Emerging Barbershop Culture in the Twenty-first Century
Paula Persoleo
INITIAL RESPONSES
Immediately I recognized that things were different, as I struggled to find a parking spot in the tiny lot hidden just off of the highway. The barbershop is located in an area too small to be considered a strip mall-and apparently too small to handle all of its customers' vehicles. It is the third in a row of three shops, although the first, a former ice cream/water ice business, was for rent. I knew that all of the drivers of the automobiles in the lot were in the barbershop, as the repair shop next to it does not open until 9 A.M. Apparently all Saturday mornings here begin with such a full parking lot. Once I found a parking spot, I was ready to begin my first session of ethnographic observation for my Doing Anthropology course.
I walked into U.S. Male tentatively, looking for a corner seat. Air coming through the open door chilled the shop's interior, which was teeming with customers just fifteen minutes after the shop had opened. The stares from those already seated in the shop's green plastic chairs along the right wall, as well as from those getting haircuts in the four leather chairs to my left, pierced me as I wandered over to one of the vacant seats. There were only two available, so I was stuck between a chair seating Outdoor magazine and another holding a man in his forties who was reading The News Journal and sipping a rapidly cooling cup of coffee.
There were ten customers in all, and they all seemed ready for a wait as many came prepared with equipment similar to that brought by the gentleman on my left. I was surprised by the lack of conversation amid the fairly large crowd, although I attributed this to it being too early in the morning to engage in any sort of meaningful conversation. Two of the barbers were talking with their customers about the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001-just four days before this initial visit, but the other two said nothing as they worked. A tiny television with a screen approximately six inches high, located in the middle of the four barbers' stations, was displaying CNN, but the sound was turned down. When the razors stopped buzzing, the classic rock radio station seemed to blare through the quiet. Despite the open door, the air conditioner was moaning softly in the background.
I took this opportunity to examine my surroundings. To the right of the opened front door was a gumball machine and a green leafy plant. The counter in front of the door seemed to have no immediate purpose, except to hold another leafy plant and some additional magazines that were strewn about it. Above the chairs where I was sitting was a mirror, which I presume is used by the nervous customer who wants to keep an eye on the way in which the barber cuts his hair. Another wall sectioned off an area from the four barbers' stations, which I knew to be the owner's workspace. His station basically was set up as were the others, but he had more room in which to work. There was one sink on the opposite side of his wall for use in case a customer wanted a "premium cut," which includes a shampoo and conditioning wash or a color treatment. In the corner, between the sink and the fourth barber's station, was the ATM, conveniently located next to the cash register. This is practical because the barbershop only accepts cash for payment.
Opposite the plastic chairs were the four barbers' stations. All were similarly constructed with large mirrors, long fluorescent lights, and enough counter space to shelve various hair-cutting products, including Clorox wipes, water bottles, hair spray, gel, brushes, combs soaking in Barbicide, a shaving brush, scissors, and razor attachments of various sizes. The razor itself was attached to the right corner of the counter, and its long blue tube, which collected the newly cut hair, was connected to the bottom right side of the counter. The diplomas for each barber hung to the right of their stations, while smaller, portable mirrors hung below them. A booster seat rested against the left side of each station. American flags were recently hung at the top right corner of the fluorescent lights. Somehow, this setting reminded me more of a hair salon than it did a barbershop.
This shop is set up for efficient business. It and the adjacent parking lot are small, but there is enough room to keep the shop filled for four barbers on their busiest days. All of the barbers have exactly what they need at their disposal. If they run out of any products, the brand names of which varied from barber to barber, then the cabinets below their counters have a replacement. The owner's area generally is used as a break area because the owner is employed elsewhere during most days. This is a convenience because a barber can cut short his break if the shop fills with people, but he also can conceal himself in the back so the store does not look inefficient by employing more people than necessary.
The barbershop is set up to be efficient for its customers as well. There are four barbers available all day, everyday, and five if the owner is there. The customer is assured of waiting no longer than twenty to thirty minutes, even on a busy Saturday morning. There is no need for a barber to tell the next customer to sit down: that customer is seated before the barber returns from his last transaction. Customers watch each other so they know who is next to be served. They make known the barber for whom they are waiting by either sitting directly behind that barber or by announcing their preference to incoming customers.
The customers in the shop that morning all had a similar appearance. Each looked to be in his late-thirties or mid-forties, dressed either in khakis or jeans, and all wore button-down shirts. Those who did not bring coffee or a newspaper flipped through the magazines that were scattered throughout the shop. Many of the customers were waiting for the same barber to cut their hair, which accounted for the unusually long amount of time they had been sitting in the plastic chairs. After further visits, I realized that older men tended to go in the morning or early afternoon on weekdays, while young men tended to go after 4:00 on weekdays or throughout the day on Saturdays. Women who took their sons to the barber tended to go on weekday evenings or Saturdays throughout the day. Little girls who went with either their fathers or their mothers tended to follow this same pattern. That morning, then, the men in the shop were on schedule. The only other time that men of their age come into the shop is during the typical lunchtime, between 11:30 A.M. and 2 P.M.
I looked up from my notebook after scribbling ferociously, and I realized that no one was looking at me anymore. In fact, it seemed as though the customers were going out of their way to avoid looking at me. I then realized just how excluded I was from this group of males sitting around me. Throughout the shop were outright signs of masculinity: the radio station was broadcasting commercials with men saying, "Are you getting any?" and women moaning in the background; the magazines surrounding me were targeted at men; the only plants present were without flowers; and most obviously, there were no other women around. There was not the slightest possibility of my blending in, either, because unlike all of the other customers, I had medium-length hair, I wore a bright orange shirt, and I was unfamiliar with the processes that went on in the shop. Even if the barbers, who knew I would stop in periodically, did not care that I was around, I felt the urge to leave as the customers seemed uncomfortable in my presence. I decided that I had gathered all the information that I could handle for that day, so I closed my notebook, picked up my purse, and left the shop.
As I left, I noticed things that I had overlooked when I arrived earlier that morning, including the "Barber Pole," the distinctive marker of a barbershop. I had anticipated a tall pole, approximately six feet high, with the swirling red, white, and blue bands staring at me as I approached the door; instead, the "pole" was the size of a lighting fixture mounted near the high left corner of the entrance to the shop. On the spinning blue band in white letters was written "Hairstylist," rather than what I thought was the more appropriate title, "Barber," since schools that train hairstylists are different from the schools that train barbers.
I also noticed signs on the outside of the building, as well as on the billboard near the highway, which emphasized "Fast-Service" and "Fast Walk-in Service." These signs also showed subtle indications of the maleness of this shop. The "L" in the word "Male" on the billboard facing the highway had the barber pole drawn into it to stress that "U.S. Male Men's Hair Care Center," as it is advertised in the phone book, was in fact a barbershop. I smirked when I noticed this, and I surmised that this was done to prove to men that this was not a salon. Salons are for women, of course.
DEBUNKING ASSUMPTIONS
I always have had the notion of a barbershop as an intimate gathering place where men go not only to get a haircut, but also to gossip. When I was a child, my father took my brother and me with him to the barbershop. We sat on wooden chairs around a small coffee table in the tiny waiting area, which provided us with a newspaper missing sections and two or three magazines, just enough to kill the time my dad spent with the barber. My dad waited with us for about twenty minutes until one of the two barbers who worked there was ready, then casually walked to the opened chair and had a lengthy, informal conversation with that barber.
During my first visit to U.S. Male, I began to realize that much had changed since my tag-along visits to the barbershop with my dad. The intimacy is gone-the waiting room area has been elongated and shoved against the wall opposite of the cutting area. Efficiency and convenience, not camaraderie and conversation, increasingly are becoming the norms. Lengthy conversations are now a burden to the fast-paced professional, who has time only for the "quick trim." In fact, the barbers themselves do not go out of their way to begin a conversation or even to ask the customer what type of cut he wants. Rather, immediately following the previous cash transaction, they call out, "Next," so that the next waiting customer will be in the seat and ready for the barber once he gets back from the register.
In addition to those differences, I could not help but recognize the masculine overtones that surrounded me during that first visit. I wanted to concentrate all of my energies on how the barbershop had changed from a slow-paced, friendly environment into the fast-paced session of consumer reality that it had become-but with each repeated visit I realized that I had to address the issue of masculinity in the barbershop because the evidence of its presence screamed at me.
Especially during that first visit to U.S. Male, I felt the oppressive weight of the "male gaze," a term which I thought applied only to characters in movies. The theory is that female characters in movies are framed according to the desired "male gaze" that the shot demands. Perhaps as a child my presence in a barbershop was accepted because I was there waiting for my father, as I was too young to be left home alone. Or perhaps I simply was too young to notice anyone who would have been staring at me. But every time I walked into U.S. Male, I knew that I was out of place, and the stares I received from the customers emphasized this. My hunch was confirmed when I interviewed Gary White, the barber who occupied the first station.1 I asked him if he thought that women who came into the barbershop seemed comfortable being there, and he answered that "when a woman comes into a barbershop, she knows that...it would be like...a professional woman walking in town by the, uh, construction site. All the guys are gonna look at her, you know? Probably, we all, you know, we look at the women that come in here, but were not... disrespectful to 'em." Later in the conversation, he again emphasized, "Any woman that comes in here, all eyes are gonna be on the woman, you know?"
Yes, I do, which is why I could not keep from thinking about this issue. In U.S. Male, the gaze appeared each time I walked in, questioning me, suspicious of why I was there, and then it disappeared so that, theoretically, I might, too. This was a regular pattern, repeated each time I went in (with one exception that I will mention later). The emerging barbershop culture, it seems, is adopting an economic efficiency paralleled with an über-masculinity, and both are over-emphasized to ensure that the message can be read clearly.
BARBERS, HISTORICALLY SPEAKING
The word barber is derived from the Latin word barba, meaning beard.2 As a profession, barbering was introduced in Rome in 296 B.C. The barbers of the early days were also surgeons and dentists, and in both Egypt and Greece, barbers attained prosperity and respect. Statesmen, poets, and philosophers who came to have their hair cut or their beards trimmed frequented the shops. They also came to discuss the news of the day because the barbershops of the ancient world were the headquarters of social, political, and sporting news.
Barbers also performed other services, having been enlisted in later years to assist the clergy in their medicinal practice of blood letting. At the Council of Tours in 1163, the clergy were forbidden to draw blood or to act as physicians or surgeons. Barbers then took up these duties, partly because they were the natural successors of the clergy, but also because physicians of that time disdained surgery. The origin of the barber's pole appears to be associated with this service of bloodletting. The original pole has at its top a brass basin that represents both the vessel in which leeches were kept and the basin that received the blood. The pole itself represents the staff that the patient held onto during the operation. The red and white stripes symbolize the bandages used during the procedure: red for the bandages stained with blood during the operation and white for the clean bandages. After washing, the bandages were hung out to dry on the pole, blowing and twisting together to form the spiral pattern seen on the modern day barber pole.
The bloodstained bandages became recognized as the emblem of the barber-surgeon profession. Later, the emblem was replaced by a wooden pole of white and red stripes. These colors are recognized as the true colors of the barber emblem. Red, white, and blue typically are displayed in America, partly due to the fact that the national flag has these colors. Another interpretation of these barber pole colors is that the red represents arterial blood, the blue is symbolic of venous blood, and the white depicts the bandage. After the formation of the United Barber Surgeons Company in England, a statute required barbers to use a blue and white pole and surgeons to use a red pole.
The connection between barbery and surgery continued for more than six centuries, and the barber profession reached its pinnacle during this time. Until 1461, barbers were the only persons practicing surgery. After this time, new discoveries were being made regularly and barbers found it impossible to keep up while maintaining their skill in dentistry and barbery. By an act of Parliament in 1745, the alliance between the barbers and the surgeons was dissolved. Two separate companies were formed and the property formerly owned jointly by the barbers and the surgeons was divided. The profession lost its ancient dignity and, by the nineteenth century, barbers had become laborers instead of professionals. Barbershops became hangouts, places where low characters assembled. Smutty stories, malicious scandal, and gossip of all kinds characterized barbershops. A barbershop was a place where men showed their lower instincts and women dared not enter.
COMMENTARY ON THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Although I knew something of this ancient barber-surgeon profession when I began my study, it was difficult for me to imagine Gary letting blood from a sick man or dissecting bodies of hanged criminals. The profession continues to change; however, similarities between modern barbering and some of the other older traditions remain. I remember when barbers engaged in lengthy conversations with their customers, not because it was convenient or because it killed the slow time, but for the pleasure of speaking with another person. Likewise, in ancient Greece, men engaged in meaningful conversation with each other. I will allow that the quiet conversations being held on September 15 were reminiscent of ancient ones-social, political, and sporting news were prominent conversation topics-but Gary, the most talkative of all of the barbers in U.S. Male, suggested in my interview with him that most prevalent were conversations about smut, scandal, and gossip.
The dignity of the barbershop may still be in question, but the popularity of barbershops is easy to recognize. In New Castle County, Delaware, there are forty-one shops with the word "barber" in their titles. There are nine shops that suggest, either implicitly or explicitly, that they are in fact barbershops although "barber" is not stated directly in their titles. There are forty-two additional salons or hair design businesses that also are listed under the heading "Barbers" in the phone book. Whether because of the overt femaleness of the salon environment or the camaraderie men find in a barbershop, there are proportionately more barbershops than salons.
Gary had his own reasons for becoming a barber after working in an upscale salon. I wondered if Gary changed jobs because there was a greater payoff for him as a barber. About the monetary differential he said that "you could be doing a perm, a color, and a highlight, you know, which will take you a couple hours, or you could bang out eight haircuts, you know, in a couple hours." This suggests that the pay from barbering is at least complementary to that in a salon. For my haircuts I go to the same place Gary used to work, and I pay fifty dollars plus a tip each time I get a haircut. When one compares a man getting a regular haircut every six to eight weeks at twelve dollars a cut to my spending fifty dollars three times a year, the exchange is fairly even.
As the only specifically listed "barbershop" in Hockessin, U.S. Male, despite its diminutive size, has captured the business of a large proportion of the town's male population. It also generates a large revenue, as it charges twelve dollars for the typical haircut for both men and young boys. This seems to be a bit excessive since a man's haircut can take as little as five minutes or, for a perfectionist barber, at most twenty minutes. This pricing is viable, though, since U.S. Male is the only "Men's Hair Care Center" in the area. Men's haircuts in salons generally cost significantly less than women's haircuts, but they still cost more than a typical barbers shop would charge. The salon closest to U.S. Male, only a half of a mile away, charges fourteen dollars for a man's haircut. For a man who is comforted by the presence of mostly men, or feels overwhelmed by the presence of mostly women, the two-dollar price difference is a sufficient excuse for his driving the extra half-mile for a "quick trim" from U.S. Male.
So if there is little difference between the amount of money Gary made at the salon and the amount he makes as a barber, then the reason for this occupational change must be due to the environmental differences between the salon and the barbershop. When I asked him directly why he chose to work in a barbershop instead, Gary said, "It's a lot easier dealing with men than with women." Despite some pressing, I could not get him to elaborate much on his response; I have a feeling, however, that the overt femaleness of the salon environment had influenced his decision. Gary's conversations with his male customers at the barbershop tend to focus on "sports, sex, cars, uh, rock and roll, everything," unlike those more polished conversations that he had with his female clients at the salon. Gary claimed that "a salon's a different setting, ya know? I mean, it's just like... a storehouse with... one person coming in right after the other, you know? Salon, you make an appointment, you gotta... treat 'em really nice. You know, you kinda have to smooth-move 'em, you know?" This barbershop is a place where men show their "lower instincts" and "woman dare not enter," by virtue of the prevalent male gaze if not the conversations held.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
U.S. Male may seem to most outsiders as located in an inconvenient spot. For those traveling on Lancaster Pike in the South direction, crossing the highway into the parking lot can be a dangerous feat. The parking lot holds few automobiles although it is shared among the three businesses in the strip mall. The shop can hold approximately fifteen people at full capacity, and at times on the busiest of days people will stand inside to wait their turn. But this barbershop, despite its deficiencies, has some clear strategic advantages over its competitors.
In Hockessin, there are three listings that appear under the heading "Barbers" in the yellow pages; however, U.S. Male has the distinct advantage of listing the term "male" in its title. The other two, by contrast, have the word "Design" in their titles. This is a serious point because few men go to salons for haircuts, and the word "Design" subtly suggests that the other hair cuttery systems are salons that primarily service women. The word "design" also implies a greater time commitment for the cutting and styling process—This is an added inconvenience to the ever-demanding schedule of the modern man. In popular culture's ideology, women have more time to devote to this practice of having one's hair designed because their occupations are perceived as less important and, consequently, less time consuming. Or, as another idea in popular culture purports, women gossip with each other for long periods of time; the "design" center offers them an outlet for this behavior.
QUESTIONS FOR ME
After a number of trips to the barbershop as an observer, it was time to conduct an interview with one of the barbers. I planned the inevitable interview for the evening, close to the shop's closing time so as not to inconvenience the barber who chose to speak with me. But this is, in fact, the busiest time of day for the barbers of U.S. Male, so my interview had to wait until after the shop closed. I was accustomed to the quiet Saturday crowd or weekday afternoon lunchtime group, but on this evening the shop was teeming with wiggling children and rowdy preteens, with people standing while waiting for the next available barber. The barbers themselves were moving at a rapid pace, much more so than I had seen them do before. I had settled in a free seat between a mother on my left who was trying to settle her son and daughter and a father on my right who was doing the same with his son and daughter. This, incidentally, was the only time that anyone ever bothered to speak to me.
I felt as though I blended in more this time, if only because there were other women inside. I asked the woman to my left if she wanted me to stand so that her son and/or daughter could sit in my seat, but she said that I was fine where I was. I asked the man to my right the same question, and he, too, said that I was fine sitting there. His daughter stared at me the entire time, though obviously not in the same way that the men did when I went earlier in the day. I imagined how I would have reacted as a child of her age if I were with my dad in a barbershop and I saw a woman in her early twenties sitting in the chair next to me with no male companion. I concluded that she thought that I was there for a haircut, just as her father was there for one.
I overheard the girl asking her father what I was doing here. He laughingly replied, "Why don't you ask her?" I was sure that he understood why I was there-the notebook and my typically ferocious writing were apparent-but for the only time in my study, I explained I was there to observe behaviors that are specific to a barbershop. He then leaned over to his daughter and said to her, "A barbershop is a very good place to observe behavior." This was the most endearing moment of my entire project. The man then got up to get his haircut.
The next fifteen minutes passed quickly. I looked up to find the shop empty, save for the four barbers cleaning up and me. Gary walked up to me, casually asking me what I was doing. I was caught off guard by his approach, not only because I was taking notes, but also because it was one of only three occasions when I was acknowledged by any of the barbers. For a time, I thought that they purposely ignored me, but my introverted behavior may have encouraged them to assume that I did not want my note-taking session to be disturbed. I must admit that that evening I was glad I did not have to try to coerce any of the barbers to agree to an interview with me.
Still slightly uncomfortable in the interviewing position, I was on guard at the beginning of my conversation with Gary. Gradually, however, we both got used to each other, and we even laughed through the interview. I found it amusing that, although he said that he chose to leave the salon because he found men easier to deal with, he seemed comfortable around me as I interviewed him-or at least more so than when I was initially around him. He continued to talk with me even after the tape recorder had stopped and, although I felt more alienated by some of his answers, I respected his honesty when answering my questions. Although I obviously was perturbed by some of the comments he made, in retrospect I'm glad that he made them. Not only did his information expand my initial paper topic, but he allowed me to dig for answers that I did not realize I needed or wanted. I now understand that, although at that point my objective was to determine the types of men who use this particular barbershop, I inadvertently asked him about the male/female dynamics that occurred within this shop because of my own apprehension.
CONCLUSIONS
During this project, I felt uncomfortable going into the barbershop because I usually was the only woman present. Overwhelming dread filled me each time I woke up and realized that I had to go back to the shop for additional research. This feeling confused me since generally I feel more comfortable around men than women (the majority of my friends and relatives who are within my age range are men). I have decided that it is not the men, but the staring that bothered me. Though I tried to ignore this situation and focus on the original intent of my project, thoughts on gender issues continually cropped up in the back of my mind.
The shop, the customers, and the barbers all evinced masculinity-but gender was not foremost in their thoughts and antagonizing women was never their intention. Wives and girlfriends may be easy topics of conversation, but such conversation is neither imperative nor intentionally disrespected. Also, Gary made me realize that women in salons are not necessarily different from men in barbershops: a woman in a barbershop is approximately the equivalent of a man in a salon. Each day in the salon, Gary was stared at by the customers and he felt misplaced among the dominant sex of that environment, despite efforts to polish his conversations and integrate himself into the salon.
Luckily, despite being sidetracked by my personal fascination with the gender issues, I did find some answers to my initial questions about what types of men go to this barbershop to get a haircut. I determined that men who go to U.S. Male are there for the convenience of a "quick trim." At any time of the day, on practically every day of the year, there are four barbers present who deftly give haircuts at a rate of only ten to fifteen minutes per customer. If the shop looks too full, neither customer nor barber has any qualms about a customer walking out and coming back at a later time; they both can be sure that at some other point in the day it will be possible for the customer to get in and out of there in approximately fifteen minutes.
The mornings, on average, are slower than the afternoons and evenings, not only because people are less awake and therefore are less likely to be in a hurry, but also because the rush typically occurs at the end of the day, leaving the barber to service as many customers as possible before the shop closes (6 P.M. on weekdays and at 2 P.M. on Saturdays). As Gary told me and I also observed, older, mostly retired men went to the shop in the morning, when there are few, if any, customers. The barbers then had a chance to slow down and not worry about sitting around in an empty shop, wondering when the customers would begin to pounce again. To me, during those brief moments of time, I regressed fifteen years: I again was sitting across from my brother, who stared back at me as we sat on the wooden chairs around the tiny coffee table, patiently waiting for my dad and the barber to end their conversation so we could go home and play.
The barber's job is reflected back to him in many ways, just as the mirror he looks into as he works reflects his image. Looking into his mirror at an angle, he can see customers waiting against the opposite wall-sometimes impatient men with other places to be, with other things on their minds. From behind his chair he can see the haircut and the customer's satisfaction or disapproval, or restlessness-the customer's desire to be elsewhere. He also can see whether he is cutting efficiently. With no one in his chair, he can see himself clearly; and just as clearly, he can associate the empty chair with an empty register, an empty pocket, and an empty day spent waiting to fill the time. Efficiency is much of what today's barber's world is about, and his mirror, empty or full, reflects whether he is doing a good job.
Notes
- Name changed to ensure anonymity.
- "History of Barbering." The Art of Barbering and the History of the Barber Pole, 18 March 2002, <http://www.BarberPole.com/artof.htm> (10 June 2002).
Biblography
"History of Barbering," The Art of Barbering and the History of the Barber Pole, 18 March 2002, <http://www.BarberPole.com/artof.htm> (10 June 2002).
Yellow Book USA. Yellow Book: Wilmington. (Wilmington, Md.: Yellow Book USA, Inc., 2001).