It's OK to be 60, if you look like you're 40

It's OK to be 60, if you look like you're 40
Or why a lot of people are dyeing to hit the bottle every three weeks

News director of Global B.C.
Ian Haysom
TimesColonist.com
Saturday, September 15, 2007

CREDIT: Darren Stone
Times Colonist / Premier Gordon Campbell, seen here with Vancouver chef John Bishop, right, and Minister of State Gordon Hogg, went prematurely grey. Ian Haysom suggests it was an improvement on his almost dull brown.

More than a decade ago a well-known Canadian woman -- a household name, a household face, a smart, funny and beautiful woman -- walked into my newspaper office and stunned me. Her hair was completely grey.

Wow, I said. "So what do you think?" she asked. I paused only briefly. "Very brave," I said, "and very -- er -- natural." And then, of course, I said it looked great. Well, it did. And anyway, I'm a male. Whenever a woman asks me about her hair, I know how to respond. I'm a survivor.

I remember her saying it was time to show off "the real me. Not the artificial me." And we had a long conversation about the colouring of hair, and why most men didn't colour and most women did.

A year or so later she had been offered a regular national television gig. I saw her being interviewed. And her hair was, once again, dyed brown. Back to artifice. Gallantry won't permit me to identify the celeb since she's still very much in the public eye, and still wearing hair that's 20 years younger than she is, but part of me wishes she was still grey. Then, maybe, a whole bunch of women wouldn't feel the need to hit the bottle every three weeks.

A new book about grey hair by U.S. writer Anne Kreamer has fuelled the debate about whether baby-boomer women should be colouring their hair. The book is called Going Gray and subtitled What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Matters.

The book quotes Nora Ephron, the humorist: "There's a reason why 40, 50 and 60 don't look the way they used to, and it's not because of feminism, or better living through exercise. It's because of hair dye." Kreamer decided to stop dyeing her hair and wrote about reactions to it. They were mixed. She received a "right on, sister" enthusiasm from fellow grey-haired women, and an equally proud "don't judge me" from those committed to dyeing.

The subtext, of course, is ageism. Women run companies and countries, they're network TV anchors and great actors, but only, it seems, as long as they're considered youthful. Getting old is the big sin. You can't be 60 unless you look like you're 40 -- or trying to be 40.

Where are the grey-haired role models? Look around and try to name 10 female celebrities over 50 who have grey hair. There's Emmylou Harris. Margaret Atwood. Helen Mirren (sometimes). And, er, um, that's about it. Does Hillary Clinton colour? Oprah? And it's not just women. Paul McCartney openly admits to dyeing his hair, though frankly it sometimes looks like a dead squirrel up there. Robert Redford still has reddish-blond hair. Mick Jagger's over 60 but has a brown mane. Hope I die before I get old? Hope I die before I get bald -- and grey.

Some older men actually look better with grey hair. Our premier, for instance, who went prematurely grey and whose silvery head of hair is an improvement on his almost dull brown. And Paul Newman and Sean Connery, who are now old enough to know better.

Some women Kreamer interviewed felt having dyed hair was essential to advancing their career. Some felt grey hair makes women look drab. Interestingly, though, Kreamer put photos of herself on Match.com, a dating site, with both brown and grey hair. Three times as many men wanted to go out with the grey-haired women than the brown-haired. That shocked her. Me too.

I have brown hair. And a grey beard. My wife points out that this is because I speak a lot and don't think much, so my brain hasn't had as much of a workout as my chin these past few decades. Sometimes, people suggest I shave off the beard to look younger. My family won't let me. They've seen the chin.

But, increasingly, men are under the same pressures to look younger. We used to have Rocket Richard gently pushing Grecian Formula. Now we have those Just for Men ads where a guy with a grey hair and beard hits on a gorgeous young woman in a bar. She pushes him away. He applies Just for Men, returns, and she's jumping into the sack with him in nanoseconds. Hope he remembered to dye his pubic hair.

So here's the rub. We live in a post-feminist, uber-natural age where we're all supposed to be proud to be ourselves, but where obviously growing older, gracefully, is considered a no-no.

It's an interesting debate because it about more than just vanity. It also talks to who we are as a society. Yes, we should all be able to accept grey hair. We should be able to accept aging.

But we don't. Because we're shallow. Hair dye is our elixir of life. We're hanging on to our youth -- to the last drop.

Ian Haysom divides his week between Vancouver and Central Saanich. He is the news director of Global B.C.

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