In modern media, vikings are almost always shown with full grown beards, not even mustaches or goatees, but what about people who didn't want to or simply couldn't grow a beard? Were they looked down upon?
I know that Germanic cultures cared greatly for their hair, and that thus probably also holds true for the vikings, but are there sources that indicate that a beard was important for social rank etc. ?
Beards were a widespread symbol of masculinity across Europe in the medieval period; William Sayers calls them "the symbol and metonym of the adult [Irish] warrior" and R.D. Fulk demonstrates that beardlessness was associated with effeminacy among the Anglo-Saxons. The Norse were no exception.
The most famous depiction of beardlessness among the Norse is Njál, the subject of Njáls saga, who is called karl inn skegglausa, "Old Beardless" and who's sons are called taðskegglingar "dung-beardlings". Njál and his family are mocked for his inability - or unwillingness - to grow a beard.
Kristni saga also has a depiction of heathen Norse men making fun of Bishop Friðrekr for his lack of a beard.
That said, Ármann Jakobsson points out that those are the only negative references to beardlessness in the sagas:
On the other hand, in Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr, which was popular in Iceland shortly after the composition of Njáls saga, a lack of beard is not considered to detract in the slightest from the protagonist's heroism. The same is true of Þiðreks saga, where King Þiðrekr's lack of beard is referred to matter-of-factly.
Jakobsson makes the case that the reader of Njáls saga is expected to take a more sympathetic view of Njál than his mockers, and that his beardlessness is a symbol of his marginal position in society, not of his lack of manliness.
So it seems as though the issue isn't necessarily black and white.
Carl Phelpstead concludes that:
One may say that in general to be bald, to be unable to grow a beard, or to have one’s hair cut off is taken as symbolic of a lack of masculinity and to that extent is comparable to the emasculating effects of castration [...] nevertheless, the detailed picture is more complex and more ambivalent than this.
Sources:
Ármann Jakobsson. 2007. “Masculinity and Politics in Njáls saga.” Viator 38 (1): 191–215.
Carl Phelpstead. 2013. "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Hair Loss, the Tonsure, and Masculinity in Medieval Iceland" Scandinavian Studies Vol. 85, No. 1 (Spring 2013), pp. 1-19