I\u2019m the incredibly square and lazy woman who has never colored her hair. I inherited my mother\u2019s no-gray-hair gene, and except on my right temple, my hair is brown. For an anti-ageism activist, though, that\u2019s kind of a liability, because I don\u2019t want people to think I\u2019m trying to hide my age. I never believed Ronald Reagan when he said he didn\u2019t dye his hair, did you?<\/p>\n
I\u2019d considered buying a white wig, pulling it off during a talk and asking people what difference it made, but I have no talent for the theatrical. I decided to go the full monty when I was coming out of an art movie in the afternoon on Manhattan\u2019s Upper West Side. (In other words, the entire crowd was people in their 60s and 70s.) I looked down from the escalator and spotted a single gray-haired woman and realized, \u201cThis is one way we collude, en masse<\/em>, in making ourselves invisible as older women. That\u2019s a real problem because when people are invisible, so are the issues that affect them.\u201d And I figured if I was going to talk the talk, I should walk the walk. <\/p>\n The big, if shallow, surprise is how much I like it, because I didn\u2019t expect to. Also how quickly my friends seem to have gotten used to it, although I still do a bit of a double take in the mirror. Perhaps because I chose it, the new color hasn\u2019t changed my personality or way of being in the world. <\/p>\n I didn\u2019t tell anyone I was doing it, and the first time my kids saw it was two weeks ago in the emergency room where I landed with a bad kidney infection. Which is why I haven\u2019t gotten about as much recently, and perhaps why I haven\u2019t noticed people treating me differently, although I\u2019m tracking it. My manager at work said, \u201cYou don\u2019t look older.\u201d My friend Mer said, \u201cYou look older.\u201d Her husband, Josh, said, \u201cYou look hot!\u201d My acupuncturist said, \u201cYou\u2019re hilarious.\u201d My chiropractor liked it \u201cbecause I equate gray hair with wisdom and being comfortable with yourself.\u201d My friend Candace was frank about her confusion: \u201cIt\u2019s just a weird look. The first impression is if it\u2019s gray, you think old. You just don\u2019t look old but your hair is gray.\u201d<\/p>\n That confusion is what I\u2019m shooting for. Candace\u2019s grandmother, she said, was \u201ca silver fox, bright and beautiful. I see my hair going gray and dye it all the time.\u201d Why doesn\u2019t Candace want that look? \u201cI do\u2014but it\u2019s distorted somehow.\u201d She thanked me for making her think about it, and maybe she\u2019ll be a candidate for a campaign I\u2019d like to kick off one of these days: the Year of Letting Our Hair Go Gray. For women who love coloring their hair, it wouldn\u2019t mean never getting to play again: they could give the white a pink rinse a la Helen Mirren, or rock it with purple or blonde highlights. Those who do it purely to cover the gray would be free of an expensive and time-consuming tyranny. Men too. <\/p>\n \u201cYou go first,\u201d was one of the comments when I floated the idea on my This Chair Rocks Facebook page. I get that, so I did. \u201cFine for some but my hair doesn\u2019t look good gray,\u201d was another comment. OK, but I wonder how much of her opinion is colored by what the gray signifies<\/em>. That\u2019s what we need to work on, in ourselves and in the culture: decoupling \u201colder\u201d from \u201cundesirable\u201d and \u201cold\u201d from \u201cugly.\u201d We\u2019re getting an assist from younger pop-culture figures who\u2019ve gone gray recently, from Rihanna to Kylie Jenner to Girls<\/em> star Zosia Mamet.<\/p>\n We all know that the most important factor behind attractiveness isn\u2019t a push-up bra or dropping five pounds, but confidence. Gray hair + confidence is an empowering and liberating combo. I hope to see more people rocking the look, and I wonder whether mine will change for good. Right now I\u2019m thinkin\u2019 let the sides grow out brown and keep the longer, top part white. Confusing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m the incredibly square and lazy woman who has never colored her hair. I inherited my mother\u2019s no-gray-hair gene, and except on my right temple, my hair is brown. For an anti-ageism activist, though, that\u2019s kind of a liability, because…<\/span><\/p>\n