The rule was inspired by the spirit of camaraderie in hair salons, said State Senator Bill Cunningham, one of the chief sponsors of the amendment. For some women, those salons are a safe space, where they can sit among other women, drop their guard and confide about life as their hair is braided or colored, or their nails trimmed and painted....So, it's a great place for government to plant informants.
The final version of the law, which was signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner in August, does not require salon workers to act on their suspicions, but helps them to recognize warning signs and provides them with resources to pass on to victims so they can get help — such as safe houses or hotlines — get restraining orders or get access to legal professionals....This gets my Big Government sounds like a creepy stalker tag.
The curriculum emphasizes the importance of letting clients take the lead in disclosing details about their personal lives....
It's interesting that the state doesn't require salon workers to report anyone to the police or to social services. It's not like the way psychotherapists must submit to compulsion. But the state does require the training, repeated training, and it is willing to deprive hairdressers of their license — their livelihood — if they don't comply.
And do I detect condescension in the NYT's attitude toward the sort of women who find "camaraderie" in hair salons?
Posts
78 comments:
Many government officials have no sense of self-restraint in imposing regulations on businesses.
In our current Internet age, the government requires businesses to display on their office walls many posters about labor regulations, safety regulations, anti-discrimination regulations, and so forth.
Nobody ever reads these stupid mandatory posters. If anybody wants to inform himself about some such regulation, he will look it up on the Internet.
The requirements to display these wall posters are increasing, not decreasing. Any government bureaucrat who has developed some regulation can puff up his own sense of self-importance by including a sub-regulation that every business in the state must display his regulation on an office wall.
So, it's a great place for government to plant informants. Getting hairdressers to be government snitches.
But is this any different that the entire Form 1099 system which forces, by financial penalties, contracting parties to spy on each other, for the benefit of the government?
And the W-2 system is even worse because, in addition to being in the role of a tattle-tale, the employer is required to do withholding.
"One of [the Stasi's] main tasks was spying on the population, mainly through a vast network of citizens turned informants, and fighting any opposition by overt and covert measures, including hidden psychological destruction of dissidents . . ."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi
This is a tactic practiced by all totalitarian-minded governments.
Cuba does it through its Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. "CDR officials have the duty to monitor the activities of every person on their respective blocks. There is an individual file kept on each block resident, some of which reveal the internal dynamics of each household. Even after its 54-year existence, CDR activity remains contentious."
Contentious, but only by those deplorables who want liberty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committees_for_the_Defense_of_the_Revolution
@Mike Sylvester- I am running out of space on my break room wall for all the posters I have to display. The Illinois hair dressers are not alone. Every state has these compulsory creepy be-our-informers regulations for just about every licensed position.
@gspencer/
"Contentious, but only by those deplorables who want liberty."
-----and who resist the idea of being marched to virtue at bayonet-point.
I wonder to what extent this is an effort to make this particular form of licensing in Illinois seem more like it is really needed and less like its actual purpose.
State Senator Bill Cunningham, one of the chief sponsors of the amendment
For sure, some close relative of Senator Bill Cunningham is already establishing a consulting businesses to conduct this mandatory training.
Better regulate than never.
Sexist. As if women are not already adept at detecting this.
I'd recommend a war on enthusiasm.
This is just a creative attempt to force licensure on hair dressers now that the more direct way of protecting the guild has been ruled against in several places. Only this time, they are trying to disguise it as "protecting women," instead of "protecting our guild."
Reminds me of the laws requiring medical providers to report evidence of child abuse to protect the helpless and incompetent.
Same rationale. Sad.
Senator Bill Cunningham's close relative will not merely conduct the mandatory classes.
* The relative also will sell various compliance paperwork to test and verify each hairdressers' understanding and to document the classes' attendance and content.
* The relative will sell posters that Cunningham's regulation requires to be displayed on the salon's walls.
* For extra cost, the relative will promise to represent the hairdressing-business owner at any state-government inquiries and hearings about the salon's compliance with Cunningham's regulation.
So nothing comparable for barber shops?
Only women are too stupid to figure out where to get help?
Trump it.
Honestly, if it is good enough for hair salons, it is good for any service business. Why should a cashier at Shop Rite or WalMart not be required to report a woman wearing long sleeves and turtlenecks in the summer and shades inside, while a hair dresser is required to report the odd, bruise covering behavior?
The relative will sell posters that Cunningham's regulation requires to be displayed on the salon's walls.
Every year, Senator Cunningham will make some trivial change in his regulation.
Then his relative will call every hair-dressing salon and warn that the current wall posters are out-of-date and must be replaced by new posters that include the recent change.
As if we don't already have enough institutional discrimination against bald guys.
Why should a cashier at Shop Rite or WalMart not be required to report a woman wearing long sleeves and turtlenecks in the summer ....
That will happen as soon as Senator Bill Cunningham's close relative has developed a commanding market share of the consulting business for hair-dressing salons.
It is like large swaths of the left simply don't believe in limited government anymore. Oh sure there are things that they will think that government ought not do, but that is because they think society overall is better if people don't do that particular thing. Their analysis begins and ends with is it better for society as a whole to do something or refrain from doing something. There is nothing where the analysis is just, government ought not to do that or be involved in it, regardless of whether society is better off with it or not.
What about bar tenders? Seems to me they could be compelled to tell all sorts of things about their clients.
Matthew Sablan at 11:02 AM
This is just a creative attempt to force licensure on hair dressers now that the more direct way of protecting the guild has been ruled against in several places.
Anybody who wants to establish a small business must -- as one of its first investments -- hire a compliance officer or consultant because of all these stupid regulations.
The condescension from the NYT stems from the this clause, "...drop their guard and confide about life as their hair is braided or colored, or their nails trimmed and painted." Why elaborate so much about what goes on at salons? Don't we already know they do hair and nails? The condescending feeling comes from such an explanation of why women go to salons. Whether the author meant it or not, the impression on the reader is that women are foolish for opening up in such a place. The sentence would read better if it was something like, "...drop their guard and confide about life as their hair or nails are styled."
Senator Cunningham is from Chicago?
40-50 years ago, when I lived in downstate Illinois, the citizens would tell me with pride that their state was the second worst governed state in the nation, surpassed only by New York.
I guess, when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.
I always thought part of the salon-going experience was dropping their guard and talking with someone they don't know personally about things, like old fashioned barbershops.
"What about bar tenders?"
They should be trained to detect evidence of domestic nagging.
Illinois will soon need a new state agency: The Department of Beauty and Gossip...DBAG
"It is like large swaths of the left simply don't believe in limited government anymore. "
Neither does much of the right. That's why, even with Republicans dominating at every level, the problems caused by government keep getting worse, Everybody wants the government to fix things that it has no ability to remedy. We expect self-interested ambitious human politicians in far away cities to be better than us, to help us with our problems and put us first. Just think how about how persistently deluded that is.
Shouldn't this training include some explanation of the costs of defamation lawsuits?
Will hair dressers be subject to lawsuits as a result being "trained" to spot potential victims?
Will start having to carry liability insurance?
Mike Sylwester said...
"Senator Bill Cunningham's close relative will not merely conduct the mandatory classes.
* The relative also will sell various compliance paperwork to test and verify each hairdressers' understanding and to document the classes' attendance and content.
* The relative will sell posters that Cunningham's regulation requires to be displayed on the salon's walls.
* For extra cost, the relative will promise to represent the hairdressing-business owner at any state-government inquiries and hearings about the salon's compliance with Cunningham's regulation."
Politics in Illinois. A wonder to behold.
In Ca. Dr. asks patient if they feel safe at home. Supposedly, they are not required to ask, but get paid extra if they do.
Maybe we should have hair salon courts. The ladies are already sitting around discussing the guilt of people anyway, so just render a verdict at the end. They've all watched "The People's Court", so they have the training.
Illinois will soon need a new state agency: The Department of Beauty and Gossip...DBAG
Put it right here, in DBAG.
This is typical of the thinking that has made much of Illinois a hellhole. Illinois already has more reported domestic violence than its justice system can handle.
One hour's training in two years — and it's forced training. Too little schooling applied to the less than willing student, what a foolproof recipe for success that is. One wonders how many police hours are wasted investigating spurious domestic violence evidence collected by hairdressers. I'll wager that's a statistic not readily available.
This gets my Big Government sounds like a creepy stalker tag.
Creepy stalkers can make one's life a living hell, but a least there are remedies. I think the tag should read "Big Government is worse than a creepy stalker."
Here is my nomination for the "Big Government sounds like as a creepy stalker" tag:
"Trump Demands List of Energy Dept. Staff Supporting Climate Change Policies."
I too think that the warmers are truly nutcases who possess more ego about the power of the human race over its uncontrollable environment than they have good-old-fashioned common sense. But the Trump solipsist mentality is far out-of-control.
Say what?
Oh and, you're right, gadfly. totally creepy
Vicki from Pasadena
What about men who experience camaraderie when getting their hair done, who are experiencing domestic abuse? Do I detect a double standard?
Gadfly: The questionnaire is actually a lot less creepy stalkerish than the headlines make it sound. Still questionable, but the questions are basically asking everyone what they work on, where they got the authority/funding to work on that, and why.
The headline is a perfect example of Fake News.
Vicki/Gadfly,
So you don't think the agencies under the Executive branch don't have to answer to the President?
Is the Federal government workforce not beholding to anyone in the Executive, Legislative, or Judicial branch? It sure seem that way when you live in DC, but no one's ever going to say that in public.
I'm sorry, but there's no constitutional limit on the power of the Executive branch on the agencies it controls that says "No witch hunts". If you don't like it, fine. But every administration tries to bend the agencies to its will, & the Trump admin is no exception.
The reason they are picking on hairdressers is because hairdressers are perceived to be disproportionately gay men, so the idea is to create a disparate impact on the basis of sexual orientation, which, as all right thinking people know, is actually on the basis of sex (because it is rooted in stereotypical views of masculinity and femininity), and so covered by Title VII (which would probably surprise everyone in Congress who voted for Title VII, but fuck (not "butt-fuck")original public meaning). So President Trump should get the EEOC on this, stat.
The "braid and color" makes it sound like this law is geared toward the black community.
I don't like this, because I don't need some gossip trying to decide what's going on in my private life. I've had 3 black eyes over the past 20 years or so- one because I fainted, one because I hit myself working out, and one from an overzealous cosmetician. And the looks I got from people when I had the black eye embarrassed me. Like they look, then look away, and then can't look me in the eye anymore. I don't need someone feeling like it is their duty to come to their own inventive conclusion about what happened, and then judge me and my husband (who is wonderful) wrongly.
This is a necessary part of the Legally Blonde plot line. The Reese Witherspoon spills her soul at the Beauty Shop while her staunch lady Law Professor listens from under a hair dryer.
Cute movie. They made a Broadway Play out of it too.
The problem of women who don't listen is serious. That's why I donate to battered women's shelters every year at Christmas.
There must be a beauty parlor theme going on today.
"The requirements to display these wall posters are increasing, not decreasing. Any government bureaucrat who has developed some regulation can puff up his own sense of self-importance by including a sub-regulation that every business in the state must display his regulation on an office wall."
At my old job, every month the office manager received a bunch of government notices about Christ knows what, with instructions to display them from, say 12/1 to 12/15. Then they had to be taken down and signed and dated and scanned in and emailed back to whatever government agency had requested them. The signature was an affirmation that they had indeed been posted in a prominent place during the specified time and had not been obstructed by other notices, blah, blah, blah...
After a couple of months of doing this, the manager simply started printing them out, keeping them at her desk, and sending them back signed and dated without ever bothering to post them.
"And do I detect condescension in the NYT's attitude toward the sort of women who find "camaraderie" in hair salons?"
Ah, yes, the liberal professional Manhattanite is unlikely to become chummy with the peon who cuts and colors her hair. The peon went to beauty school, not Princeton and doesn't read the NY Times. What could they possibly talk about? They're not equals.
Camaraderie in hair salons is found among deplorables who chat with their stylists about movie stars and TV shows and boyfriends.
Ann Althouse said...and it is willing to deprive hairdressers of their license — their livelihood — if they don't comply.
Some of us take "economic rights" very seriously, Professor. That "some" unfortunately does not include most of the members of the Supreme Court throughout history, but there's hope that might change.
"Some" does include ol' Billy Shakes, though, so it's good company:
SHYLOCK
Nay, take my life and all. Pardon not that.
You take my house when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house. You take my life
When you do take the means whereby I live.
Merchant of Venice Act 4 Scene 1
Why is it a man introducing this? And why only in woman's hairdressers? Doesn't he know that men are just as likely to suffer physical abuse from gay and straigt partners as women?
Seems like it needs to apply to barber shops too.
It actually is not a bad idea, though it is a horrible idea to have the govt doing it for the reasons Ann and others have mentioned.
Seems like something that NOW could do through their local chapters or perhaps the Sally Anns. Not mandatory, just go around the hairdressers/barbers, pass out literature that might explain signs of abuse and give contact info where to get help. I don't think any actual "class" would be necessary.
Of course NOW won't do it, they only care about abortion. Most places would not let the Sally Anns do it either.
John Henry
I remember a Sopranos episode where Junior Soprano's longtime girlfriend told her hair dresser that Junior like to go down on her. That got to Carmela, who told Tony who kidded Junior about it.
Made guys are not supposed to do oral. That Tony found out caused Junior to wallop the crap out of the girlfriend and break up with her.
So salons can be the cause of abuse as well as a place to report it.
John Henry
I can only shake my head at the sheer idiocy of this law. That Rauner felt he had to sign this is quite depressing- it means that he really believed he couldn't defend the principle behind vetoing it.
You dig deep enough into this, and you will find that it got introduced and passed in the Illinois legislature because someone in power is already set to financially benefit by providing the training. Eventually, as the training fees flow in, it will be extended to more than just hairdressers.
My current barber (yes, barber, not hair stylist) is the best I have had in my 57 years of life. After telling him how I want it cut, he cuts it - silently. And he is so expert that his comb and scissors contact only the hair - not my scalp. Yes, he is a non-contact barber. It is so wonderful that every friend and relative I have taken there for a haircut ends the experience in disbelief and a bit of a rapture.
The only haircut I ever got that came close was in a high end hotel in Bangladesh, India, where an unnanounced 15 minute neck and shoulder massage followed the hair trimming. Yes, full contact barbering.
Make what you will of those two experiences, New York Times. I dare you.
@ John
"Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this."
Yes a wee bit creepy. Not a long walk to mandating hairdressers file regular reports. Then armed with those reports they find a surprisingly low number of domestic violence incidents, far less than a number the government has been shouting regularly in justification of the hairdresser training and reporting act. So, the government then expands the definition of evidence of domestic violence to incorporate more things a hairdresser might see. Then with the mandated reports and expanded definition, a guy gets arrested for accidentally elbowing his wife at night while they were in bed, asleep.
I'm the last guy on the planet to defend Trump, but yeah he gets to make policy for the executive branch and take steps that such policy is enforced. Perhaps giving the executive branch that much power to begin with was a bad idea. Perhaps a limited government is the best defense of liberty. It's an idea so crazy, it just might work.
Every two years is nothing. I propose they get mandatory training every 90 days in misogyny, misandry, fake news detection, ministry of love, biting coins for gold content, drug testing, see something say something, and phobias (Islamophobia, Trumpphobia, etc.)
A public service for those in the Empire State
In addition to the numerous posters in employee break rooms, etc., take a gander (that's like garner, but with the eyes only) at the license postings, which in a retail establishment are usually in a public area.
Just for laughs, last time I was at Costco (in Calif.) I counted them. There were 39, about evenly split between state and federal, IIRC. I'm sure the managers' office has another few dozen, at least.
I tried to count the Prop 65 warnings, but concluded walking over 10 klicks of hot coals would be more productive.
Since we're talking about hair, let me retell a bit from a year or two ago.
The local NPR affiliate, KQED SF, was interviewing some state functionary about the new batch of laws in force in the New Year. He was waxing eloquent about the mandate for government agencies to have all their license and application and compliance forms online, and the example he used went like this: "Suppose you want to open a hair cutting shop? Now, the 12 agencies you have to work with are all online. Isn't that great?"
12 agencies. At the state level, mind, so this does not include the municipal, county, regional, or federal agencies you also have to satisfy.
To cut hair.
But this bozo thought "progress" had been made.
Government will make a Libertarian out the Professor yet.
This is a plan to remove the camaraderie that one finds in salons.
They must destroy the salon in order to save its customers.
It's only a matter of time before they start requiring the hairdressers to proactively quiz all their customers with a screening questionnaire to evaluate for domestic abuse risk.
A couple of years ago, I was in an ER bay, lying on a gurney and literally writhing in pain, with an officious nurse questioning me on living arrangements, fingers poised over the keyboard, and then "Do you feel SAFE in the HOME???" If I'd been living with someone who theoretically might have been able to domestically abuse me, I have no doubt I would have had to undergo even more mandatory screening questions before they got around to diagnosing what was causing me to writhe in pain. First things first, after all.
When my liberal friends express concern about Trump being the worst president ever I chide them for their short memories. Read it and weep.
Another reason to just get rid of most professional licensing (attorneys included).
This is totally unfair to hairdressers. They have to give up their time to get mandatory training in something that has nothing to do with their work. Hopefully a group of them will sue.
This is another bone tossed to the plaintiff's bar. It's another insurance policy to go after. All this crap is for the lawyers. I'm a defense lawyer, and I see this all the time. They'll be joined in the civil suit for failure to report, and the carrier will pay to make it go away. They sell this stuff telling people "they care" so much, but it's just about paying back their benefactors. And you wonder why your premiums keep going up. It's this stupid shit, constantly.
Will there be a test? :(
One of my favorite independent dress shops has a phone on the wall in every dressing room with the number of a domestic abuse hotline posted next to it. The message on the wall says, "We respect your privacy." The store owner says it's OK with her if people just come in to use the phone. She's never had a single unauthorized long distance call charged to her. She has no idea whether anyone has ever called for help from her store, and that's the way it should be.
I was a franchisee for a large salon chain. Our stylists were all trained, by us, in how to detect the signs of domestic abuse and where to refer the customer for help. The difference was that we did this voluntarily and there was no threat of losing one's license if they did not attend refresher courses every few years.
Almost all stylists are women these days, and in fact many do form close personal relationships with their clients. We had no formal tracking system for this, and in fact I rarely spoke with our stylist about it after the initial training. Still, I know of several women who we referred for help. The stylists were very discrete, and in fact never told me the names of those they helped.
If you think the Illinois program will not devolve into a tracking and reporting system at some point, you are sadly mistaken. At that point, the referrals will end under the heavy hand of government snooping and recrimination.
As is almost always the case, private voluntary programs are far more effective in bringing real help to people in need.
Quaestor said...
Illinois will soon need a new state agency: The Department of Beauty and Gossip...DBAG
Put it right here, in DBAG.
It has the; "State of Illinois | Department of Financial & Professional Regulation"
From Auctioneers to actuary.From accountants to hair dressers.
You gotta take a test.Unless you know somebody and pay a fee and then somebody else will take the test for you.
Personal Annectdote. Because my father let the sheriffs department use his parking lot to lay in wait for speeders-a very lucrative spot. For a fee of 1500 dollars each my older brother and I could both become deputy sheriffs in training. The selling point? "They'll both be able to carry a gun!" I think I was sixteen at the time and my brother was eighteen.
Great news for the continuing education industry. Hats off to their lobbiests.
Great news for the continuing education industry. Hats off to their lobbiests.
Snitches get ... weaves.
So, Illinois is mansplaining to women who run beauty salons how to spot domestic violence? Goodness knows there's no way a silly little woman who spends her time primping and polishing could spot the signs without a legislator in a three-piece suit to explain it to her.
I fell off my bike and ended up in the ER, with my husband by my side. They asked me if I "[felt] safe at home." I laughed and said, "If my husband beat me up, do you really think I would tell you that he did while he is sitting right next to me?"
Honestly.
I didn't notice anyone mentioning another financial benefit of this: the people who give the training, and those who train and regulate the trainers.
Just who do you think is going to get these jobs? Graduates of "women's studies" courses, of course. Creating jobs for those who got an otherwise worthless degree, and by the way went into debt to do so.
And, of course, the curriculum for the training will stick some rad-feminist propaganda in.
This is more and more like the Soviet Union, where people had to join the Party to be employed in many fields, and attend meetings where they publicly lied about their beliefs.
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