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Perhaps it's just the movies, but usually the line goes "do you prefer blondes or brunettes?" !

Never do you hear, "Do you prefer blondes, brunettes or grey?"

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Is it possible that women can be their own worst enemy at times, and self objectify?
The answer is yes!

Some women base their own self-worth off of their appearance, and so therefore will do all they can to look their absolute best. Often looking your best means looking young and healthy, so having grey hair doesn't really fit into that category.

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Besides the fact that women don't want to be thought of as not beautiful anymore because they are going grey, they may also feel anxious about the prospect of getting old, and what that means for them.

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Existential and phenomenological feminists focus on how women have been marginalized and defined as the “other” in patriarchal societies. (Crossman, n.d., para. 3).

Retrieved from http://sociology.about.com/od/Disciplines/a/Sociology-Of-Gender.htm

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Article - Why women should stop dying their hair.

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Article - Why women should stop dying their hair.

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An interesting article discussing why women should stop dying there hair.

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Almost 15 years ago, Anne Kreamer looked at a picture of herself, didn't like her "brown helmet", and stopped colouring her hair. She was a 46-year-old businesswoman working in the US. Her subsequent book was the chirpily titled Going Gray: How to Embrace Your Authentic Self With Grace and Style; she says it's been liberating in every aspect of her life. "There are so many myths about going grey that, when you get through the undeniably difficult growing-out phase, you realise are total hogwash," she says. "About how you'll look old. About how you'll look as if you've let yourself go. About how you can never have long hair again. About how you're invisible. About how you'll kill your career. It's simply not true."

Related: Grey is great: why hair is the last bastion of vanity | Anne Perkins

My own revelation came between custard and pasta. Five minutes earlier, during my weekly shop, I had been trying to work out which magic box of hair colour to shove in the trolley. Sod it, I thought, I'll get it another time. By the time I reached the till, I had made a decision - to ditch the dye and let my hair grow naturally. At 43, I knew my hair wasn't dark any more, hence the three-weekly sessions over the bath - done in a bid to remind myself I was a brunette. It was smelly, ruining my hair, costing me time and money - and wasn't fooling anyone that I was still 23.

Why do so many of us keep hitting the bottle? Our hair - how it looks and what it says about us - remains a significant statement. In the UK, we spend £7.2bn a year at the hairdressers, and average nearly £90 on a cut and colour, according to the National Hairdressers Federation. Skinflints like me do the colour bit at home, maintaining a sector worth £322m in 2015.

Grey as a colour - as seen on Rihanna, Cara Delevingne and Lady Gaga, and all over social media - has been big for nearly two years. Roshida Khanom, of market researchers Mintel, says: "It's acceptable now to have hair of pretty much any colour." But going grey artificially is quite a procedure, involving multiple bleaches, a purple toner to strip any "warmth" from the hair, followed by a grey dye - all taking time and money. It's not something to try at home, says Khanom, which means the industry has a whole new revenue stream to tap into.

What was a hip trend is now going mainstream - but only if you're not already middle-aged. Judging by the state of my roots, I'll have white hair for free, but I'll be sporting locks that we all seem to be a bit scared of - the kind you get naturally when you're getting older. (There's no such thing as grey hair - it's all white - but the mixture of white hair with pigmented follicles means it looks grey.)

Jayne Mayled started her own company, White Hot Hair, after realising there was a gap in the market for specialist products for white hair like her own. "Men who embrace their grey are treated as if they've found a cure for cancer," she laughs. "They've become gorgeous. Women who do it don't get that response. We're either brave or mad. It would be good to change that." Fashion commentator and broadcaster Caryn Franklin thinks that eradicating the visible signs of ageing is part and parcel of the societal pressure that women are under to look good. "We've been groomed - by the media, by advertisers, and now by ourselves - to understand that our gender has to try harder, to consume more, when it comes to our appearance. We've been taught to fear growing old."

To me, the decision to go grey is political, too. I want my children to see what a real live middle-aged woman looks like. There aren't really any grey-haired women under the age of 50 in the public eye - where are the women who are genetically wired to go grey early? I know they're around - I can't stop spotting them. Of every colour, age and walk of life, these women are motivated by political, gender, financial and style stances. Many, like me, wake up after decades of colouring and think - why am I doing this?

Related: The sexist surcharge - how women ​get ripped off on the high street

"Nothing's really changed since I wrote the book," Kreamer says. "I'm still generally the only woman in the room with white or grey hair, but it's always a positive experience, whether at work or in my personal life." She tells me about the awestruck hipster who stopped her in the street to tell her how beautiful her hair was. "He said he had never seen anything like it before, which I thought was telling. We're all under the thumb of the beauty industry, really, and they've been telling us for years that white is bad."

Kreamer is adamant that using colouring as an ageing disguise does exactly the opposite and is detrimental to your confidence. "It's your sense of vitality and your character that define you. You could have the best dye-job from a top salon, but have a slump in your step, and you would look ancient."

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Fade to grey: why women should stop dyeing their hair

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Almost 15 years ago, Anne Kreamer looked at a picture of herself, didn't like her "brown helmet", and stopped colouring her hair. She was a 46-year-old businesswoman working in the US. Her subsequent book was the chirpily titled Going Gray: How to Embrace Your Authentic Self With Grace and Style; she says it's been liberating in every aspect of her life.

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The ladies on the loose women show in the UK talk about whether or not they would go grey. One says she would "absolutely not go grey as she doesn't have the confidence". This is so interesting.
The reason women lack confidence is due to being constantly on show by not only other males but other females too.

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Would any of the Loose Women go grey. Like, follow and subscribe to Loose Women! YouTube: http://bit.ly/1C7hxMy Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1KXmWdc Twitter: http://bit.ly/1Bxfxts http://www.itv.com http://www.stv.tv http://www.u.tv

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Richardson & Locks (2015. p.32) state that grooming is a 'distinctly gendered activity, with women expected to engage in much more detailed and intricate grooming processes than men".

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I was at the hairdressers at 22 and after they had nicely blow dried my hair I noticed 3 pieces of my hair shimmering in the light. Upon closer inspection I realised what it was........to my shock horror I had somehow managed to grow 3 grey hairs and I literally began to shed a tear. I then quickly called my mum to see when she started going age, and she responded by saying 'oh yes I went grey young too'. I felt completely dismayed and from that day on the greys kept appearing. I am now 31 and my hair is covered throughout with greys. I have a youngish looking face so I always am getting stares and comments on 'wow you are going grey already', and I would be lying if I said it didn't affect me.
There's something not very nice about feeling like I am ageing, or possibly its because I am too concerned about everyone else's opinion. It's a daily issue that I face as I know that people are thinking to themselves "why doesn't she just dye her hair"?! Well the truth is, I do dye my hair when I have the time and money but considering the rate in which my hair grows and the dye fades, it's hard to keep on top of!
So you could imagine my surprise when I heard about all the celebs that had started dying their hair grey 'ON PURPOSE' might I add!

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2014/15 - Where Grey became the new Black!

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2014/15 - Where Grey became the new Black!

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All of a sudden the latest craze to hit celeb town was dying their grey. Im not sure how this all started but suddenly if you were behind with the times!
The only problem with this though, is it was only cool if it was chemically applied to your hair in the form of a dye, not if you are just naturally sprouting grey....go figure!

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Naturally greying men look 'distinguished' no?

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Naturally greying men look 'distinguished' no?

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Why is it that as men go grey, people refer to them as handsome and distinguished?
Well, as suggested by Richardson & Locks (p.41) "A man's body is appraised in terms of what it can do rather than how it looks".

Richardson, Niall and Locks, Adam (2014). Body Image: Beauty and Ageing" Body Studies: The Basics.

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Goffman theorises that the world is a stage in which we are all actors. We play a role, in how we want others to perceive us. We use impression management to help us keep control of our image. He suggests that any disruption to the interaction order is necessary, as we must keep our bodies in line with how we are trying to portray ourselves to others. So in terms of grey hair, a woman may start dying her hair to avoid any disruption to the interactional order. It could be more true if the woman is in a particular career such as modelling for instance.

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Grey hair = old (right?!)

That's what society tells us anyway. Although this is not necessarily always the case. I mean, I started going grey at 22 after all!

Our image including our hair is an immediate representation of how old we appear to be to others, and if they see grey hair they will assume a woman is older than she actually may be. But what does this mean for the woman in question? How might she feel about being portrayed as older than she is?

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I often hear people talk about wanting to work with those who have "a bit of grey hair" when they're looking to deal with someone with experience.

Problem is, mostly they're talking about blokes - the 'silver foxes'. I suspect having grey hair in the workplace if you're a woman is considered a drawback, hence why so many dye their locks.

I put this to coaching psychologist Patrea O'Donoghue, who sports rather fetching naturally grey hair, to get her insights into why women feel the need to dye their mane. She points out hair colour is an immediately visible characteristic of a person and when we go grey, it's a sign we're getting older.

"It's a physical reminder we're not going to be around forever. So for some people there can be an element of denial of the aging process by dying their hair. Many women have been colouring their hair for so long, they wouldn't know what their real colour is anymore or even if they have grey hairs. Peer pressure and societal expectations also play a role. In a business context very few women go grey," she explains.

Of course, the experience of going grey is distinctly different for men: very few colour their hair and those that do are widely derided.

"It's the norm for men to go grey or go bald," O'Donoghue says. "There is a real hypocrisy and double standard. If men dye their hair it's seen as strange behaviour - there's a similar reaction if they wear make-up," she adds.

One of the reasons O'Donoghue decided to stop colouring her hair and try out her natural tones was because she wanted to be truly authentic. She also didn't want to continue exposing herself to the chemicals involved with hair dying.

"If you're covering up your physical attributes and what makes you a unique person, ultimately you're trying to be someone you're not. If you get your hair colour from a bottle, you're going to have the same hair colour as thousands of other people," she says, explaining that it's perhaps healthier to learn to accept yourself as you really are, rather than present yourself as someone you're not.

O'Donoghue says going grey is not about letting yourself go. "Exercise and keeping your mind active are productive ways to approach getting older; you also don't have to cave into physical ailments. But other activities like cosmetic surgery and perhaps dying your hair are more about denial, conformity, or an active non-acceptance of what is a very natural part of life," she says.

So how should you reach acceptance you're getting older, rather than try to mask the symptoms by dying your hair? It's a pretty tough question - no-one wants to get older because it means you're getting closer to the end.

O'Donoghue says one way to move towards an acceptance of ageing is for us to speak more openly about death and aging, rather than pretend it's not going on.

"People don't accept ageing and death as natural parts of life. Perhaps people are frightened of their own mortality. Yet all of us are on a one-way journey to [the grave]. Another way to encourage acceptance is to stop isolating older people from society by sticking them away in nursing homes," she says.

We may even come to love and embrace grey hair as a sign of mature experience.

The idea being that if we see more people with grey hair around us, rather than pretend they don't exist, we'll more easily be able to accept our own ageing process and ultimate demise. "We may even develop a greater sense of compassion for the elderly and frail as we may begin to see ourselves in them."

In our society we tend to glorify youth and all that comes with it, and shun older people. But if we acknowledged the entire human experience, rather than focus on the youthful and gorgeous, we won't feel so bad when we find our first grey hairs and wrinkles.

"In fact, we may even come to love and embrace grey hair as a sign of mature experience; I've earned it and I'll wear it with pride," she says

As to whether going grey is a disadvantage in the workplace for women, O'Donoghue says when she first stopped colouring her hair to go grey gracefully - she found her first grey hairs in her early twenties - a few people commented and many people admired her courage for making this choice. "My view was I could always go back to colouring my hair if I wanted to."

She also recounts the attitude of one of her first bosses, then in his late-40s, to her grey hair. "He told me it was a good thing. Going grey does appeal to clients who value experience. I believe in my case going grey has worked in my favour."

It's a refreshing approach more women should consider.
What do you think? Is grey hair a disadvantage for women in the workforce?

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I often hear people talk about wanting to work with those who have "a bit of grey hair" when they're looking to deal with someone with experience. Problem is, mostly they're talking about blokes - the 'silver foxes'. I suspect having grey hair in the workplace if you're a woman is considered a drawback, hence why so many dye their locks.