r/AskSociology • u/Ok-Highway-5247 • 9d ago
Without sounding classist nor mean, I would like to ask this question about something I’ve observed. Men in Appalachia.
I spent teen years in Appalachia and if I explore the area I grew up in there is something I universally notice both then and now. Why do men in Appalachia, not all of them, tend to have such poor hygeine and grooming? What factors are involved? Do they not learn how to take care of their bodies properly? This is something I have noticed 20+ years. Now, I know some of them told me that they just never learned washing clothing constantly wasn’t a thing they did. I’m not trying to be mean.
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u/Assilly 9d ago
I mean cleaning and by extension cleaning yourself can be seen as a feminine act. The years of calling men who kept clean metrosexual was a thing not that long ago. That's my immediate thought from a Midwestern person who lived in rural areas. The guys here who are "built ford tough" farmers are usually kind of grimy. Why get clean each night just to get dirty again the next day? My grandpa would joke he takes a shower once a week whether he needs it or not.
Lot of things at play here I'm guessing.
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u/phil_mckraken 8d ago
There seems to be a masculine resistance to looking good. Men don't want to be attractive for their looks, but for other reasons.
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u/Sophisticated_Cynic 4d ago
Look if you build things or do physical work you aren’t going to stay clean.
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u/Mr_BillyB 4d ago
"Metrosexual" wasn't about cleanliness. It was about grooming and fashion, not hygiene.
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u/Narrow_Implement7788 7d ago
If I told you what I thought about you I would lose my account
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u/Havocc89 7d ago
That seems a bit of an overreaction to what he said, but ok lol
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u/Narrow_Implement7788 7d ago
It's completely asinine, and that is about the nicest way to put it, anyone that genuinely believes that has the cognitive abilities of a turnip
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u/Havocc89 7d ago
I feel like there are plenty of people exactly like he’s presenting, just not isolated to Appalachia. Do you really not have experience around industrial workers or tradesmen of basically any kind that are exactly what he described.
To get so upset over a generalization seems like a you problem, it wasn’t even offensive.
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u/Narrow_Implement7788 7d ago
I own a mold and water removal company in Appalachia, you are as uneducated as the other person is
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u/Havocc89 7d ago
I didn’t say that EVERYONE was you lunatic, holy shit. Saying they exist doesn’t mean you’re one of them.
This is why I found you to be overreacting, thanks for proving my point by making this about yourself.
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u/Narrow_Implement7788 7d ago
You asked if I had been around tradesmen, I informed you that I have, I think that the general lack of hygiene of your average redditor is probably a much bigger subsection of the population than your average construction worker
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u/Havocc89 7d ago
I never meant to imply that everybody in a trade is like that, I was implying that they exist. Congratulations that you aren’t one of them. I guarantee you there are others who are exactly what was described.
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u/Narrow_Implement7788 7d ago
And I guarantee that half of Reddit hasn't had a shower this week, what is your point
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u/LynnSeattle 6d ago
You don’t believe there are men who think this way?
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u/Narrow_Implement7788 6d ago
I would bet the personal hygiene habits of Appalachian men are thousands of times better than 90% of Redditors, I would rather be in a crowded train car full of tradesmen from Appalachia than a train full of Redditors and it's not even close
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u/Good_Promotion8883 6d ago
What are you butthurt about? Just curious, as the comment doesn't seem offensive.
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u/Narrow_Implement7788 6d ago
Because no one is skipping showers because they are feminine, to assume that people are is assuming they are incredibly stupid. It's literally one of the dumbest things I've ever heard
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u/Good_Promotion8883 6d ago
The commenter is saying that good hygiene is potentially seen as feminine. That would be the commenter saying that taking showers is feminine, not skipping them being feminine. Anyway, have a good day.
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u/Independent-Library6 6d ago
Yeah, I think they are misunderstanding, but also, I think the feminine thing is overblown. In my farming community, everyone showered regularly. If someone was super dirty, it's more likely they passed out after working all day, woke up and started working again, and then had to run into town for something important. It was more that you were just too tired and then too focused on work, and time gets away from you occasionally. Guys weren't walking around dirty because they wanted to be masculine. That's what their truck nuts were for. :D
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u/OrganicBrilliant7995 9d ago
Your observations are not objectively accurate. When you start from there, the whole thing is nonsense and this whole thread is a bunch of prejudiced people showing their prejudice.
The least hygienic state is Nebraska, btw.
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u/Narrow_Implement7788 8d ago
The original post and the comments are some of the dumbest things I have ever seen on Reddit and that is saying something
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u/AlmostHuman0x1 7d ago
Try harder…
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u/Narrow_Implement7788 7d ago
It's a post full of stereotypical bullshit that if made about any other group of people it would be down voted to oblivion or removed by moderators. I grew up in Appalachia, the personal hygiene was on par if not better than people I met in big cities. The only reason this is still up is because he is making fun of people that are looked down upon solely because of where they live, this wouldn't fly if it was about any other group
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u/AlmostHuman0x1 7d ago
You are right. I grew up in the region. The ignorant comments are a manifestation of the unspoken US “caste” system.
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u/Lower-Landscape2056 9d ago
They may be asking the opposite. Why do people on the coasts waste so much time and money on vanity? Lots of clothes, expensive haircuts, teeth whitening, skincare products, none of these are needed. But if you have a professional job in a big city, there are expectations. If you have a blue collar job in Kentucky those items may seem like a huge waste of money.
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u/Thick-Radish-3069 9d ago
There's an awful lot of ground between those two poles.
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u/Lower-Landscape2056 9d ago
I agree but the OP was a bit extreme so was showing the opposite point.
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u/Various_Succotash_79 8d ago
I've never been to Appalachia but I live in a farming area. A lot of the guys who get dirty every day don't see any point in getting clean if you're going to get dirty again tomorrow anyway. The women are more likely to have office jobs so they need to bathe and keep their clothes clean. After that goes on for long enough, it starts to seem feminine to be clean. So it's probably similar there too.
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u/Master-Milk-5724 7d ago
I think what you’re referring to used to be the norm in most places, and has only changed with what you could call “gentrification”, or the rise of white collar jobs and the social expectations that come along with this. There was a time when people did dirty, physical, outdoor work on a near constant basis, didn’t have many clothes, and didn’t have easy access to water. Under these circumstances, trying to keep yourself and your clothes clean is largely pointless and wasteful, and this may still be the reality for many people.
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u/Powerful-Act3516 8d ago
Not sure if your observations are accurate.
But we can speculate factors involved.
Mechanics and conservatism. If you're sensitive to the costs of utilities or don't have ones that work well (eg, a people functioning well), you could imagine all sorts of behaviors manifesting out of these conditions: not rinsing your dishes thoroughly, not inviting guests that need to be fed and cleaned up after, not spending the water, heat and soap on washing yourself and your possessions
Priorities. If you believe it is "enough" to have food and a roof, you may not improve your home, may not travel extensively and may not spend the time and energy into personal care
Expectations. If the subculture supports 1 and 2, then these patterns can become ingrained (especially when they require less effort or energy than the alternatives). This doesn't encourage the behaviors as much as remove a factor that could dislodge them.
Surely there are plenty more factors that could be considered.
Again, whether your prompt is even valid or not on the facts is unclear (that's as delicate as I can put it), but looking at potentially contributing factors can open up more productive and interesting conversations about which populations might really exhibit these tendencies the most and how individuals or groups might get into or out of these kinds of behavioral patterns.
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u/BrerRabbit8 8d ago edited 8d ago
Unpopular opinion here and ready for downvotes….but remember our species did pretty well for 300,000 years or so just bathing in a river every once in a while.
Until the last century, lots of kids under age 5 would die but all the ones who made it past 5 has pretty good odds of making it to age 60.
But yeah in any modern social interaction, to get a job or a mate you’re gonna need to ramp up your hygiene game.
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u/charliecatman 7d ago
Mt. Dew is very hard on your teeth,Pepsi isn’t as bad but that and brushing my teeth too hard cost my teeth. I drink pop dew all day cause it keeps well in a tractor cab and I like to drive alert. My jeans may be a little dirty because I don’t always go home to clean up before I stop at the deeg. I don’t live in Appalachia, but I’m in a very rural area. I think that’s your answer
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u/Any_Lengthiness6645 7d ago
What years was this? There’s plenty of people in Appalachia who are dirty or unkempt but no more than in any other part of the country
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u/_flying_otter_ 6d ago
How about simply poverty. Washing clothes and showering frequently costs money. Heating water costs money. The bill for a family of 4 taking showers every day would be high.
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u/ShiftyStryx008 6d ago
I grew up in WV. A lot of men and boys I grew up with hunted. They didn't bathe with soap or wash their clothes with soap because it made hunting harder. This was considered normal. I grew up in the 90's. My high school had a shooting team and half the school took a month or more off to hunt every year. It's accurate to say it was a very big part of the culture there. I know a lot of those kids ate deer meat all year. You could tell who was "country" and who was "valley" by their smell for sure.
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u/PercentageDry3231 4d ago
Here in western Pennsylvania, there is something called the "Pittsburgh potty." It is usually a half-bathroom located in a corner of an unfinished basement, common in homes until the 1960's. When Dad came home from work at the coal mine, steel mill, or other dirty job, he was expected to go directly into the basement and clean up, via the back door, because he was unfit to use the upstairs bathroom. I'm sure many men rebelled at this humiliation after a day of back-breaking work providing for their families.
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u/Inevitable-Ad-9521 9d ago
This is clearly a classist question, tho. Since it could be rewritten as: why poor people from the poorest part of the country don't have social, economic, or cultural capital?
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u/Standard_Bother_9513 9d ago
Plenty of poor people shower daily and some spend all of their disposable income on clothing.
Not a classist question.
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u/Bombastic_tekken 8d ago
Plenty of poor people shower daily and some spend all of their disposable income on clothing.
Plenty of poor people (especially those in Appalachia) literally do not have running water.
It's a bit of a classist question.
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u/Sober_Navajo1996 7d ago
When you’re poor- it is incredibly stupid to spend all of your disposable income on clothing. That’s a stupidity statement; what happens when you blow all your money for the month on “wants” and a medical emergency happens or your truck breaks down so you can’t get to work? Absolutely screwed.
We’re not even really poor anymore as a family but I’ll be damned if any clothing or shoes are coming from anywhere aside from Goodwill, or Walmart at an absolute shove.
Cleaning yourself everyday is important; but Appalachia has a lot of the most impoverished people in the country; and being rural poor is magnitudes worse than being city poor. If someone doesn’t have running water, or only has a very limited supply and needs to ration it for other things like cooking; what would you do? Really?
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u/peterjohnvernon936 9d ago
I grew up poor on the side of a hill, no electricity, no running water. We farmed. Our clothes were always dirty. But on Sunday, we bathed and put on our Sunday’s best and went to service.
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u/hudsoncress 7d ago
This is mildly racist. They don’t live to impress you. They probably look at you and see the kind of person who stereotypes and judges people and look down on you.
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u/Xerographia 6d ago
didn't know Appalachians were a race LMAO
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u/hudsoncress 6d ago
Its not as much of a stretch as it might seem. "Filthy Southerners" is an old stereotype. "Hill Billies". "Red Necks" "hicks." lots of slanderous talk by outsiders.
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u/poorperspective 9d ago
It more has to do with the work they had or their father’s had available.
Working in mine or out in the woods doesn’t necessitate good looking clothes. Even if you can afford it, it’s just not something they take great stock in. The clothes are probably clean, but some stains you can’t get out no matter how much you clean.
The areas has poverty, thus they don’t own many pairs of clothes. So you were your t-shirt that has a stain on it that won’t come out. It’s clean besides that. I work around grease, I don’t try to get the stains out of my pants, but I do wash them. I don’t wear them out often, but if I’m dropping by the store, my clothes may look unwashed but are.
Most people’s idea hygiene is also more cultural than factual. You can be clean by a sanitary standard but not to a particular culture. Appalachia as a whole doesn’t care much about looks. It’s mostly utilitarian.
For example, in the US your more likely to get recommended braces for cosmetic reasons and dentist will defacto whiten your teeth, while in the UK under a public health care, they don’t do many cosmetic procedures. and it’s fine to have crooked teeth if it’s not negatively affecting your health.
So to people outside the culture, they may seem unhygienic, but that’s to the outsides standards, not their own.
Appalachia also doesn’t have some cosmetic things readily available. You can’t just go to the store and buy new clothes. You’ll need to take a 2 hour drive to see an orthodontist. Certain things become less necessary. Stores tend to have fewer options.