Embrace your natural grey, unless of course you’re a female newscaster or politician

Ask hair stylists anywhere and they’ll confirm it: during the pandemic, many, many – many – women made the brave decision to let their hair assume its natural colour.  Finding themselves without access to their hair stylists for months at the beginning of the pandemic, they looked in the mirror as their hair grew and their dye jobs retreated, and decided that maybe going grey wasn’t so bad after all. It didn’t look as bad as they had feared, in fact, it didn’t look so bad at all. And going natural – going grey – brought a surprising sense of freedom.  No more worrying about roots showing.  No more touch-up appointments every few weeks. Embrace your grey.

But it comes with certain risks, as we’ve discovered in Canada this past week. At least if you’re a woman reporting to a man who’s embraced his newly expanded sense of power. Compared to wars, droughts, floods, wildfires, gun massacres, and starvation, this news story doesn’t rate at the top of the list, but it has resonated with hundreds of thousands of Canadians, especially the female of the species.

To bring those of you not glued to esoteric, non-hockey related Canadian news up to speed, it was suddenly announced last week that Lisa LaFlamme, the popular, award-winning, 11-year veteran of CTV’s National News evening program had been terminated “for business reasons”.  The big guns wanted to move in “different directions” and would be replacing Lisa immediately with a younger male colleague, in the same timeslot with the same world news to cover. Two years before the end of her current contract. To address “changing viewer habits.”  For those of you who wouldn’t know, CTV is wholly owned by Bell Media, a giant in the communications industry. It turns out that even the big boys can screw up, especially with their communications.

To fill in some details, Lisa LaFlamme is 58 years old, had been with CTV for 35 years, and had been the presence of CTV’s major daily news program for 11 years, where she has been acclaimed for her work and professionalism. Hers has been the most popular news program in Canada, by far, for several years. She had just won the Canadian Screen Award for best national news anchor.  Then, seven months ago, a new CEO arrived to oversee all CTV news. And here is where it gets muddy very quickly for Bell’s so-called communications savvy. This new CEO, 40-something Michael Melling, was quoted as asking very early on in his tenure in January, “who approved the decision to let Lisa’s hair go grey?” I know, what the …?  Are there more people like this, with similar (lack of) depth of character, making gobs of money and making decisions that affect all of us? OMG.

Lisa before going greyLisa after going grey

To be clear, Lisa’s move to grey was a public topic of conversation early into the pandemic, initiated by Lisa herself on air.  She said what so many of us felt, me included, that if she’d known how freeing it would be to go grey she would have done it long before the pandemic.  She got a lot of kudos for that. A lot. But apparently not from the 40-something Michael Melling. She was fired for being comfortable with her age and undoubtedly also for not agreeing with every decision he made and vice versa. Apparently Mr. Melling doesn’t like pushback from women. But in treating a highly respected national figure so poorly, and by being caught so badly out of touch with what the fallout from blindsiding both Lisa and her very large audience across the country would be, Michael Melling and Bell Media have caused themselves a lot of grief. That’s the only good thing to come out of this. To date, more than 150,000 have signed online petitions for her reinstatement! And many people are actually changing their telco provider from Bell to Rogers or Telus. I love it. I can’t do that because we already switched from Bell several years ago, which, incidentally, was a very good move.

This business about the grey hair – and his mind-boggling question – made me stop and think about this issue. Talk about a double standard. In Canada alone, we’ve had primetime newscasters who’ve gone from 40-somethings to grandfatherly, and nobody ever said a thing. All men, of course. No-one mentioned that their hair had turned grey or that their hair had gone missing. And they retired when they decided to. Lisa LaFlamme’s predecessor, Lloyd Robertson, didn’t retire until he was 77.  And he sure as heck didn’t dye his hair. And on CBC, Peter Mansbridge (sometimes referred to as Pastor Peter), stayed on until he made his own decision to leave at 69, hair or no hair, not when CBC kicked him out to go in a “different direction”.

Lisa’s predecessor, Lloyd Robertson, happily grey on air for many years

CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, happily accepted in all stages of aging hair 

This situation got me thinking about politicians. I can think of quite a few female politicians who are up there in years, in fact way up there in years. And they all dye their hair. I have often thought that they’d actually look better if they just forgot about the dye, but now I can see that they were more savvy than I am.  They know the lay of the land. If they let themselves go grey, would that change the response in the voting booth? Sadly, I’m now thinking that maybe it would.

For example, let’s try to picture Nancy Pelosi or Dianne Feinstein embracing their grey? Would that change in physical appearance have a negative impact on their perceived authority?  Just maybe, given expectations. It wouldn’t change one thing about them except to give them a little more time to do even more work instead of sitting for their stylist, but old notions die hard.

Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein, 2 powerful American female politicians, both in their 80s 

What about Mitch McConnell?  Would he have any further advantages by dying his hair instead of having allowed himself to go grey all those years ago?  Is how he looks less of a measure of his abilities than is the case for a woman? Sorry, but I’m guessing that how he looks can’t possibly have any bearing whatsoever on what people think of him.

Mitch McConnell, 80, and Donald Trump, 75, 2 powerful American male politicians

What about Donald Trump? He does dye his hair … and his skin. Does that give him even more appeal to Trump-lovers, or does it just help him pretend that he’s not really nearly 76 years old? And I almost forgot, there’s 78-year old Rudy Giuliani. I wonder how that hair dye’s working for him these days?!

Can we think of any men in public positions or working as CEOs or newscasters who dye their hair, other than Trump and Giuliani (and Dick Clark in his later years)?  Can we think of any women in public positions or working as CEOs or newscasters who don’t dye their hair? Think about it.

The cries of ageism and sexism are now rampant across Canada, thanks to Bell’s unbelievably poorly conceived firing of a highly-regarded female newscaster on what has been until now Canada’s most highly rated newscast. Why exactly was this 40-something wunderkind, Michael Melling, given this power?  If he keeps his job, which would be a travesty, then Bell shares should fall even more than they already have.  Way to go, Bell.

Let’s hope that some good comes from this example of the double standard. Perhaps one way to protest is for every woman at Bell who’s currently “touching up” their hair colour to go grey! They can’t fire everyone … or can they? 🙂

As for me, I’ve happily followed the same liberating pandemic move that Lisa did, embracing the grey.