{"id":5372,"date":"2015-04-27T09:46:04","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T14:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/?p=5372"},"modified":"2015-10-13T13:17:37","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T18:17:37","slug":"the-social-norms-of-facial-hair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2015\/04\/27\/the-social-norms-of-facial-hair\/","title":{"rendered":"The Social Norms of Facial Hair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5373\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5373\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/hEjGXc\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5373\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/files\/2015\/04\/10935384913_114ee98be0_z.jpg\" alt=\"Photo by Juan Luis via Flickr.\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2015\/04\/10935384913_114ee98be0_z.jpg 640w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2015\/04\/10935384913_114ee98be0_z-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5373\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Juan Luis via Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chin-Strap, Fu Man Chu, Burt Reynolds, or Full Marx. <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/beardteamusa.org\/\">National competitions<\/a> honor it. <a href=\"http:\/\/ftw.usatoday.com\/2014\/04\/the-13-greatest-nhl-playoff-beards-ever-grown\">Hockey players<\/a> grow it. <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2012\/jan\/24\/local\/la-me-disney-look-20120124\">Dress codes<\/a> may moderate it, and now finally, sociologists weigh in on it. We\u2019re talking beards.<\/p>\n<p>In early April, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/fashion\/2015\/apr\/06\/beards-social-sexual-political-identity\">a men\u2019s fashion article<\/a> in <em>The Guardian<\/em> explored the historical significance of beards, describing, for example, how early Egyptian pharaohs wore fake beards as a symbol of power. Since then, facial hair\u2019s place in men\u2019s fashion has waxed and waned, at times symbolizing political power while at other times representing radical lifestyles and rejections of social norms. French sociologist <a href=\"http:\/\/perso.univ-rennes2.fr\/stephane.heas\">St\u00e9phane H\u00e9as<\/a> explained the political and social connotations of beards.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeing hairless and clean-shaven, or not, is far from neutral,\u201d H\u00e9as said. \u201cSocial norms determine how far a beard should be allowed to grow, when it should be trimmed or shaved off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He goes on to explain how facial hair has reinforced gendered power in modern western cultures:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The patriarchal, male-dominant nature of western society in the 19<sup>th<\/sup> and 20<sup>th<\/sup> century almost certainly explains the appeal of sophisticated beards and moustaches. Policymakers made their presence felt through their discourse and facial hair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yet despite the power and authority associated with having facial hair, H\u00e9as notes that, \u201cbeing completely hairless has become almost mandatory for western women and is spreading to men.\u201d The beloved beard may be on its way out yet again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; Chin-Strap, Fu Man Chu, Burt Reynolds, or Full Marx. National competitions honor it. Hockey players grow it. Dress codes may moderate it, and now finally, sociologists weigh in on it. We\u2019re talking beards. In early April, a men\u2019s fashion article in The Guardian explored the historical significance of beards, describing, for example, how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2025,"featured_media":5373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,55],"tags":[29611,851,39112,2109,2721,10680,1976,3175,868],"class_list":["post-5372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-gender","tag-beards","tag-body","tag-culture","tag-fashion","tag-femininity","tag-hipster","tag-masculinity","tag-norms","tag-power"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2015\/04\/10935384913_114ee98be0_z.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2025"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5372"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5396,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372\/revisions\/5396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}