new thread
Sure, it has a lot to do with 'control' but I think they also
do NOT TRUST MEN to:
Keep their hair 'out of trouble'...Out of heavy machinery...
Don't trust men to keep their hair NEAT or...
CLEAN..
and there's always the jealous boss who does NOT want his workers...
to get MORE attention than he does...
Maybe they thing LOnghair = rebellious type...
and they certainly do NOT want THAT!
But in the end, it's still DISCRIMINATION
It's not what the boss thinks so much as what s/he's afraid that customers, upper management, etc. will think. I, for one, would have a problem hiring a longhaired salesman, for example, even though I have long hair and so do half my factory people.
The reason is, I have a number of conservative customers that might not buy from me if they think I'm too liberal or hippie or flaky or whatever they might think. Since the salesman is the front guy for the business (on the customer end) he's the guy that makes the big impression.
A sad fact, but unfortunately true. Prejudice runs rampant, and should one choose to blind themselves to it, they do it at their own risk.
The Rev
A sad fact, but unfortunately true. Prejudice runs rampant, and should one choose to blind themselves to it, they do it at their own risk." ~The Rev
So the Longhair would NOT be hired under those circumstances...
Must be a good form of discrimination which we all do do
Think about this: what if some (or more than you think) of your potential customers ARE "hippies" and like the fact you're a liberal man who hires a longhaird man?
Hiring longhairs may have the opposite effect from what you described. Middle and upper managers, who do most of the purchasing, are getting younger and younger, in terms of generations. Perhaps that 45 year old who you're selling to grew up in the 70s and had long hair for a bit. He might see something in that salesman that others don't.
Have you ever taken an organizational behaviour course / read about it? Very interesting stuff regarding hiring, ethics, etc.
py.