Today's Wall Street Journal (June 30, 2010) ran an article called, "Wash Away Bad Hair Days. Rinse. Repeat." Bottom line is that the article reports that Proctor and Gamble has done research by surveying women and "found that they felt less 'hostile, ashamed, nervous, guilty or jittery, depending on the hair products they used." This is Thuy Sindell (of Thuy and Milo Sindell)... and my reaction is, "Are you kidding me?" Do they mean to say that women are really that simple that bad hair products and a bad hair day is the cause for acting poorly at home or at work? Since this is a blog for Psychology Today, I can't help but ask the question about the person's psychological state before blaming their behavior on bad hair products, therefore one should use Proctor and Gamble products to get over our own insecurities.
Of course survey methods are questionnable depending on how the questions are phrased and how many people participated...and of course why they participated. Our point is that we take offense to this article and "research" as it is quite simplistic and clearly serves a corporate agenda and perpetuates an outdated image of women. The further implication of this research is that men reading this article will feel reinforced in their notion of women being moody and reactive; and for women, it justifies being moody and reactive. Can you imagine going to work and because your coworker is having a bad hair day, she feels justified in being nasty and unprofessional, and you accept it because she can't help herself. Or even worse, as Milo Sindell put it, "Have men in the office snicker that you must be using the wrong hair product that day." What's wrong with this picture?
