“We Are Like Doctors”
“We Are Like Doctors”
Socializing Cosmetologists into the Discourse of Science
This chapter presents findings from observations of hair educational seminars and hair shows in cities throughout the United States and in London, England. In these places, hair stylists were intensely aware of their clients' lay hair-care expertise. Notably, across all of the black hair-care communities observed, stylists framed their work and professional identity as analogous to that of medical doctors. Given the risks associated with the considerable hair-care knowledge and experience of African American women, stylists' constructions of themselves as doctors constitute attempts to minimize the relevance of clients' lay knowledge and thus to resolve the challenges posed by clients' lay hair expertise. At a communal level, the positioning of themselves as doctors and of professional hair care as science serves to legitimize cosmetology as a science-based industry on par with the medical profession. This is another instance wherein language is employed by black women (and men) to construct provisional stances of authority and relations of power with clients and other hair-care practitioners.
Keywords: cosmetologists, discourse of science, hair shows, hair stylists, hair-care
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
