I’m not talking about the content of booths (very similar—travel, healthcare, motorcycles…) nor the music (although Boston was rock and roll while Utrecht was classical music…). I’m talking about what matters most to a woman attendee: the color of everybody’s hair.

Not consciously—but subliminally. At AARP, I felt that I was amongst my with-it peers. In Utrecht, I thought I was hanging with my parents’ generation. This, despite the fact that both were pretty much the same age, educational and economic level.

Upon reflection, it was mostly the hair. In the US, the masses frost, streak, dye or dip. In the Netherlands, it’s perfectly acceptable to go gray. Individually, one woman (who happens to have thick strands and a lustrous gray) can look positively revolutionary in her proud display of age. En masse—mixing in thin spots, dishwater whites, browns and blonds—the effect is well, just old-fashioned: aka, not just “older”, but: old.

All this is to bring me to take a starting stance. You see, an American boomer writer, Anne Kreamer, has authored a book titled “Going Gray,” which has been getting a lot of buzz in places like USA Today. Anne’s premise: that it is liberating to go gray. In fact, Anne reports that when she posted her photo with gray locks on a dating site, she got more hits than with her hair dyed brown. (Should be noted, hairstyle was not factored in—and many agree her brown cut needed some updating, on its own.)

In an interview, Anne admits that most of the women she knows who work still color their hair. But the implication is that the next front for women’s lib is finding the courage and self-esteem to go natural, and to do otherwise is, well, giving up.

To which I say: nonsense. Think of it this way. Some younger women have lustrous black, brown or blond hair and would never think of coloring their hair. Others have washed out this or that could use a little help. Ditto for over 50, when one’s natural strands may, by a freak of nature, grow in a gorgeous, thick gray—or, ahem, need a little help.

To suddenly say that to continue dying your hair after 50 is some kind of betrayal to the cause is ludicrous. In fact, I would say that to offer options as acceptable to a woman under 40 that you then take away from women over 50 is a kind of “graygism.” To defend our right to make choices about our hair color at any age is, to pardon an expression, a cause worth dye-ing for!

Carol Orsborn