; Christine Lagarde’s textbook French chicness; and politician Theresa May, whose hair has had to compensate for her lively sartorial style to be declared suitably prime ministerial.
Gray hair has had several “moments” recently, like when Kim Kardashian, Rihanna and Lady Gaga went silver, and when young South Koreans flooded Instagram with unexpectedly flattering pastel-tinted styles. It felt revelatory, but also costumey: For those who struggle with ageist comments and policies at work, the trend felt especially...
