The very first time I went to Julie's International Salon to get my hair cut — some eight years ago — I could sense that there was something compelling about it, though I could not quite put my finger on what exactly was going on there. But it had to do with older women congregated together in an all-female salon, manifestly for purposes of hair and nail care, who seemed to be part of a lively and affirming community. For the next three years I toyed with the idea of doing a study of this beauty salon. I was held back by respiratory allergies, which I thought would be incompatible with the aromas of hair care products characteristic of beauty shops. Finally, in 1991, I could resist the place no longer; I resolved that I would deal with the air quality as best as I could.
Unlike most scholars who do ethnographic work, I did not set out to study this setting. It called out to me, as it were. The emotional climate of women's friendship, support, and camaraderie beckoned to me initially.
Once I actually began the study, I came to realize that women's relationships also conveyed significant moral meanings, as did their views of themselves as women, in general, and as older women, specifically. Other issues readily presented themselves, most centrally the fact that the clientele was largely composed of older women, most of them Jewish, and that they were committed to traditional practices of femininity and beautification. A perusal of the existing literature plus my own knowledge of American culture quickly revealed that little is known about the subjective experience of older women, less about older Jewish women, still less about their self-understanding regarding their physical appearance.
In the course of this study I came to realize the extent to which our society is age segregated. Few of us get to interact in a meaningful way with older people who are unrelated to us; as a consequence, until recently I knew little about old age. May Sarton captures this situation when she writes, "The trouble is that old age is not interesting until one gets there, a foreign country with an unknown language to the young, and even to the middle-aged."
Illness-Talk
It should not come as a surprise to hear talk about ill health at Julie's. However, I am not prepared for the centrality of such a topic in the exchanges between customers and beauticians, and customers among themselves, because speaking about our ailments is not typically acceptable except with close family members. Older people are frequently caricatured about their alleged preoccupations with their ailments; consequently many are forced into silence about these matters for fear of social disapproval. These cultural tendencies reveal a profound denial of physical decline and death in our society.
By contrast, at Julie's one of the first things the beautician asks a customer, or that customers ask each other, is "How are you feeling?" and, if applicable, "Are you feeling any better?" or "How is your husband?" Women do not hesitate to respond with a health bulletin. What is significant, however, is that health or illness talk is reciprocal. No one has the exclusive right to speak, and no one seems to take advantage of a captive audience. conversations about illness frequently involve advice-giving on the part of the listener, as when Shaina, recovering from an especially difficult bout of Crohn's disease, suggests it would be some time before she can clean her house the way she likes it. Verena responds that Shaina should not worry or hurry about this because, after all, "No one is going anywhere," by which she means, "You have no reason to pressure yourself."
Customers exhibit a capacity for laughing at themselves, at their aches and pains, and at their intense engagement in such matters. For example, Blanche and Carmela, along with Claire, find themselves discussing various surgeries that they've had, stimulated by the fact that Blanche recently had cataract surgery. They first compare notes on that type of surgery; Blanche then talks about the hysterectomy she had years back, and so forth. Rather spontaneously, Blanche breaks into this discussion by saying, "Look at us, talking about cataracts, hysterectomies, hospitals!" They all laugh in this moment of self-recognition and amusement at themselves.
At times, illness-talk becomes competitive between customers, such as the time when Sara comes into the shop and I ask her whether she has recovered from a protracted illness. She playfully says, "I no longer answer that!" only to list the various maladies that she'd been afflicted with: upper respiratory infection, sinus, bronchial infections, and so on. No sooner does she get this out than Shelley pipes in with her litany of upper respiratory ailments. At times the two women interrupt each other in this discussion. What is distinctive for me about this exchange is not the comparison of ailments as such, but the joy and zest of the exchange itself. It represents an example of what linguist Deborah Tannen calls troubles-talk or lament-talk and applies, as well, to much of what I have said so far about illness-talk: Women talk to one another in search of connection and intimacy, to forge friendships and establish rapport.
Frequently it is the exchange of problems that cements this bond between women, and at Julie's, health issues constitute a primary conduit to intimacy and mutual support. For Sara and Shelley the joy comes not from having been ill but from the ability to share the symptoms with such abandon, completely free of the fear of judgment, secure that their conversation partners offer acceptance and recognition of the suffering endured. These exchanges support the observations of psychotherapist Rachel Josefowitz Siegel in her work with a support group for older women: "Our need to talk of death, dying, and loss of function seemed intensified by our awareness that these topics were shunned in other settings."
Frida Kerner Furman is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at De Paul University.
