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THE NEW   BLONDE BOMSHELL

October 21, 2009 Volume VIIDo blondes have more fun?

Women certainly assume so, for while only one in six is a natural blonde, almost

half of all women lighten their hair in some way or another.

Peroxide was discovered in 1818. Two centuries

on, most blondes get a little help from the bottle.

Last year they spent over 100 million poundsterling

on hair dye - and that doesn’t include what they

 pay at the hairdresser to help to emulate blonde role

models such as

Britney Spears,

Sharon Stone and

Gwyneth Paltrow.

In fact many of 

these golden-haired

icons are not natural

 blondes either. Even

Marilyn Monroe started out as a frackle-faced

 brunette with medium skin tone. She wore pale

make-up and dyed her hair platinum. So what is the

mystery magnet that draws women to becoming

 blonde? It must be strong, because even today

across all races - not just white westerners - when

 people are asked to rate others for “attractiveness”,

they usually opt for those with lighter hair and skin.

You only have to check out the TV commercials

around the world to see how important the image of 

the blonde has become.

Until recently, being blonde or burnette was

reckoned to be merely a matter of fashion. But

something much deeper is driving our reactions to

hair color. In fact, it turns out, being blonde,

whether natural or “fake”, may not do women any

good at all.

Recent research conducted by, among others, Diana

Kayle at California State University reveals -

amazingly - that while being blonde may boost

your social life, it may also damage your career 

 prospects. Blonde females are rejected more often

than equally-qualified brunettes. And where

 blondes and brunettes are given similar jobs, the

darker-haired applicants are awarded higher 

salaries. It seems hardly credible that such

changeable features as hair color could so influence

recruitment decisions, but the research findings are

unequivocal.

So what lies behind this remarkable bias? One

theory is that blond hair gives the appearance of 

youth. This is because people have lighter hair and

skin when they are children than when they get

older. So blonde people are treated (unconsciously

- we are not aware we are doing it) as if they were

less intelligent,

more naive, more

vulnerable, less

mature and less

capable.

Brian Bates

did an

experiment

for a BBC television program.Business students are given CVs for six job

applicants. There were photos attached. Some of 

the candidates had brown hair, some others were

 blonde.

 

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when they were

asked whether the

 photos had affected

their choices, the

 business students

were convinced that

hair color had not

influenced them.

“The picture, for 

me, didn’t play a

major part,” said

one. “I made a

studious attempt to

ignore the

appearance of the

applicants, said

another. “I focused primarily on the CV,” insisted a

third.

But the result revealed a different story. While had

appointed the blondes and the brunettes almost

equally the job, they had awarded the brunettes a

huger salary.

Under close questioning, they revealed that the

 blonde stereotype had indeed affected their 

 judgment. ”The woman with blonde hair is more a

wannabe - I would think she is probably an

experienced secretary or something,” confessed one.

“She looks like a PA rather than a midle manager,”

said another. “The brunette does look more like one

would imagine a middle manager would look.”

Men tend to rate blondes as more feminine but less

intelligent than brunettes. Studies in Ireland confirm

that men rated blonde females as of significantly

lower intelligence than brunettes and in America,

 job applicants were rated as less capable and

assigned a lower salary than brunettes. In other 

words, blondes are seen as attractive, but dumb.

All blondes, but are they real 

blondes?

Taken from Just Reading and Writing,2005. p.61