As many women will know, climbing up the career ladder in many workplaces can be difficult – especially if you have blonde hair.
Just ask the Australian writer, Kasey Edwards, who recently admitted that she dyed her hair brown in order to be taken more seriously at work.
‘I knew that moving away from the blonde stereotype would help with my recruitment prospects and my salary negotiations,’ Ms Edwards wrote for Sydney Morning Herald on Monday.
ustralian writer, Kasey Edwards (pictured), recently admitted that she dyed her hair brown in order to be taken more seriously at work
‘For the record, I’m not suggesting that I have superior beauty, and I am in no doubt that I will be inundated by trolls who will relish the opportunity to confirm this,’ the author of Guilt Trip, My Quest to Leave The Baggage Behind, continued.
‘But I did tick enough of the boxes of our current cultural definition of beauty to be denied professional opportunities because of it.’
The reason why Ms Edwards dyed her hair brown was because she had been told that she was ‘too pretty and feminine to manage this project’.
She was told this by her account director at one of Australia’s largest management consulting companies.
The 41-year-old mother said she was ‘shocked’ her boss was so open about the fact that it wasn’t about her skills but her appearance, especially seeing as such a form of discrimination is illegal.
The reason why Ms Edwards dyed her hair brown was because she had been told that she was ‘too pretty and feminine to manage this project’ at work (pictured with blonde hair)
Ms Edwards isn’t the first female to have changed her hair colour in order to do better in the workplace.
In fact, the Silicon Valley CEO, Eileen Carey, also admitted to doing the same thing in a recent interview.
‘The first time I dyed my hair was actually due to advice I was given by a woman in venture capital,’ she told the BBC last month.
‘I was told for this raise [of funds], that it would be to my benefit to dye my hair brown because there was a stronger pattern recognition of brunette women CEOs,’ she added.
She also said that being brunette helps her to look ‘a bit older’ and aids being ‘taken seriously’.
Since Ms Carey shared her story, there have also been other anecdotal stories of women dyeing their hair darker than their natural shade in offices.
The Silicon Valley CEO, Eileen Carey, also admitted to dyeing her hair brown in to look ‘a bit older’ and be taken seriously (stock image)
Ms Edwards spoke to FEMAIL earlier in the year about guilt, and why it’s the number one thing holding women back at work.
‘I have learned to get rid of the guilt surrounding my body image by making a conscious decision each day to not hate my body,’ she said.
‘While that’s easier than it sounds, what I do is focus on its function rather than how it looks. It keeps me alive, it moves me around and it gave me my daughters.
‘I also haven’t owned a set of scales in years.’
The 41-year-old said that by refraining from judging other women’s bodies – as is so often the societal norm – she has stopped judging her own.
‘I’ve realised that no matter how hard a woman tries, she will never reach that level of impossible acceptability,’ she said.
Ms Edwards’s new book also deals with returning to work after having children – something which she held off from when she gave birth to her first daughter and struggled with – and then went back to instantly the second time.
‘I am a better mother when I am working,’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t feel guilty about that.’