Why I’m suspicious of the silver fox

There’s an entitlement around going grey that’s reserved just for men. It cuts to the heart of male privilege, reckons Oliver Keens, in a world where women who go grey are mostly scorned. Isn’t it time to re-evaluate the cliché of the wise, sophisticated and desirable grey-topped gent?

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Oliver KeensUK Independent

I’ve always liked to think of my own hair as an awkward, unruly conflation of my parents’ roots: one from Iran, one from Essex. The sides of my hair are straight, limp and lifeless – in hock to my dad’s fairer, Caucasian hair. Up top, it’s wild and wavy, closer to the Iranian side of my family. Recently, a third party has joined the mayhem: grey hairs, growing at twice the speed of all the rest, bursting out of my head like the springs of a dilapidated mattress. I objectively look like a barn, or Boris in lockdown. Yet society says I look better than ever. I don’t get it.