One point not mentioned in the article, but obvious from the photo: her natural hair is black, and the blonde hair was also dyed.
WAT
‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’
21–30 of 36 posts
Re: ‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm going to post a slightly mean reply. Do you question every story you hear? My wife is a successful blonde female academic (more successful than me). I often go with her to events she is invited to and there is always some people who assume she is my "dumb wife" that I've brought with me. At every event at some point I usually have to say to someone "Don't ask me, I have no idea. Karen is the person you should be…
"my 'dumb wife' that I've bought with me." I assume that's a typo, but it works either way ...
It was, which I decided to fix :)
Re: ‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm going to post a slightly mean reply. Do you question every story you hear? My wife is a successful blonde female academic (more successful than me). I often go with her to events she is invited to and there is always some people who assume she is my "dumb wife" that I've brought with me. At every event at some point I usually have to say to someone "Don't ask me, I have no idea. Karen is the person you should be…
> Do you question every story you hear? Do you not? Edit: I feel a bit awkward about being on the same side as the "this is bullshit" people. I think the general message that it's harder for women to look "appropriate" in a business setting is probably fair, at least based on some of the conversations I've witnessed among my male co-workers.
OK, I worded that badly.
I more meant "Do you reply to every story on news.ycombinator says "This story could be entirely made up", I mean that's true of many, many stories, but I'm sure I've noticed a pattern that that kind of message appears more on stories about females. However, I should probably do a correct survey on that claim!
Re: ‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’
#24My wife dyed her hair blonde once and noted a noticable change in how she was treated. She described it as people being nicer to her but also sort of taking her less seriously. She also got hit on a lot more. She went back to her normal brown pretty quickly. It's not just the obvious things like race. There are thousands of little prejudices. For guys I've read studies from sales about how men with broader shoulders…
It's only depressing if you've been told lies all your life to the contrary of reality. For most people these things are rather obvious. It's why business men wear suits instead of plain t-shirts (or worse, hoodies).
Oh sure you can hack these things. That's why the woman in the article dyed her hair brown and got glasses.
It's depressing that it's necessary. If two people present something to me I should be evaluating the something, not the shoulder girth of the people presenting it. But inside my head there is a monkey that doesn't know what geological epoch this is.
Re: ‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’
#25It's interesting how capitalism is able to monetize everything even social justice. This story could be entirely made up, it fits perfectly in her narrative. I find it unlikely that the BBC reporter contacted her, most likely the PR firm recommended to her by the VC that "told her" to dye her hair arranged for that profile.
I'm going to post a slightly mean reply. Do you question every story you hear? My wife is a successful blonde female academic (more successful than me). I often go with her to events she is invited to and there is always some people who assume she is my "dumb wife" that I've brought with me. At every event at some point I usually have to say to someone "Don't ask me, I have no idea. Karen is the person you should be…
Yes, I question every story I hear. This is known as skepticism and is a critical thinking skill in a world filled with people writing articles with agendas.
Re: ‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’
#26"Links for the intellectually curious, ranked by readers." This link does not seem to target the intellectually curious, nor does it seem to be picked by a ranking algorithm.
I sometimes upvote crap articles, because I'm interested in what HN has to say about the topic.
Re: ‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’
#27One point not mentioned in the article, but obvious from the photo: her natural hair is black, and the blonde hair was also dyed.
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Re: ‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’
#28One point not mentioned in the article, but obvious from the photo: her natural hair is black, and the blonde hair was also dyed.
That also stood out to me. She is just changing already not-original look from trying to be more attractive to be more serious. I really don't understand how this is interesting enough for full article.
It's most probably a placed piece.
It's unlikely that it's coincidental that the article is a diversity story about someone who runs a company in the diversity field in a news outlet that is currently running a diversity campaign. Also, sexism in SV is topical so her coming from the Bay area probably helped.
I might be being too cynical but I doubt it. I mean, it's the BBC. They hardly needed to cross the Atlantic to find blonde women who dye their hair to avoid unwarranted attention. In fact, I know a Swedish lady, who worked for the BBC for a while, who does this regularly.
Re: ‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only depressing if you've been told lies all your life to the contrary of reality. For most people these things are rather obvious. It's why business men wear suits instead of plain t-shirts (or worse, hoodies).
Oh sure you can hack these things. That's why the woman in the article dyed her hair brown and got glasses. It's depressing that it's necessary. If two people present something to me I should be evaluating the something, not the shoulder girth of the people presenting it. But inside my head there is a monkey that doesn't know what geological epoch this is.
Well, these are signals. Our minds are programmed to send signals and expect others to do the same. These signals helps us understand where we stand with people and where people stand in relation to us and each other.
You might think we don't need these signals anymore, but I think you would be gravely mistaken to assume that. Instead, it's better to (re-)learn these things and adopt them. Think of it as a form of power. By understanding the instincts that drive human behaviour, you can hack it, by controlling how you present yourself in different situations.
I don't think it's something to complain about.
Re: ‘I dye my hair brown to be taken more seriously at work’
#30My take - someone willing to modify their hair to find a route to success is also likely to modify other aspects of their behaviour and strategy to find a route to success.
Sad it has to happen this way but unlikely to stop this individual