Interesting Links for 19-01-2015

[andrewducker]

• Women (and black people) less likely to go into professions perceived to require innate talent
  (tags: women race jobs )
• Steven Soderbergh, copyright hypocrite
  (tags: copyright movies )
• Scottish law on assisted suicide is intolerably unclear
  (tags: suicide Scotland law )
• Does anyone know of a barber in Edinburgh who will give a gent's haircut to a

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

Would discrimination laws cover a barber refusing to give a man's haircut to a woman? They're refusing to give an equivalent service after all.

[danieldwilliam]

Not sure.

Depends a little if the services are really equivalent. I wonder if there is a defence of requiring too complex a pricing structure to be administered by a sole trader.

I recall there being some discussion about whether a hairdresser was (or ought) to be allowed to not offer afro related hair services at all of its branches. The chain in question had a branch in an area with very few black women in it and hadn't thought it worthwhile training up staff for the rare occasion when a black woman walked in off the street with an afro for a haircut.

Not sure if it went to court of not.

[momentsmusicaux]

Well if you actually asked for the same haircut the barber would give to a man, not whatever foofy stuff they seem to do in women's hairdressers.

[andrewducker]

Denmark and New York have both outlawed gender discrimination for haircuts.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/about-time-women-and-men-got-charged-same-rates-hair-cuts

[danieldwilliam]

They would be equivalent I reckon. So long as that were actually what was being bargained for.

I think the difficulty might be about quality standards and credibility.

Were I a barber and a woman asked me for "the same haircut you'd give a man" I think I might be worried that, upon receiving said haircut they decided it wasn't of the same quality as they expected and could they have their money back etc.

How could a woman in those circumstances convince a barber that she's not about to become a problem client?

(Declining to cut a woman's hair on the grounds that you think women operate different quality standards on hair dressing to men and you don't want the trouble probably breeches sex discrimination legislation. Declining to provide a service on the grounds that you can't economically supply the service to the required quality standard is fine.)

[lil_shepherd]

All the best haircuts I have had have been from hairdressers who trained as barbers or were from men still working as barbers. (Lovely little hairdressers in Bush House in the Strand, for instance, where one of the partners was happy to cut women's hair too. Boy, was he good.)

[helflaed]

As I understand it was held not to be discrimination for refusing to style black hair- because there are very different skills involved. The salon said they declined because they did not want to provide poor service by damaging the woman's hair.

Frankly I was surprised any black woman would entrust her hair to anyone other than a hairdresser specialising in black hair.

Going back to the barbers question though, the one in the Metro Centre has been willing to give me a quick tidy up with the clippers on the back of my neck.

[conuly]

Frankly I was surprised any black woman would entrust her hair to anyone other than a hairdresser specialising in black hair.

Not all black women have the same hair texture.