25.5.2010

A load of hot (h)air

The Finnish Consumer Agency and the Gender Equality Ombudsman once again accuse hairdressers of gender discrimination, because a haircut for women costs more than a haircut for men (typically twice as much, or more).

Wow, what a load of hot (h)air. This has been explained to these officials very very many times: women typically like to have a longer hair with more elaborate hairdressing requirements than men. They also want more complex things done to their hair. For a professional, it takes more than twice the amount of time to do the hair of the average woman than what it takes to do the hair of a man. If a woman likes to have the kind of haircut that men usually prefer, she can surely get it at the same price. This isn't discrimination. Enforcing the same price for totally different kinds of services would be discrimination.

Sure, the hairdressers could make their price lists say "Haircut style A: 60 EUR, haircut style B: 25 EUR" instead of "Haircut for women: 60 EUR, haircut for men: 25 EUR". But what useful purpose would that serve? Then there would just be a need to explain what is an A class haircut and what is a B class haircut.

It's pretty evident that there's no such thing as a Taxpayer Ombudsman. He or she could just try to stop this kind of insane waste of effort and money which serves absolutely no useful purpose. It's just a clerical liturgy, necessary to keep the prayer-mills of Gender Equality rolling. (BTW, remember Tasa-arvoyksikkö, the exemplary unit of Gender Equality that exclusively hires women. See the list of names.)

I'll make an offer to Pirkko Mäkinen: let me know of the time and place, and I'll do your hair for free. With the 3 mm machine that I use for my own hair all the time.

The hairdressers prices, even for men, are not exactly great value for money - partially due to the fact that they pay taxes to fund the kind of governmental sillines that you try to enforce. Besides, I don't have so much hair to cut in the first place. Do I want to enforce gender equality regarding this problem? Hmm....

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