Masculinity, Modernity and Male Baldness, c.1880‐1939.

Male baldness was a very common experience but it has rarely been considered by historians of any period or place. This article argues that baldness reveals a precariousness and vanity to masculinity in late nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century Britain. Baldness limited men's ability to self‐fash...

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Publicado en:Gender & History Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 190 - 212
Autor principal: Johnes, Martin
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell Mar2023
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Masculinity, Modernity and Male Baldness, c.1880‐1939.
      aug:
        au: Johnes, Martin
        affil: History Department, Singleton Park, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP, , Wales
      su:
        Baldness
        Masculinity
        Modernity
        Pride & vanity
        Hats
        Personality
        British history, 1485-
      sug:
        subj:
          Baldness
          Masculinity
          Modernity
          Pride & vanity
          Hats
          Personality
          British history, 1485-
      ab: Male baldness was a very common experience but it has rarely been considered by historians of any period or place. This article argues that baldness reveals a precariousness and vanity to masculinity in late nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century Britain. Baldness limited men's ability to self‐fashion their appearance. It made them the target of jokes, marked the fact they were getting older, undermined their looks and, perhaps, made them less attractive to women. There was thus a vigorous market for cures and preventatives. Such products show how deep superstitions and irrational thinking could run, but understandings of the condition were also rooted in the social and cultural conditions of the day. The glamour of Hollywood, a keep‐fit culture, growing advertising of male‐grooming products and the fading of hat wearing from fashion, all intensified interwar anxieties around baldness. Not everyone worried about baldness, however, and men's feelings about their hair owed much to personality and circumstance. Baldness thus not only reveals the precarious nature of masculinity but also its inconsistent and inherently personal dimensions.
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