Woman Shares Her Parents' Wild Reactions To Her Grey Coloured Hair, Why The Stigma?

In a viral tweet, a woman shared how happy she was about her hair getting grey coloured but her mood was soon ruined when her mother turned against her choice of getting grey hair as meant a "serious variety of premature ageing", while her father had nowhere mentioned "grey" or "white" in his list of hair-colour suggestions for her daughter.

The woman's parents displayed "wildly different reactions" as she wrote in her tweet. In a few screenshots of the chat shared by the social media user, her parents could be seen panicking over her hair colour. Her father even sent her a picture of a Macaw to suggest that such colours would be better than grey.

White Hair Stigma

White hair stigma is still prevalent in our societies. The white colour is never mentioned while discussing hair colouring since it is still viewed as an old-age indication. If someone "dares" to bleach their hair white, people frequently begin calling them names like "buddhi" or "aunty". Read the viral tweet here. 

In the hierarchy of prejudices, sexism prevails over ageism. Men with grey hair are frequently referred to as "silver foxes" or "distinguished," but popular culture typically confines women with grey hair to preconceived notions. As soon as a woman colours her hair in grey or white, she gets bombarded with a number of age-related terms like "aunty" or "buddhi".

Why do people still associate choosing a hair colour with getting older when that decision should be made completely by the individual in question? Even those who dye their hair white or grey frequently experience self-consciousness, wondering things like, "Will people like me?" and "How will others react to my hair colour?"

These ideas are all a result of the societal stigmas that individuals have developed over time. There should be no issues with grey or white hair. It must be handled similarly to other colours. It deserves the same "wow", same attention and same turn-around from others that they give to hair that is green, purple, or any other colour, for that matter. Often hair colouring ads regard white/grey hair as something that no one wants to wear and get rid of. It is them who make the correlation between grey hair and youthfulness. But should we not grow with time and accept shades as they are without associating them with our biases?

Views expressed by the author are their own. 

Feature image credit: Sukhnidh Kaur

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