Why do most men shave?
I'm a man and I don't
I have had a beard for years
I don't see why other men shave apart from it being a convention....
But why has it become a convention????
What advantages could it possibly confer?
If you are a man who shaves please explain yourself!!!
I can only answer for myself. I was told that an unemployed male ought to shave. I thought it good discipline. Now that I have a job I have a beard.
There are good reasons I think to suspect that shaving rules in the workforce come for a few reasons. 1. antisemitism 2. hygiene 3. catholics 4. military.
There definitely
is antisemitism, so I think it very reasonable to guess that this plays into the 'No beard' policy at many workplaces such as IBM and Ford. The founder of Ford motor company was a raging antisemite, despite his clever policies about technical things. IBM has always had a very strange policy against shaving, inexplicable and arbitrary. Like many corporations its stated reasons have questionable value, as corporations are full of empty and false reasons for arbitrary rules about many things. These two influential corporations with their original prestige are examples of historically large businesses which other businesses copy for no real reason, just as companies often copy arbitrary choices of market leaders today. Take for example Apple. Lots of companies imitate Apple practices, despite there being no real benefit to it. Its a superstitious following of the success, hoping a little rubs off without knowing how. The same is true I think of Ford and IBM in the 20th century which set various standards that would make it difficult for a Jewish or Muslim male to work without religious compromise. All of this is guesswork but is very reasonable since the taint of antisemitism is not a guess but is plain everywhere I go. To me the inconvenience, expense of shaving and the arbitrary nature of shaving counter any advantage in any job that is not involved in food service or medicine. Why make it harder to find good employees? Why add restrictions that don't help the company? It is suspicious.
Hygiene is probably the most obvious legitimate reason, and hair of all kinds requires covering in workplaces involving either food or where infection is a risk. This doesn't apply though in manufacturing, service or other kinds of jobs and is arbitrary. I think rules against beards are mostly inertia from some imagined vague sense of how its been done for a while now.
Historically the Roman catholics have been against beards for a long time, starting in the time of the Hugenots. The Hugenots were a faction which preached opposing the policies of the RC, and they all wore beards. Therefore banning the wearing of beards seemed like a good idea at the time. Before that beards were not of any concern among catholics -- or so I read in a textbook 35 years ago.
Don't ask me why the military sometimes bans beards and sometimes doesn't. Nothing they do makes any sense when it comes to style.
