Ahhh, sweet misogyny. Yet another hair cuttery that cares more about genitals than about hair. Do you want a stylish and sharp men's cut? Wait wait wait, hold on... do you have a penis? No? Then get lost. That's the policy at Benjamin's. Now why don't you run off to a nice salon where you can talk to your stylist about nail polish and tampons, because Benjamin's doesn't cut women's hair 'no matter how pretty you are' (charmingly patronising and misogynistic quote taken from their window-front sign). You might be thinking, 'heads are heads, what difference does it make?' But no, they're not, because if the head belongs to a woman, then the barber has to do his job knowing that there's a person with a uterus attached to that head, and who can expect a barber to do his job under such grotesque conditions?
No mention of this policy on their Facebook page or online booking page, by the way (other than a photo of their gross window sign, which you would only see if you flipped through their Facebook photos to find it). My (female but masculine) partner went in for a pre-booked appointment today and the barber turned her away. He would rather drop an appointment and insult this prospective client than be seen cutting the hair of a female person, and he obviously couldn't have been bothered to contact her beforehand to tell her that he wouldn't be willing to touch her oestrogen-contaminated head (her forename is very obviously a woman's name, so he would have seen this from the online booking). She's physically disabled and walks with a cane, and it's a struggle for her to walk more than short distances, but she was nevertheless left with no choice after this insulting and completely avoidable interaction than to wander about in the rain looking for another shop that would take her. Way to keep it classy, gentlemen of Benjamin's.
So, if you're a woman (no matter how masculine), don't try to go here. If you're a genderqueer/ agender/ bigender/ genderfluid person, it might be safest to avoid Benjamin's as well, as you may be subjected to a humiliating assessment of your sex before they decide whether you qualify sufficiently as a man to be served, which you won't if, as far as they can tell, you have the wrong reproductive anatomy. And if you're a man who simply doesn't think that there's any problem with women having traditionally men's haircuts, screw Benjamin's and give someone else your patronage. read more