In post-metrosexual America, plenty of dudes (see: Charles Barkley) are getting manicures, pedicures and waxes.
And for years in New York, salons have taken advantage of the trend, charging men a few bucks more than women. Revenge for years of gender inequality? Because men make more money? Or maybe because men are a more difficult cut?
Whatever the case, the gig's up New York salons! From The Wall Street Journal:
The salons are among 138 businesses that have been hit this year for violating a little-known provision that has many pulling their hair: gender-pricing discrimination. The majority of violations so far this year—103—were issued to salons and barbershops.
And some salon owners are none too plussed about the sudden enforcement:
"It's ridiculous. I have some guys who need to come in every two weeks," said Ania Siemieniaka, the owner of Freckle Skin and Hair, which had to pay $175 for a violation. "If I raise my prices, I'll lose all my male customers."
Another salon manager told the Journal that men's dirty nails just require more work.
The law, of course, goes both ways. Salons also can't charge women more for a haircut than men.
In 1996, then Public Advocate Mark Green, who pushed for the gender-pricing bill, said, "Enough already with the lame excuses that a woman's hair is more difficult to cut or shirt harder to clean. Everybody should be charged the same price for the same service."
But not everyone agreed. "It is a style, it's an image, it's a look, it's a projection," Michel Obadia-- who ran Pierre Michel Coiffeur in Trump Towers and who estimated 85 percent of his customers were women-- told The Daily News of women's cuts. "There are so many styles involved for women you can count them by the hundreds and thousands, while it is very restricted for men."
Meanwhile, in other New-York-gender-inequality news, nearly half of all women in the Empire State earn a higher salary than their husbands, Metro reports. An encouraging statistic for sure, but the salary gap is still there. New York working women, on average, still earn about $142 less a week than men, according to a press release from Senator Kristen Gillibrand's office.