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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

I checked to make sure it wasn't somehow an Onion article. That's an interesting cultural quirk I'm surprised still exists.

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I went to an american school that had its own strict requirements regarding hair. male students were required to keep their hair cut short enough so it would not touch their collar and to be clean shaven. repeat offenders would get a (sloppy) haircut from the dean or be required to shave on the spot, respectively. I don't find the hair color requirement to be any more unreasonable, though perhaps it has a racial subtext?

Or even genetic subtext perhaps?

Requiring naturally blonde people to dye their hair black seems significantly more unreasonable to me.

The parallel to requiring naturally bearded people to shave their facial hair off is very close.

Both are potentially mildly damaging, and they take roughly similar amounts of time to reverse.

Dying hair is a lot more work and chemicals than shaving, although you dont have to do it as frequently

Requiring someone to use a potentially damaging product on themselves is different from requiring a certain hair cut.

That being said, I find hair requirements distasteful as well.

perhaps I'm just wrong, but I thought dyes were mostly safe and the bleaching step was the damaging part.

in any case, this was more of a "people who live in glass houses" post than a defense of the rule. imo we have a lot of arbitrary appearance requirements for school children that do more to distract from learning than anything else. the school I went to justified their strict dress code by claiming it was all to prepare us for our professional lives. I have to chuckle at that one when I show up to the office with hair that goes down to my bellybutton, a beard, and a tshirt, still looking more "presentable" than many of my peers.

Increased breast cancer risks have recently been reported: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/permanent-hair...

I grew up under communism in E Europe and we had a similar standard and enforced sort of violently and humiliatingly. I remember having longish hair when a primary teacher from an adjacent class stepped in, put her hand in my hair (hair wasn’t supposed to go over finger girth in length for boys) and while dragging it she loudly said: is this a boy? Let’s check his private parts cause he looks like a girl. All other kids were either stupefied or laughing. They did not check my private parts but it was humiliating enough to leave an emotional scar to remember. My teacher liked me and let me have longer hair but when it was growing too long she’d gently tell me she’ll have problems for me, so not everybody was mean. But the mean teachers were very empowered and acting on a whim whenever they felt like. Corporal punishment was also common, they would slap put palms with wooden rulers, pull out hair, etc. I wasn’t roudy and I can say I didn’t get a lot of it but still, if one had ADHD they’d be constantly punished. I wonder what came of those kids eventually

My private Catholic high school had a policy that hair must be a natural hair color. Doesn't mean it can't be dyed, just can't be blue. I'm sure the Japanese policies have the same intent, they just weren't somewhere you'll see red, blond(e), brown, and black in a class of 100.

Several Sikhs went to my highschool, and men are forbidden from shaving or cutting their hair (kept in a turban, it was always above the collar). This wasn't a problem, as we were generally allowed to dress and style ourselves how we liked except for some rules around "decency" and "gang colors". But I've heard plenty of stories, even in the last few years, about Sikhs and black people getting punished for not adhering to various western norms

Aren't their anti discrimination laws which should prevent such very obvious discrimination against some cultures??

In the US, such laws provide students recourse after they've been punished, thrown out of sporting events, etc. Schools and sports associations often update their policies after such events get broadly publicized. But no, the law doesn't prevent it altogether.

Of course, literally speaking, the law doesn’t prevent any behavior, it simply deters it.

I think the reason why we see these things still happen is because the laws are broad, continually improving, and education is administrated at a local level so you have different organizations rediscovering the same social issues over and over.

It's not just preventing behavior -- there's a ton of places where there are still variously unconstitutional/illegal policies and laws. Unless schools, local lawmakers, etc. are proactive in bringing this up to date (like my high school) then the legal system demands its pound of flesh to show that harm was done to force a change to happen.

Come on, It’s not a stretch that when being discriminated by school staff also other authorities like the police won’t be on your side.

The authorities response between the black live matter protests and the terrorism from trump supporters is just one recent example of this. As long as the people discriminating have more power than the ones being discriminated, laws only protect some.

Yeah, these rules might not have bad intention but they get dicey when you broaden who they apply to.

I never forgot this story from 2018 about a black police officer suing over a requirement to be clean-shaven every day.

> Officers have to be clean cut, except for mustaches or short sideburns. Joseph Lewis, a six-year vet of the force, however, suffered from razor bumps, which made it painful to shave. The condition is common in about 60 percent of African-American men or people with coarse, curly hair, according to the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology.

https://newsone.com/3780050/racial-discrimination-shaving-fa...

Afaik the US military used to mandate a buzzcut for new recruits that was recently dropped because it causes a lot of issues for black recruits (curly hair).

Any more details? Black people have been in the military for a very long time now. And I see a lot with short hair.

I think they are referring to shaving beards, which is known to cause issues for black people.

The US military issues medical waivers for these things. It was very common for African-American males (and some others who have justification) to be on a medical waivers (simply referree to as shaving waivers) to not shave when I served. It's not really an issue, or at least it wasn't 20 years ago.

It seems the USAF is now issuing these waivers with 5 year terms. [0].

[0]: https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2020/06/24...

It has:

a) a racial subtext, through maybe unintended

b) damages your hair, potentially permanent

c) tells you you are less good because you don't have natural black hair

How does dyeing your hair damage it permanently? Doesn't seem possible to me since it just regrows.

Well, the structure of the follicle is altered. So if you want to truly remove all damage, you need to cut it all off and regrow it. That’s a lengthy process, particularly for women or men who prefer to wear their hair long. Moreover, there ARE things chemicals can do to your scalp that can prevent hair from growing or growing the same way.

People who have chemotherapy and lose all their hair often find that their hair grows back differently (texture, elasticity) than it was before. Hair dye isn’t going to do that, but chemicals absolutely can alter your scalp and the follicle permanently.

I somehow doubt that over the counter hair dye can alter your scalp permanently like that. Do you have a source for that?

I explicitly said hair dye won’t do that, but that chemicals can impact your scalp permanently, i.e. chemotherapy or radiation. Acne can impact your scalp permanently (scar tissue from acne can prevent new growth in those areas). Using too many extensions (particularly if sewn into the scalp) can damage your scalp permanently (again, scar tissue).

Having said that, over the counter stuff absolutely affects the the health of your hair and dying too frequently, leaving dye on too long, using a poor quality of dye (of which over the counter almost always is), too much peroxide (which is often needed so the color can stick) can absolutely damage the hair on your head permanently (until that hair is cut off and regrows). The only way to truly recover from the damage due to hair dye is to cut it all off and regrow, which for people with long hair, can take a tremendous amount of time.

On a slight tangent, OTC hair dye with lead acetate was a thing (in the US) as recently as 2019. It may be/probably is banned now, but even after it wasn't being manufactured, it was still on store shelves. I never used it, but several years ago I looked at a package of "Grecian Formula" and saw "lead" and was like whaaa?

https://www.consumerreports.org/lead/removing-lead-acetate-f...

The roots of Hair do not get removed when you cut your hair, and I'm not sure if they do easily regrow I think they don't (easily regrow).

This is why you should, if possible not dye your hair up to the roots. But the more the difference between dye color and natural color the more this is noticable. Furthermore even if your don't dye up to the roots it's still possible for damage to affect them.

Exactly. Every culture has conformity standards, they just differ in the details. The reasoning largely reduces to "kids who stand out are 'distractions' and need to conform". It's not any different from rules in US schools about bare shoulders, pants vs. skirts (and length of skirt), buttons on shirts, etc...

My school had these requirements. Vice principal carried around disposable razors and made you dry shave.

It was a (catholic) religious school so there were religious exemptions but they also talked with the parents a ton so no one could pull that.

Why stop at hair?

https://soranews24.com/2016/10/27/tokyo-junior-high-school-d...

I agree, it’s a weird cultural quirk that you think wouldn’t exist with the longstanding trend towards acceptance of difference.

It’s a bit like Zwarte Piet in The Netherlands, where from an outsiders perspective it looks clearly problematic, but if you have grown up in The Netherlands you likely don’t see anything wrong.

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