Clipping Called in Haircut Suit of Girl, 3

Three-year-old Yael Miller filed a lawsuit against her hairdresser Monday, claiming that she paid $2 more for a haircut than her brother paid, even though her hair took less time and skill to cut.

Held snugly in her mother’s arms, Yael took the thumb-in-mouth approach and let her lawyer, Gloria Allred, do the talking at a press conference in front of the Yellow Balloon children’s hair salon in West Los Angeles.

“This is sex discrimination on its face,” said Allred, whose client is demanding equal prices for equal haircuts, attorney’s fees and damages under the Unruh Civil Rights Act. “Girls are charged more even if their haircut takes less time and less expertise.”

The girl’s mother, Joni Zuckerbrow-Miller, said she took Yael and Yael’s 4-year-old brother, Ari, to the Yellow Balloon for haircuts last February to document what she says are sexist pricing practices. When she timed the haircuts--done by the same haircutter--she found that the boy’s hair took 13 minutes to cut, while Yael’s required only 10 minutes.

More Difficult

In addition, the mother said, her son’s hair was more difficult to cut.

“They just had to even out Yael’s hair in the back and cut the bangs in front,” the mother said, “while my son’s hair is layered.”

She removed Ari’s cap to prove her point.

Yael was charged $12 for her haircut, while Ari had to pay only $10.

The owner of the salon, Nadia Pidgeon, defended her prices, which have since gone up to $11 for boys and $13 for girls, by saying that “girls usually want a little more style and their hair takes longer to cut and blow dry.”

However, she added that prices are sometimes adjusted for girls with short hair and boys with long hair if their parents request.

‘Charge Less’

“I don’t understand why she picked me,” said Pidgeon. “I charge less than all the other salons around.”

Conceding that both her children received “very good haircuts” from the salon, Zuckerbrow-Miller said she had Allred file the lawsuit because “Yael is young and has a lot of obstacles facing her, and I want to remove as many of those obstacles as I can.”

In a similar lawsuit last year, Allred pressured a dry-cleaner who was charging more to clean women’s shirts than men’s into changing his pricing policy.