Gray Matters

by Cathy of 50 Is The New

By now you probably know about Susan Boyle, the middle-aged television show contestant whose awkward and dowdy presence had the judges and studio audience of Britain’s Got Talent ready to laugh her off the stage. But when Susan Boyle began to sing, her matronly gray hair and bushy eyebrows disappeared and her enormous talent smacked everyone upside the head.

Like millions who’ve watched the video, I laughed, cried and cheered for the underdog. This real-life morality tale has people examining their own looksist and ageist stereotypes.

Now that I’m finished with chemotherapy, my hair is growing back—on my head, eyelashes, brows—and other places, I’m afraid. (Dang those mother pluckers!) My formerly bald pate is covered with hair soft as duck down, dark with smatterings of silver at the temples and marbled throughout. The Jane Fonda Klute wig I’ve been wearing will soon be a relic, so here I stand at the crossroads: go gray or say nay?

Some of my girlfriends are in the midst of the transition from being slaves to color to going “au natural.” These folks envy my fresh start, while others think I’ve gone mad.

My sister-in-law Ann thinks I should go back to being a highlighted brunette. “You don’t want to look like a grandma,” she said as she poured her third cup of Darjeeling.

“You don’t look like a grandma and you’re older,” I retorted, eyeing her perfect silky silver-haired bob.

Thoughtfully stirring her tea, she proclaimed, “I’m probably going to go platinum.” Then she reminded me of how my ever-attractive and stylish 86-year-old mother, who once was raven-haired, has become progressively more blonde.

I figure I have a few more weeks to make my decision. Here are some things I’m looking at:

I’m single and I tend to date guys that are younger. Not necessarily a preference, just a fact. No, I am not a cougar. (I believe cougars have to be a couple of decades older than their men to wear the prowling feline moniker.)

I’m employed in a young industry. What if I were to re-enter the job market or go freelance? I suppose I could color my hair then, but my photo is already in cyber-circulation. Just one Google search and I’d be outed.

I’d have to buy new makeup and clothes. Go ahead and call it silver, but we’re talking shades of gra-ay, my friends. Gray, that washout provocateur, shining light and shadow on eye pouches and blemishes. I doubt I could pull off the Eileen Fisher style: wild yet perfect gray hair blowing in the sea breeze, wearing linen and an “I’m-so-fresh-I-never–have-hot-flashes” look. My look would be more dukes of haggard.

(On that note, last year I was introduced to my thirty-something-year-old friend Angela’s new boyfriend. She later told him my age and apparently he was stunned. “She doesn’t look 50!” he remarked. “I thought she was a haggard 35.” That’s a compliment, right? Thanks dude.)

The recent New York Times Style article “Yes, Looks Do Matter” has scientists looking at the Susan Boyle story concluding that it matches up to the natural, survival instinct that has we humans using snap judgments to size up others.

Susan Fiske, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton, states that AGE—not gender, ethnicity or race—is a stereotype that’s difficult to change. Older people are often seen as “harmless and useless” and age perception is “particularly sticky” she says.

If I go gray will I make a crack in the stereotype, or will I be seen as “harmless and useless”? Even Susan Boyle has had a makeover. Her hair is no longer wiry gray and she’s dressing with a bit more style.

I need to feel good about myself before I can change the world. As superficial as it may sound, maybe I look—therefore I feel—better as a brunette. I’m just not sure.

In a society where first impressions rule, can we change perception? What are your thoughts?

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