It’s almost time for Santa to come ho-ho-ho-ing down our chimneys (or perhaps our heat pump ducting?) And when he does, he’ll look largely similar to the first time we saw the now-ubiquitous Coca-Cola version of St Nick: all decked out in bright red and sporting a big white beard. But has the jolly big man stopped to think about how that facial hair is seen in the closing days of 2024?
The popularity of beards and moustaches has waxed and waned during our cultural window. Over the past couple of decades, they’ve become rather more common, thanks in no small part to hipster subculture. This has largely left me behind because, try as I might, I’ve never been particularly good at growing facial hair. I spent three weeks of one particularly sad Movember avoiding the razor, only to have someone say they didn’t realise I’d been going unshaven.
And this hints at some of the cultural meaning of a beard and mo – they’re associated with masculinity. This is unsurprising because facial hair is a secondary sexual characteristic that starts popping out during puberty, and is associated with the production of androgens, male sex hormones. Want to know if someone can grow a beard? Look at their eyebrows – bushy brows are strongly correlated with a bushier beard.
Not all testosterone is created equal, or rather, not all testosterone we produce remains testosterone. Some of it, about a tenth, is converted into dihydrotestosterone, and it’s this stuff that appears to be important for hair growth on our bodies but which can reduce head-hair production. In fact, one treatment for male pattern hair loss is a medication called finasteride, which blocks the conversion of testosterone into its beard-promoting, but scalp-retarding, alternative form.
The fullness of one’s facial covering is largely genetic. Interestingly, one male sex hormone receptor (ectodysplasin androgen) is associated with growing straighter hair, but also sparser face carpet.
Back to masculinity. People tend to infer that facial hair indicates greater sexual maturity and manliness, but we also tend to assume that men with facial hair are older. Unless you worry about getting older, this is probably a good thing because men tend to gain more status as they age. Facial hair also promotes perceptions of aggression and dominance, but also more parenting promise.
Why? There are quite a few evolutionary theories pertaining to facial hair. One classic proposes that it can be a mechanism for signalling masculinity and the resourcefulness that, during our evolutionary past, went along with that. Of course, the bushy, unkempt badger of a caveman beard probably doesn’t buy you as much attention with potential love interests in the here and now as it may have in a time when humans were being predated on by dangerous beasts, so we now have to invest a fair amount of time, effort and money into maintaining a well-sculpted facial garden. But this also sends a signal: “I have the time and resources to devote to maintaining the twirled tips of my ‘tache. Let me take you back to my cave.”
Freud would approve of an extension of this argument – that some of the time, facial hair is something men do to compensate for their concerns about not living up to male gender role expectations. And a study in Poland, lead-authored by Marcin Moroń, supports this. The more facial hair the participants said they had, the more time they were willing to spend on grooming and the more pressure they felt to meet gender-based expectations. They also had a stronger motivation towards social connection and status.
Stronger motivation to enhance one’s facial hair was also associated with “intrasexual competition” – envy of, jealousy towards, and desire for dominance over other successful men. Sometimes, that moustache isn’t just a moustache, it’s a sign of insecurity.
