I am (currently) blonde. But people who saw me as more qualified for their interest solely because of that factor would be a very poor match as a friend or significant other for me, because I would feel wary of their attraction to detail that was indifferent to whatever mix of human qualities I happen to possess.
There has been a fetishisation of blonde women in our culture, and this seems to be underlying the quite stupid prejudices that women with blonde-coloured hair are more likely to be stupid (witness the crassness of 'blonde women are idiots' jokes) or more likely to welcome sexual advances (I think there are studies that show blonde-haired women experience more sexual harassment). There is nothing special about blonde-haired women, they too have hair of a particular colour - as do all other women (sometimes more than one colour being a fashion now). Being targets of assumptions may affect them differently as a group though.
A gender parallel that was oppressive in the same kind of way was the once-much-pushed concept of 'tall dark and handsome' men as singularly more attractive than any other kind of man. That stereotype was commonplace (in the 1950s) along with the blonde stereotype of all blonde women. Society has moved on a bit since then (I hope)and it clearly has: the Charles Atlas adverts are now seen as dehumanising and ridiculous (grow big muscles if you want to get girls). They were exploitative marketing exercises intended to sell by conditioning a sense of inferiority if you didn't possess this or that characteristic..
We all have our own personal preferences, often conditioned by past experiences, but the role of any single feature in determining attractiveness as some kind of over-riding fact, IMO, truly belongs in the 1950s - which were pretty limiting and stereotyped for both sexes, (eg witness the advertising of the time, so brilliantly portrayed in Madmen), although in my case I can draw on memory..
The blonde sex goddess stereotype was pushed by Hollywood relentlessly for decades (though personally Mae West's charms escaped my detection) and fed into the conditioning push of the advertising industry. It certainly made firms like Clairol and their shareholders better off! Beautiful women are beautiful women whatever their hair colour. Personally I think the French actress Juliette Binoche is one of the most beautiful to ever appear on the screen (and she has brown hair). I would think the same of her whatever her hair colour, as her face radiates not only beauty but a capacity of inner depth that she is able to translate to the screen.
23 May 2016, 11:29 am
for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.
