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OK to charge women more for haircut: court

Danish hair stylists and barbers can continue to charge different prices for men and women after Eastern High Court rules that gender-based pricing is not discriminatory.

Published: 10 November 2014 14:05 CET

OK to charge women more for haircut: court

Photo: Jacob Schou Nielsen

It’s perfectly legal to charge one price for a haircut for men and another for women, the Eastern High Court ruled on Monday.

Ruling on a case that has worked its way through the legal system for nearly two years, the High Court sided with the hairdressing chain Stender, which was the subject of a 2012 complaint to the Anti-Discrimination Board (Ligebehandlingsnævnet).

A short-haired woman felt she was being discriminated against by being asked to pay more for her haircut than a man. Ligebehandlingsnævnet sided with the woman in December 2012, awarding her 2,500 kroner. Stender in turn sued Ligebehandlingsnævnet in April 2013 with the backing of the association of independent hair stylists, DOFK.

The case then worked its way up to the Eastern High Court, which on Monday sided with the hair stylists.

“I am super relieved that the High Court has listened to what we said: That cutting a woman’s hair and cutting a man’s hair amounts to two completely different services,” DOFK chairwoman Connie Mikkelsen told Berlingske Nyhedsbureau.

With the ruling, hair salons and barber shops are allowed to set whatever prices they would like for men and women’s haircuts.

The court also ruled that it is not discriminatory for haircuts to be referred to by gender – i.e. herreklip for men and dameklip for women.

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'Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority': Truth commission releases report

Stockholm’s policy of assimilation in the 19th and 20th centuries “harmed the minority and continues to hinder the defence of its language, culture and traditional livelihoods,” the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset said in an article published in Sweden’s main daily Dagens Nyheter.

“Amends must be made in order to move forward,” it said, adding that “acknowledging the historic wrongdoings” should be a first step.

The commission, which began work in June 2020, was to submit a final report to the government on Wednesday.

Tornedalen is a geographical area in northeastern Sweden and northwestern Finland. The Tornedalian, Kven and Lantalaiset minority groups are often grouped under the name Tornedalians, who number around 50,000 in Sweden.

The commission noted that from the late 1800s, Tornedalian children were prohibited from using their mother tongue, meänkieli, in school and forced to use Swedish, a ban that remained in place until the 1960s.

From the early 1900s, some 5,500 Tornedalian children were sent away to Lutheran Church boarding schools “in a nationalistic spirit”, where their language and traditional dress were prohibited.

Punishments, violence and fagging were frequent at the schools, and the Tornedalian children were stigmatised in the villages, the commission said.

“Their language and culture was made out to be something shameful … (and) their self-esteem and desire to pass on the language to the next generation was negatively affected.”

The minority has historically made a living from farming, hunting, fishing and reindeer herding, though their reindeer herding rights have been limited over the years due to complexities with the indigenous Sami people’s herding rights.

“The minority feels that they have been made invisible, that their rights over their traditional livelihoods have been taken away and they now have no power of influence,” the commission wrote.

It recommended that the meänkieli language be promoted in schools and public service broadcasting, and the state “should immediately begin the process of a public apology”.

The Scandinavian country also has a separate Truth Commission probing discriminatory policies toward the Sami people.

That report is due to be published in 2025.

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